William E. Burrus was born in Birmingham, Alabama in February 1926. He had one brother and two sisters. His father worked for the railroad as a general yard master. Hygiene was a big factor with his mother and father. Burrus was the baby of the family and was treated like the baby. His sisters took care of him and it did have some effects on him. His father was employed during the Depression. It was a great life growing up. His father only had two days off per month so Burrus did not see a lot of him. His mother would feed the children before his father got home from work. His parents would then sit down and enjoy dinner together. Burrus treasured this. He and his family were on the way back from Saint Louis [Annotator's Note: Saint Louis, Missouri] by train when they heard the news about Pearl Harbor being invaded [Annotator's Note: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. It was a shock to them, and they knew it was a serious thing. Burrus never thought he would be involved. When he became 18, he signed up for the draft on 13 February [Annotator's Note: Febraury 1943]. In less than 30 days he got his 1A notice [Annotator's Note: Selective Service classification identifying an individual as being available and fit for military service]. He was in school in the Fall semester and he tried to join the Army Air Corps. He did not get accepted due to not having finished high school. He was drafted and was inducted at Fort McClellan, Alabama a month later [Annotator's Note: April 1944]. He loved airplanes and built models. After the war, he bought his own airplane.

William Burrus was drafted [Annotator's Note: in the spring of 1943] and went to Fort McClellan, Alabama for induction. He then went to Camp Blanding, Florida for basic training. The training was unbelievably tough. He had never held a gun in his life but received a medal for sharpshooter. He did not know that would have an effect on how he would be sent into combat. He learned to shoot bazookas, BARs or Browning Automatic Rifle, and submachine guns. Overseas, he became a runner for Lieutenant Shue [Annotator's Note: cannot verify identity] and carried a submachine gun. At Camp Blanding, he would feel bad for men who fell out on a hike. He later learned they were trying to get a medical way out of the service. Burrus would do whatever he was told to do. This helped him out tremendously overseas. The toughest part for him was having be on time all the time. It really helped him in his postwar life though. He liked the exercise. He did not climbing ropes but had to do it. After basic, he went to New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] to go overseas [Annotator's Note: in 17 October 1944]. On the ship he saw a Chinese restaurant sign. In Europe, he would think about getting home to get some good Chinese food. He also did a lot of thinking on the ship. He did not want to ever have to do bayonet fighting. He never did.

William Burrus went from New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] to Southampton, England [Annotator's Note: on 22 October 1944]. He then joined his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 347th Infantry Regiment, 87th Infantry Division] in Metz, France where General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] was. He did some more training. Going into Metz, it was cold and he saw bodies lying in the snow. It upset him a great deal. He went from Metz into Belgium [Annotator's Note: 12 January 1945] as the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] was winding down. He saw the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s] and he was afraid of not knowing what to do. They went into Koblenz [Annotator's Note: Koblenz, Germany] and later crossed the Rhine River [Annotator's Note: on 25 March 1945]. He was an assistant bazooka [Annotator's Note: 2.76 inch portable recoilless anti-tank weapon] man at that time and he carried the shells. He was going to be on a surprise attack. He got in a boat in the first wave. As they pushed off from shore, two flares went up. When the third flare went up, all hell broke loose. Some men in the boats were hit. They had begun at midnight and he owes Sergeant Craig [Annotator's Note: unable to verify identity] his survival. Craig told him to keep his head down and keep paddling. It was a tough evening. He got across and laid on the bank. He pinched himself from time to time, thinking it could not really be happening. He pulled out rosary beads and started saying the rosary. They moved a little bit up. It was confusing as to who was in charge. There were big shell craters. At daybreak, they got support and the engineers built some bridges. He is not sure it was Koblenz, but they captured it [Annotator's Note: He is likely referring to crossing the Moselle River 14 March 1945 and fighting in the Battle of Koblenz from 17 to 19 March 1945].

They started fighting from town to town. William Burrus was the assistant bazooka man [Annotator's Note: 2.76 inch portable recoilless anti-tank weapon]. The bazooka man was about 28 and Burrus looked up to him. They got into a hole and heard tanks coming. He asked if they should fire and the man said no. The tanks turned and went the other way. Burrus would go through some of the houses and into the basements. He turned a corner in one and woman with a little girl were there. It scared him to death. The little girl gave him an apple. He was riding on some tanks into the front. The tank commander had a big, red mustache. They were having a conversation and he told them to get off. The tank went ahead of them. When Burrus caught back up with them, the tank had been destroyed. He saw the commander's mustache had turned to a little sizzle and it made him sick to think how that happened. He had his BAR [Annotator's Note: Browning Automatic Rifle] and they were getting crossfire from the Germans. Burrus was sent to the balcony of a house to shoot along the hedgerow. He did so until he did not hear anything else. They moved along. They did get some rest and Burrus was sitting down. A jeep pulled up with two men. One came close and Burrus saw that he had four stars and a pistol. It was Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] and he hit him on the shoulder and asked him how he was doing. Patton told him that they had them [Annotator's Note: the Germans] on the run and that they were going to win. He then got in his jeep and took off. He was a soldier's soldier. He was tough and he made damn sure you were tough. Burrus says if we would have listened to Patton, we would have gone on into Russia.

William Burrus and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 347th Infantry Regiment, 87th Infantry Division] were getting close to the Russians. Some Russians had parachuted into their operation so they could get to know each other and not kill each other. Burrus came across an accordion factory, bought one, shipped it home, and then sold it. He regrets that now. He was walking down the road once when he got the word that President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States; 12 April 1945] had died. They all were upset when they heard the news. They began to take mortar fire and laid in a field. The mortars would hit the trees and burst. The shrapnel would spread all over. Burrus did not get hit. A good friend of his had part of his jaw torn off. Two or three days later, he was riding in a truck to the front. One backfired and they jumped out. The Germans began firing mortars. Burrus decided to move from where he was, and just after he did, a shell landed right where he had been. It would have killed him. Some were not as lucky as he was. After the war was over, he was in a tent in the snow when mail call came. He had received his high school diploma. He had not finished high school. He was sent back to the United States for redeployment to Japan. He went to Fort Benning, Georgia for training [Annotator's Note: 14 July 1945]. He received a leave and went home. While there, he heard that the atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: Nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] had fallen and Japan had surrendered. He was relieved and they had a big party. He then went to Governor's Island, New York where there was a WAC [Annotator's Note: Women's Army Corps; women's branch of the Army, 1942 to 1978] barracks. He met one in the city who was a singer and they had a good time. He decided he was having such a good time he was going to reenlist. He called his mother to tell her. She said she wanted him to come to mama, and that is what he did. [Annotator's Note: Burrus laughs.]

William Burrus became a technical sergeant when he returned to the United States after the war ended [Annotator's Note: 14 July 1945]. It was interesting to think that he had never had a gun in his life, but he used his training in battle. Until he went to basic training, he had only been away from home once. It was quite a shock to be away. He learned how to deal with the different nationalities of the people around the country. He is a Southern boy who had to deal with Northern boys and Polacks [Annotator's Note: Americans of Polish descent]. He got twin pistols from a German [Annotator's Note: while in Europe] but someone in his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 347th Infantry Regiment, 87th Infantry Division] stole them. He also had a German general surrender to him while on guard duty one night. The general had a bottle of champagne. The other guards and the general drank the bottle. At that stage, the Germans were losing. There were Germans wearing civilian clothes but were still fighting. Being in the military with men from places other than the South [Annotator's Note: Southern United States], was quite an adjustment. Burrus felt non-Southerners spoke fast and were kind of harsh, like Sergeant Craig [Annotator's Note: unable to verify identity] who got them across the Rhine. It helped him in civilian life to deal with different people.

William Burrus shipped overseas to Europe on a slimy, English boat [Annotator's Note: 17 October 1944]. They had boiled potatoes and onions and he was not used to that. Coming back, he was an American liner. He wondered if he would come back [Annotator's Note: from the war] and gave a lot of thought to that. He thought leaving was the last time he would ever see New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. He tried to wipe it out of his mind and believe in the Lord to get back home. He does not hesitate to say he was scared the whole time he was over there. You have to realize it is either you or them. They had no u-boat [Annotator's Note: German submarines] scares going over and they did not do any drills. He joined the 87th [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 347th Infantry Regiment, 87th Infantry Division] in Metz [Annotator's Note: Metz, France]. He came in as a replacement. Lieutenant Shue [Annotator's Note: unable to verify identity] was there and took charge. Burrus was just a PFC [Annotator's Note: Private First Class] and did what he was told. He was in Company C. It was a shocker to join an outfit that had been combat. The veterans of the outfit were gracious to get the relief and support. The Germans began to deteriorate after the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. The SS troops [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization; abbreviated SS] were put together for Hitler's [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] protection. They were powerful and strong Germans that would kill you in a heartbeat. He thinks he got a pistol from an SS trooper. They were very well trained. Burrus thinks the typical German soldier was put into a position that they had to be there. They would have been killed if they had not fought because Hitler was vicious. Rommel [Annotator's Note: German Field Marshall Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel] was a very strong fighter. Burrus feels the regular German soldier was as appalled as he was to be there. Both had to protect their country.

William Burrus first experienced combat at the Moselle River [Annotator's Note: near Koblenz, Germany on 14 March 1945]. There were some small things before that. Some of the towns before the Rhine River had to be taken. They went through a lot of them. The German people themselves were taken aback by Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler]. He was their savior until he tried to take over the world. He was impressed that most Germans could speak English as well as he could, and he could not speak one word of German. Their education was strong. It was very, very cold when he joined his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 347th Infantry Regiment, 87th Infantry Division]. He hated cold weather and it was one of the worst winters ever. The planes could not give them support so they would have to sit and wait for the weather to break. They always walked on both sides of the road and had lookouts. He would be called out on patrol. A lot of the patrols really got into trouble. They would try to capture the Burgermeister, or mayor, of the town to get him to help them out. His patrol ran into a little German fire but lost contact. Nobody got hurt. Some men on patrols did not make it. Burrus never volunteered for patrols.

[Annotator's Note: Ths interview clip starts mid-question regarding the Siegfried Line, the German defensive line in Europe, built in the 1930s.] William Burrus was impressed by how they built it. There was no way to get through it. He did not have to do that much fighting there. The line itself was a barrier they had to go around and get through by then. He wishes he had had a camera. There were pillboxes with machine guns everywhere. Burrus did not like the sound of the guns. He was two or three weeks behind the other fighting. He could see to what extent they had gone, to keep the Americans out. His outfit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 347th Infantry Regiment, 87th Infantry Division] did a lot of work with tank battalions. He never rode on one until he got there. He felt comfortable being on a tank. He would ride until the tank got into position. The Germans killed one tank commander Burrus had ridden with. The German tanks were superior to the American tanks. The Germans would shoot an 88 [Annotator's Note: 88mm multi-purpose artillery] right through a person. American artillery support was good. They were fighting in towns so much that Burrus could not bathe or change his underwear for six weeks. He only ate C-Rations. It was cold. So many got trench foot [Annotator's Note: immersion foot syndrome; medical condition caused by prolonged exposure of the feet to damp, unsanitary, cold conditions]. He would heat his K-rations up in his helmet.

William Burrus and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 347th Infantry Regiment, 87th Infantry Division] crossed the Moselle river [Annotator's Note: near Koblenz, Germany]. He was not in the first wave and it was not a challenge. He thought it would be the same crossing the Rhine River but that was not the case. He went into Koblenz [Annotator's Note: Koblenz, Germany]. He saw a lot of terrible destruction from our bombers. The Germans were in every building and it was tough going door-to-door to clean them out. He remembered seeing a German woman walking with a laundry bag on her head. The women were very masculine. She was walking in the woods and he thought she could have picked him up and thrown him across the town. The biggest problem was German soldiers in civilian clothes working as snipers. They had trained as well as they could before crossing the Rhine River for a surprise attack. Burrus had a friend from Alabama who had heard Burrus was in the first wave. The friend told him that he would tell his family if anything happened to Burrus. Burrus said he would be grateful. They thought it was not going be a tough fight. The Germans were ready for them though. You had to make your mind up, either do it or die. Very few were killed or wounded and made it across. When the flares went up, he was scared. He kept his head down and kept paddling. He does not know how they made it. He would hear guys holler out and scream. That is the worst fear he has had in his life. You do not adjust for it, you do what you have to do when you do it. He came home.

William Burrus was only 20 years old when he returned from the war. You have to do what you do, and it is all you can do. His friend told him he would tell his parents what had happened to him. He did not receive many letters and he never wrote any. He carried his rosary beads. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if he recalls capturing Oberhof, Germany but he does not.] He was able to go see a German castle, which was wonderful. He has done research on the castle. He saw a bottle of wine or beer and started to get it when someone stopped him. It might have been booby trapped. When he began to see the Germans running out of gasoline and pulling their equipment with horses, he thought it was a horrible sight. The Nazi world and they were losing everything. They captured a lot of Germans. They had latrines and they would slam the seats down to scare the Germans. Burrus went to one concentration camp, Ohrdruf [Annotator's Note: in Thuringia, Germany], but does not recall much about it.

William Burrus was going through Plauen [Annotator's Note: Plauen, Germany] when he met a young German girl. It was a shocker. The Germans were running and fighting, and the Americans were trying to catch up with and shoot them. Burrus was going through the buildings instead of the streets. He came across a woman and a child in one. He felt relieved about Plauen, not as endangered. Burrus thought the German people were very nice and well educated. They were sharp dressers. They had taken an area and there was a German vehicle broken down and he tried to drive it for them but could not. [Annotator's Note: Burrus laughs.] One thing that bothered them was that they were not sure the Germans knew the war had ended. They had to be careful about their exposure. He was sent back home not long after the war ended to train for the invasion of Japan. He got his diploma in the mail and someone stole two pistols he had gotten. He thinks he came back the latter part of June [Annotator's Note: June 1945]. Burrus stayed in the Army for another year. He got out in July 1946 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina as a Technical Sergeant.

William Burrus used the G.I. Bill to attend the University of Alabama [Annotator's Note: in Tuscaloosa, Alabama]. The G.I. Bill did not last long, so he moved to Birmingham [Annotator's Note: Birmingham, Alabama] and went to Birmingham School of Law. He transferred to law school at Saint Louis U [Annotator's Note: Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri]. His father was taking care of his invalid brother and mother. Burrus quit school before graduating to take care of his family. He also took a Dale Carnegie [Annotator's Note: American writer and lecturer in self-improvement] course and taught it to others. He never had any trouble with nightmares. He did not think much about it until the past few years. For a long time, nobody ever asked about it. Now he has a tag on his car and people thank him for his service. He wishes he had had more G.I. Bill. He transitioned to civilian life with no trouble at all. He was glad to be home. He thinks that going to school with other veterans probably helped with his transition. He never bragged about it or thought he was better because he was a veteran. He just felt fortunate to have come back. [Annotator's Note: Burrus asks the interviewer with help with a Veterans Day parade.] He goes to a nearby veterans park and tells people of his experience of the war.

The horror of crossing the Rhine River [Annotator's Note: Germany] is the one thing that stands out the most in the memory of William Burrus. He thinks sometimes he dreamed it rather than lived it. He knew he was in a position where he could not leave. He could only sit there and hope that he could make it. It was lengthy as opposed to other actions he had been in. The military helped him grow up and he thinks we should have a draft today. He fought because of the draft. He does not know that he would have signed up. He had never shot a gun in his life. It did not scare him to be drafted. If other people were doing it, he was supposed to as well. World War 2 made him realize the value of his country. He fought for a flag others want to burn. He wishes they would leave the country. He thinks people are ruining our country today. He is proud that he served. [Annotator's Note: Burrus gets emotional.] He thinks the war means very little to Americans today. We would have lost this country if everyone had not pulled together then. We need to do that today. Burrus was so impressed by his visit to The National WWII Museum in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. If the museum closed, we would lose a lot of what this country stood for. He wants to return. He fights to keep his local veterans park open and supported. When you lose history, you lose a lot. He thinks what the Museum is doing [Annotator's Note: the Museum's oral history program] is wonderful and he is proud to be part of it.