William Howard was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1921. He lived in Fort Worth until he was 11 years old then they moved to Houston, Texas. They moved because that is where the jobs were. Fort Worth was hit hard by the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. He lived in Galveston [Annotator's Note: Galveston, Texas] for while. When Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] was attacked he lived in Houston with his family. He volunteered for the Air Corps in 1942. He thought it would be the best place for him. He was sent to an aircraft mechanic school in Keesler Field, Mississippi [Annotator's Note: now Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi]. After that, he went to factory school in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California]. He learned everything about B-24s [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. Then they sent him to Amarillo [Annotator's Note: Amarillo, Texas] and he never saw B-24s again, only B-17s [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] from then on. He was assigned to a crew in Amarillo. Their crew went to Alexandria, Louisiana for phase training. They flew in formation and learned to fly together. After he graduated from Keesler Field, he went to San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California].

William Howard finished training in the United States then was sent with a group to Greenland. They then went to Scotland, then to Stone, England. There he was assigned to the 100th Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 351st Bombardment Squadron, 100th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force]. He flew 35 missions. He flew to Germany and to Russia. The Germans followed them in there. There were two groups of them. The Germans passed over his unit and got the other one. The Germans bombed them and destroyed a lot of airplanes. The next day, Howard's group moved to an open field where they slept under the airplane wings. Then they loaded up on bombs and flew to Italy. He flew one mission into Czechoslovakia. They stayed there and enjoyed the weather for a couple of days then went back to England. He was in England until the end of the war. They were in Russia for about two or three weeks. Then they went back to England and loaded up on bombs again. They bombed a little town on the way to Italy. They flew over Germany and bombed them. Howard was over there for six months. Then he came back to the States [Annotator's Note: United States]. He was assigned to his crew before he went overseas.

William Howard flew a mission across the Channel [Annotator’s Note: English Channel] as his first mission. They bombed a town called Caen [Annotator's Note: Caen, France]. Then he went back to England, loaded up with more bombs, and flew to Falaise [Annotator's Note: Falaise, France]. He flew two missions on D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. His first mission to Germany was around Easter [Annotator's Note: in April 1944]. He flew across the North and Baltic Seas. They were going into Poland but the weather was bad so they could not bomb Poland. They ran into a lot of fighters and lost several airplanes. His group [Annotator's Note: Howard was a memebr of the 351st Bombardment Squadron, 100th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force] came through pretty well. He went over Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany] several times. Those missions were tough. He had three missions to Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany] His toughest mission was to Merseberg [Annotator's Note: Merseberg, Germany] because it was all industrialized. It was one of the biggest oil producing places. The British Air Force [Annotator's Note: British Royal Air Force or RAF] bombed at night and the Americans bombed during the day. They bombed the oil fields and oil factories. There were a lot of guns there. The Germans had it well protected. His plane got shot up that day. The shots were splattered all over. He got hit by German aircraft. They got hit right above their left-wing gunner. His team came through it in good shape. He thought the flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] was worse than anything. They could see it out there and had to fly through it. They made it back and that was the main thing.

William Howard was flying in an airplane that another pilot had flown. They did not want to name their plane after his. They named their plane the "Boeing Belle." It was not a Boeing aircraft, it was made by Douglas [Annotator's Note: Douglas Aircraft Company]. As far they knew, everything over there was a Boeing aircraft. He did not fly all his missions in the same plane. If they got shot up it had to go in the shop and they would fly a different plane. It was a good airplane. A replica of it will be in New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. Howard was a waist gunner. He had a good crew. The other waist gunner had a problem drinking, but he never showed up drunk. The pilot, Ed Wolfe, was a great man. All the officers were good. They became a close-knit crew. A lot of the airplanes had names. His crew always flew together. They got passes [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] to go to London [Annotator's Note: London, England] and they would all do their own thing. When they first went over there they flew with big fleece uniforms on. By the time they left, they had electrical heaters. He did not suffer from the equipment going out. It was a war they had to win. Everyone had a pretty good attitude.

The missions William Howard flew on D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] were not long, but they were tough. The weather was not good that day. Getting to the designated altitude that day was tough because of the number of airplanes in the air. They lost a lot of airplanes that day just trying to get to the altitude. Howard's brother was on the ground. He was with the combat engineers, one of the first groups that landed. His brother was supposed to get rid of the land mines so the landing craft could get in there. Howard had three brothers. A lot of the planes got hit by flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. Howard flew to Russia. When he got back he thought he was done. When he first got over there they only had to fly 25 missions, then they changed it to 30 missions. Flying to Russia made 30 missions, but when they got back it had changed to 35 missions that needed to be completed before they could go home. He went to Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany] three days in a row. There was a lot of flak and a lot of fighters to deal with. The last two missions were to Merseburg [Annotator's Note: Merseburg, Germany] and they were harder than Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany]. When he finished his last mission they said they would send him home. When he finished his tour he was sent to southern England for ten days. Then they went to Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England] and got on a boat to go home.

William Howard and his crew got together every two years after the war. Their copilot, Kennedy, lives in Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts]. Their navigator lives in Kansas. He is proud to have served his country. He hopes all the generations remember the war. There is nothing good about war. War is a terrible thing. He witnessed people getting killed. Flying and seeing their buddies get shot down was tough. They did not go over there to make close friends. They knew each other, but they did not get close because they did not want to see them go down. He made some close friends and he lost some friends over there. When he first went over there, they had .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun]. The guns would freeze at the high altitude. Eventually, they put heaters on the guns to prevent freezing. He shot at the Germans and hit them, but he does not know if he blew any up. His commanding officer was shot down. His last commanding officer made it through the war.

William Howard went to Scotland. His father was born in Scotland and he still has relatives there. Howard and Bob [Annotator's Note: another member of his crew] visited some of Howard's family up there. His family knew who he was. He is still in touch with some of his cousins over there. They correspond at Christmas time. He did not mingle at the pubs. He was not a drinker. One of the other gunners liked to drink, but he always showed up sober. The ground crews were great guys. They [Annotator's Note: the ground crew] took care of the airplane. They never had to abort a mission because of them. If you do not engage a ball turret it will spin. There was a guy cleaning his gun and he pulled the gun back and it started firing. If he would have held the turret he could have stopped the firing. But once the gun went off the guy made a run for it. Howard was sitting in the back of a truck when it happened. The shells tore up the truck. On his first mission, he went into the briefing and they briefed him on everything. Then he went in a truck and they took him to his airplane. A German bomber came in as they were getting off the truck. The Germans came in right down the runway and dropped two 500 pound bombs. Howard took off running to the hedgerows. His parachute got hung up. He saw some terrible things happen. It was a war the United States had to win.