William F. Bielec was born in March 1917 [Annotator's Note: in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. He was born into a Polish-Catholic family. The Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] was a rough time for him and his family. His parents had saved money in the bank for Bielec to go to college and when the when the market crashed, it was gone. No explanation. He graduated in high school in 1936 and tried to find work best he could. He applied for a job only to find out that the company did not accept Catholics. He attended school at Drexel [Annotator's Note: Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] for the Engineering Program and worked at a steel company. He began making good money, so he bought a car. In 1940, while the United States was still in peacetime, Bielec was drafted into the Army for only one year. Even though he could have been deferred [Annotator's Note: postponement of military service] because of where he was working and the college program he was in, he decided to go in service. He came from a sheltered life, so being in the Army was very difficult for him in the beginning. It bothered him that he had to take orders from a sergeant that was illiterate. After a year in the army, he applied for OCS [Annotator's Note: officers candidate school] and was accepted. The program was extremely difficult for Bielec, but it was the best experience of his life. After graduating from OCS, he was assigned to an ordinance company at Camp Buckner [Annotator's Note: then called Camp Popolopen, in Orange County, New York. Became Camp Buckner 14 November 1945]. In 1943, he was selected to go to England and prepare for the Invasion of Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944].

In October 1943, William F. Bielec was assigned to go overseas to Europe. On his way over, his convoy was attacked by enemy planes and had submarine scares. What was usually a five-day voyage, lasted 10 days because they zig-zagged [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver]. Bielec respected the Germans as good fighters. When they landed in England, his unit [Annotator's Note: 184th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Battalion] went into intensive training for the invasion of Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Five weeks before the invasion, he took training on waterproofing his vehicle and equipment. He was part of Operation Tiger Annotator's Note: Exercise Tiger, or Operation Tiger, rehearsal for invasion of Normandy in Slapton Sands, Devon, England, April 1944]. Almost 1,000 men died as of a result of the "practice" invasion when German E-boats [Annotator's Note: Allied designation for German fast attack craft, Schnellboot, or S-Boot] snuck in and attacked the Allies during their exercises. All the personnel involved in the Tiger Operation was sworn to secrecy about the events that unfolded. Five days before the invasion of D-Day, Bielec was assigned to a special group that was given secret information that a limited amount of personnel was privy to, so he was given a high secret clearance due to his background experience. He was told in advance about the information and was given the mission to collect radar equipment that was at Sainte-Mère-Église [Annotator's Note: Sainte-Mère-Église, France]. He boarded a Merchant Marine Ship and headed towards Normandy. He stood at the front of the boat with a priest watching the carnage that was happening on the beach. He asked the priest why it was happening, and the priest told him that we all have freedom of choice. Bielec got into a smaller boat to head to the beach. He was scared but he did not want to let his men know. As the boat made its way to the beach, it was hit by a bomb that killed several instantly. Bielec somehow survived and made it to shore. He was met with instant gunfire. It was hard for him to look around because bullets were flying everywhere. He somehow made it close to a hospital near Sainte-Mère-Église. He thought it would be safe to rest near the hospital, however, early the next morning, it was bombed. He was given information to locate the radar equipment, which was in a truck in a garage. Under intense bombardment, he was able to locate the address and found the garage. When he opened the garage, there was a truck with a red cross on it. He opened the truck door and found the radar equipment. He drove the truck back to the beaches and sent the equipment back to the United States. He never knew what happened to equipment after that. [Annotator's Note: Video break at 0:20:48.000.] At one point while he was on the beach, the Allies could not advance because of the German's bombardment. 5,000 planes from the American Air Force came over and saturated the German Army. Bielec could feel the ground shake. Unfortunately, there was some friendly fire. Around September 1944, he learned that his cousin of 17 was killed in Saint-Lô [Annotator's Note: Saint-Lô, France]. He went to verify his body so his aunt could know for sure. As he watched a POW [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war] dig his cousin's grave, he broke down and cried.

After his successful mission on D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], William F. Bielec and his unit [Annotator's Note: 184th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Battalion] faced the Germans in the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation]. They put large forks on the tanks that lifted the hedgerows out. It took hours, and it was very intensive, but it was the only way to fight the Germans successfully. In December 1944, Bielec was in Aachen [Annotator's Note: Aachen, Germany]. He was given liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] on the 15th [Annotator's Note: 15 December 1944] and was in a bar at Luxembourg. Suddenly, General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] and his entourage walked in and had a drink. Bielec felt like something was about to happen, but he went to bed. He was awakened by his commander the next morning telling him that the Germans are attacking at Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. He was given orders to burn 3,000 engines because the Germans were going to capture them. Bielec did not think the Americans were going to survive the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. [Annotator's Note: Video break at 0:36:27.000.] When the Americans came out of the Bulge, they began making their way to the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River]. A captain at the time, Bielec was in a meeting with several generals in a castle because he had to relay information about ordinance supply. The Germans began bombing the castle and the room he was in was hit. Bielec was buried in rubble and had to climb out. He was deaf and semi-conscious. [Annotator's Note: Video break at 0:39:43.000.] After he made it out of there, orders came down for him to cross the Rhine River. He crossed on a pontoon-like canoe under the cover of smoke. He continued into Germany through the Hürtgen Forest and the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s] from March [Annotator's Note: March 1945] to May 1945. On his way, he got stuck in a minefield [Annotator's Note: areas where mines, stationary explosive devices triggered by physical contact are buried or under the water], but figured a way to get out by driving slowly.

Towards the end of the war, Germans were surrendering by the thousands to William F. Bielec and his unit [Annotator's Note: 184th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Battalion]. During the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], his ordinance group captured 300 German prisoners, and Bielec was put in charge of interrogation. He came across two Polish men conversing. Bielec was fluent in Polish and could understand them, so he questioned them for information. At first, they were reluctant, but they eventually gave him the information he asked for. He was able to capture over 300 Polish prisoners that were taken by the Germans who were about to exterminate them. He was assigned to interrogate the prisoners and received a lot of information. Bielec would never have survived the Battle of the Bulge if it was not for the Air Force that arrived on 5 January 1945. Bielec was part of the liberation process of concentration camp in Nordhausen [Annotator's Note: Mittelbau-Dora was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany]. General Collins [Annotator's Note: US Army General Joseph Lawton Collins] forced all able-bodied Germans [Annotator's Note: civilians] to come to the camp, dig a massive trench and bury the dead. Bielec oversaw the security during this time. He had not heard about concentration camps until he liberated this one. Witnessing the concentration camp affected him throughout the rest of his life.

After the war ended in May 1945, William F. Bielec and his unit [Annotator's Note: 184th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Battalion] were assigned for security purposes to find spies. On one night raid he found a Mercedes [Annotator's Note: German automobile] and captured a high-ranking German officer. He turned him over to military officials. Bielec took the Mercedes car for himself. The driver of the car continued to drive the car, but for Bielec. He was injured from a German bomb towards the end of the war and lost some of his hearing. [Annotator's Note: Video break at 1:03:29.000.] The war made Bielec an optimist because Americans seem to come out of difficult situations okay. He has faith in himself, his country, and his God. He is glad that he fought and would volunteer again if he had to. Men and women should serve in the military in some capacity. World War 2 was a war Americans won with pride. Since then no other wars have been positive as that war. World War 2 changed the whole world. America should not invade another country. There should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and they should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations. His cousin was a Polish priest during occupation. One day his cousin was having mass with about 150 parishioners. Germans came in with machine guns and opened fired on everyone. By a miracle his cousin survived.