William Burkett was born in Oklahoma City [Annotator’s Note: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma] in November 1925. He had three older brothers. He was the youngest. His father had an insurance agency. The Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] hit in 1931 and they lost everything. They moved in with his grandmother. His father did anything he could for work. During the war, tires and gasoline were rationed. His father formed the Oklahoma Truckers’ Association during the war. Burkett did not know there was a Depression. The day-old bread cost a dime for a loaf. They did not have much. For Christmas one year he got a toy car and thought it was great. He was in school before the war. He had a great-uncle that sent him to business school and military school in Brian, Texas. Then he went to Kemper in Booneville, Missouri for military school [Annotator’s Note: Kemper Military School & College]. Kemper was a junior college. He was at school when someone told him Pearl Harbor had been attacked by the Japanese [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He did not know where it was. He was a senior in high school and 16 years old when he heard about it. He was in the ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] for four years. When he was 18 years old in 1943, he was deferred from the draft to finish his last year in the ROTC. He got an appointment for Officer Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning [Annotator’s Note: Fort Benning, Georgia]. When he went into the Army, he went straight to OCS instead of basic training. He reported to Fort Sill [Annotator’s Note: Fort Sill, Oklahoma] and was made a corporal in the Army. When he got to Fort Benning, he had to fire all the weapons at infantry school. Then they went to Camp Wheeler, Georgia. They had to make a 25-mile march out in the boondocks. They did village fighting and crawled under machine gun fire and then went to OCS school. He graduated in February 1945 when he was 19 years old.

William Burkett was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. OCS [Annotator's Note: officer candidate school] was not hard for him since he had just finished five years in military school. Each platoon had a tactical officer. Burkett was called before the 12th-week board to see if he could graduate. The 14th-week board was an elderly colonel by himself. Burkett’s parents drove to Fort Benning [Annotator’s Note: Fort Benning, Georgia] for his graduation ceremony. His commission was for the duration of the war plus six months. The war did not end officially until 1952 when Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] signed the papers. After graduation, he was sent to Camp Blanding, Florida. He went to an infantry replacement center. They had a party at the officers’ club, and Burkett’s date was a nurse. Everyone in his platoon was either 18 or 35 years old. He thought the 35-year-old men were old. They were out in the field fighting a grass fire the night that Roosevelt died [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, died 12 April 1945]. Roosevelt was in his fourth term. Burkett’s family were Republicans and they did not like Roosevelt. There was word that Roosevelt knew Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] would be attacked. Roosevelt wanted to get into the war.

William Burkett left the States in August 1945. He was in an eight-ship convoy. They left from San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California]. When they reached the Hawaiian islands, they were told an atom bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. Three days later, they dropped another one on Nagasaki [Annotator’s Note: Nagasaki, Japan]. They were in the middle of the ocean when the war ended. They stopped at an island called Eniwetok [Annotator's Note: Enewetok Atoll, Marshall Islands] and went swimming. From there, they sailed on to Manila [Annotator’s Note: Manila, the Philippines]. They thought they would have to invade Japan. MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] knew the Japanese like the back of his hand. There were more instances of G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] attacking the Japanese than vice versa. When Burkett got to the Philippines, he received draftees and replacements and sent them on their way. Then he was sent to headquarters under MacArthur. They were supposed to go to the different units and make sure they were recruiting properly. Instead, they would go around and sightsee. When he got to Tokyo [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo, Japan] he was assigned a corporal. Burkett and the corporal drove through what had been previously hostile territory. They were going to a paper mill to pick up paper. They spent the night in a house in the village. Burkett loved the Japanese. They were the friendliest people. One boy that worked in the office said B-29s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] were nothing. A lot of the city had been destroyed. The Japanese would gather to watch MacArthur leave the building.

William Burkett had gotten there [Annotator’s Note: the Philippines then Japan] two weeks after the war was over. At the replacement center, there was a Japanese soldier standing in line for food. They fed him and then carted him off. The Filipinos were friendly too. They had been subjected to a terrible occupation before the Americans arrived. Burkett met a little girl at a USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations] party. Burkett would take rations to her family. He lived in the Manila Hotel [Annotator’s Note: Manila, the Philippines]. They had liquor rations but he did not drink. He gave the motor officer his liquor rations so that he could get a jeep anytime he wanted it. The Filipinos lived by stealing. They were delighted to be rid of the Japanese. Burkett got to the Philippines in August [Annotator’s Note: August 1945] and sailed to Tokyo [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo, Japan] in February. The stench of dead bodies would knock you down. Manila was nothing but rubble and was dirty. It was not a nice place. Manila was on a bay. Burkett would drive out to the beach and picnic with a girl he met. He drove everywhere so he could sightsee. He had a friend in Manila who picked up abandoned weapons and refurbished them. Burkett was given a 45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol].

William Burkett remembers the Philippines as a pretty country. He drove everywhere. He drove a truck to Manila [Annotator’s Note: Manila, the Philippines]. He walked through the countryside and did not see any people. The Filipinos were friendly. The Americans had saved them. He saw the biggest Buddha [Annotator’s Note: Gautama Buddha was an ascetic and spiritual teacher of ancient India who lived during the 6th or 5th century BCE]. Tokyo [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo, Japan] had been destroyed. There was an incendiary raid in May that did most of the damage. The Japanese love baseball. They played a lot of baseball. The Imperial Hotel was supposed to be earthquake-resistant. Burkett remembers the earthquakes. Burkett went to the war trials [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo War Crimes Trial] and saw Tojo [Annotator's Note: Hideki Tojo; former Imperial Japanese Army General and prime minister of Japan]. The defendants all sat in a box. Burkett went to law school and graduated in 1949. He returned home in September 1946. The Japanese did things people should never do. They did what their Emperor told them to do. The POWs [Annotator's Note: American prisoners of war] of Japan will probably never forgive them. Burkett went back to Japan for a second time during the Korean War [Annotator’s Note: The Korean War was a war fought between North Korea and South Korea from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea]. They were issued carbines, bayonets, and gas masks, then they put them in an amphitheater and lectured them about evading. He was the only lawyer in his division.

William Burkett recalls that the Army was segregated. Court martials were given based on rules dating from 1912. Then they were revised in 1949, and made it more like a real trial. They learned quickly that they did not want an enlisted man in the court. In the six months Burkett was there [Annotator’s Note: He was stationed in Korea during the Korean War which was a war fought between North Korea and South Korea from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea], he defended in several court martial trials. On the way home, they stopped in Guam. Then they landed in Honolulu [Annotator’s Note: Honolulu, Hawaii] before going to San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California]. Then he went to Dallas [Annotator’s Note: Dallas, Texas] before returning home to Oklahoma City [Annotator’s Note: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma]. His oldest brother was a radio operator in the Air Force. He did not go overseas until after the war. Another of his brothers was a navigator in B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. He was shot down and seriously wounded on his first mission. His other brother was in Air Force artillery in Bastogne [Annotator’s Note: Bastogne, Belgium] as a forward observer. All his brothers were home by the time that he returned home. His mother had had a heart attack and died the day after he got home. He was discharged quickly as a First Lieutenant. He used the GI Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] and got married in October. Gasoline cost 16 or 17 cents a gallon. Burkett was running the service station. He had never put gas in a car before. He started law school in 1947, finishing in 1949 when he was 23 years old.

William Burkett thinks the war crimes trials [Annotator’s Note: Tokyo War Crimes Trials] were the most memorable. The trip overseas was memorable because it took around 25 days. He did not have any duties on the ship. Seeing the Philippines and Japan was great. He loved it. Taking a platoon through basic training was the hardest thing he ever did. He was assigned to Headquarters of Eighth Army while in Japan. He had one semester of accounting in junior college. He did not like accounting. He had a Japanese accountant assigned to him. They sold jeeps. By this time there were dependents in Japan. When he was in the second time [Annotator’s Note: for the Korean War, fought between North Korea and South Korea from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea] he went back to Japan and was stationed near a fishing village. Near the camp was a village of prostitutes and the GIs [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] would go visit them. The girls referred to them as their friends. One of the court martials Burkett defended was a soldier who gave his wristwatch to one of those girls. She sold the watch and he hit her. She complained to the MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] and he was court martialed for striking a Japanese national. Burkett used the defense that he paid for the privilege. The man was found not guilty and told to never do that again. Burkett went back in March 1951. He came home in October 1952. He was discharged on 1 April 1953. He was practicing law after he came back from Korea as a First Lieutenant. In 1947, he was selected to go to San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California] and was assigned to declassify secret materials. He found a letter from the governor of the Philippines from the Japanese puppet governor asking him to join the Japanese.

William Burkett served in the war because he did not have a choice. The United States had been attacked. There was no question. People who did not go into service were ridiculed. Kids enlisted at age 15. There were 17-year-olds in the 1st Marine Division fighting the Japanese in the Solomon Islands. World War 2 was different. When he got called back in for the Korean War [Annotator’s Note: The Korean War was a war fought between North Korea and South Korea from 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953. The war began on 25 June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea following clashes along the border and rebellions in South Korea] the attitude was different. When he came home in 1946, he traded cigarettes for a Samurai sword. The Korean War was not a popular war. It was an easy choice to go into the service. The GI Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] paid for everything. They got 120 dollars a month for living expenses. He was lucky. He was an officer. Officers lived differently than enlisted men. He was paid to see the world. It changed his life. Two of his brothers did not use the GI Bill. He does not think most people know about the war. The kids he talks to now do not know who MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area], Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.], and Churchill [Annotator's Note: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill; Prime Minister, United Kingdom, 1940 to 1945] are. He does not think people today know that they have never asked to be compensated for aiding and winning wars. He thinks it is important to teach about the war. Those who do not learn history are condemned to repeat it. The United States is the greatest country. Where they have been is important. He is afraid it is not important to people today. He enjoyed his visit to the museum [Annotator's Note: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana].