William Edwin Howard was born in Grand Island, Florida on his grandfather's farm in July 1924. He fished there on Lake Yale. His granny would cook them for dinner. His father was a newspaper man, the city editor of the Knoxville News-Sentinel. Life was great fun. It was the Great Depression, but he had never known any other time, so it made no difference to him. Howard was in the offices of the Knoxville News-Sentinel [Annotator's Note: Knoxville, Tennessee] after the news broke over the radio that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. His father rushed to the office and took him with him. He remembers standing in the United Press office watching the news come in off the tickers. He was horrified but did not expect it would last long enough for him to go to war. He was a senior in high school when the editor of the Memphis Press-Scimitar, Ed Meeman [Annotator's Note: Edward John Meeman], called him at home and asked him his draft status. He told Howard to come work at the paper to get preparation for later in life. He was 18 and was tickled. He was made a copy boy and worked there until he was drafted. It gave him a window on the war, so he was ready when the call came in 1942.

William Edwin Howard was drafted in 1942. He was sent to Camp Croft, South Carolina to train as an infantryman. It was tough Army training. His sergeant made him a junior squad leader in basic training. Sometimes it was tough to get guys out of bed. He then went to a staging area for going overseas as an infantry replacement. He had no advanced training. He left from the Norfolk Navy Base [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Norfolk, Norfolk, Virginia] on a Liberty Ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. He went with 599 other guys in a big convoy. They landed in Oran, North Africa. He stayed there a month in November [Annotator's Note: November 1943]. They had a really good Thanksgiving dinner. Howard was then shipped to Naples, Italy and went to a replacement depot for three weeks. He went farther up the line by truck. Within the night they were close to artillery and some landed close. The convoy stopped and they got out. They marched to a forward combat replacement depot. They stayed overnight and at dawn they were marched to the nearest unit needing replacements which in Howard's case was the 2nd Battalion, 6th Armored Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division.

William Edwin Howard loved his trip overseas on a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. It was crowded. They would line up on deck to get served meals. He loved the sea. He would sit on the prow. He was not seasick at all and never has been. He probably should have been in the Navy. He was assigned early in the morning and ended up in the 6th Armored Infantry [Annotator's Note: 2nd Battalion, 6th Armored Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division] which was in action at Porchia [Annotator's Note: Battle for Monte Porchia, 5 to 7 January 1944]. He was attached to the 2nd Battalion. The attack on the mountain had been made, and his first job was carrying the wounded back from the mountain. Some were badly wounded and some died before they made it to the aid station. He had had no training in first aid, but he could carry a heavy weight. It was sheer terror, but what could they do. [Annotator's Note: Howard references a novel he wrote that he gave to the interviewer, titled "The Day That I Must Die".] Howard fully expected to die that first day. He was completely defenseless and did not think he would make it. He has very vivid memories of those first few days. It was just sheer, stark terror seeing dead men lying by knocked out tanks. It was beyond anything he had ever imagined. The Army had not prepared him for that. They had prepared him to live and he was likely to die. He made it, but that feeling never really ebbed. He went to a second mountain, Trocchio [Annotator's Note: Monte Trocchio]. In front of Trocchio was a two mile plain bordering Monte Cassino with the Abbey rising above it. Later, from the Anzio [Annotator's Note: Anzio, Italy] beachhead, he would see the smoke rising from the bombing of the Abbey [Annotator's Note: on 15 February 1944], 50 or 60 miles away.

[Annotator's Note: William Edwin Howard was a replacement infantryman in the 2nd Battalion, 6th Armored Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division in Italy near the Rapido River in December 1943.] Howard remained a litter bearer for quite some time. They stayed in foxholes for three or four days while other troops attacked Monte Cassino [Annotator's Note: Monte Cassino, Italy] and the Abbey. They had to get the Germans out of there to stop them from directing fire below. They were being shelled mostly by artillery and some mortars. He was an emergency replacement occupying the emptied foxholes. He encountered German soldiers. He had seen a couple of war movies and the Germans were pretty much what he expected. They were the best combat soldiers. They just ran out of bodies. He went to Pozzuoli [Annotator's Note: Pozzuoli, Italy], Sophia Loren-ville [Annotator's Note: Sofia Villani Scicolone, or Sophia Loren, Italian actress]. It was nice to have found out after the war that he probably gave a six-year-old Sophia Loren a candy before boarding his assault ship to Anzio [Annotator's Note: Anzio, Italy]. The Italians were very friendly and knew the Americans were on their side. They had been mistreated by the Germans. He was in the armored infantry and traveled by half-track [Annotator's Note: M3 half-track; a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks] in 2nd Battalion, 6th Armored Infantry Regiment [Annotator's Note: 1st Armored Division]. They drove it onto an assault ship and off it at Anzio. They headed straight for the pine woods and bivouacked [Annotator's Note: a temporary camp] there for next the four months. They fought intermittently to get to Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy]. They knew what the mission was, to get to and take Rome.

William Edwin Howard says the fighting on Anzio [Annotator's Note: Anzio, Italy] beach was terrible. The Germans had a great many more troops surrounding them than they had. Periodically they would attack them from all directions. The Germans had big guns the Americans called the "Anzio Express" [Annotator's Note: Krupp K5 280mm heavy railway gun]. The shells sounded like trains. They were in the pine woods. When artillery shells would hit the trees, shrapnel would rain down on them. They were all dug in. They eventually went into Anzio and Nettuno [Annotator's Note: Nettuno, Italy] and got doors out of abandoned buildings to cover the holes. They were pretty well supplied and were never hungry. The break-out from Anzio [Annotator's Note: on 23 May 1944] began with an artillery barrage and then a lot of tanks. The tanks led them through mine fields. They went into some hills where the Pope [Annotator's Note: Pope Pius XII, Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli] had a summer home, the Alban Hills. They got on a Highway, Highway 6, that led them into Rome [Annotator's Note: Rome, Italy]. The Germans were pretty much running but fighting as they ran. They did not encounter any Italian troops. The objective was Rome and they got there on 4 June [Annotator's Note: 4 June 1944], two days before the Normandy invasion [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. They were cheered by the Roman people. They were liberated from the Germans. That made him feel good. The Germans did not really try to defend Rome. They were outnumbered by the Americans by then.

[Annotator's Note: William Edwin Howard was part of the 2nd Battalion, 6th Armored Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division and took part in the liberation of Rome, Italy on 4 June 1944.] After that, they just chased the Germans all the way up Highway 6 on the west side of Italy. They made it through the mountains in the north. It got cold in Italy, frigid. He stayed with the Regiment pretty much the whole time. He was attached to the Division as a combat correspondent. General Mark Clark [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark], 5th Army commander, was jealous that the Marines had combat correspondents. Howard was plucked out of his company to report to Division Public Relations. He stayed and traveled with the 6th Armored Infantry. He wrote stories for hometown newspapers about heroic soldiers from their towns. The job was to boost morale and get Mark Clark's name in whenever he could. Howard was almost to Como [Annotator's Note: Como, Italy] when the war ended. After crossing the Arno River, they moved swiftly. The bridge across the Arno was incredible. It was put together by their engineers. The Germans were running by that time.

After the war ended, William Edwin Howard started a newspaper. He was sent to Darmstadt, Germany for a long time. He named it after his high school newspaper, The Warrior. It was the nickname of the 1st Armored Division too [Annotator's Note: Howard was a member of the 2nd Battalion, 6th Armored Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division]. They started the paper for morale for soldiers who were kept in Europe after the war ended. They provided information to them. The Germans were friendlier than they had expected. Gradually, they all learned to get along. Howard got home just before Christmas 1945. For the previous Christmases, they did receive packages. They often came afterwards but they were glad to get them. He left for the United States from Marseilles [Annotator's Note: Marseilles, France]. He had gotten there by train. He boarded a former Italian passenger ship for home. It was nice as most of them had grown fond of Italy and wine. He will never forget sailing into New York Harbor [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. He loved returning to New York City, sailing past the Statue of Liberty. He was mustered out pretty quickly before Christmas. He used the G.I. Bill to go to college in Memphis [Annotator's Note: Memphis, Tennessee] for three years. He enjoyed every minute of it. He also worked at the Press-Scimitar [Annotator's Note: Memphis Press-Scimitar newspaper] at the same time. He stayed with it until 1983. His paper and the Knoxville Sentinel [Annotator's Note: newspaper, Knoxville, Tennessee] picked up his news stories. He would have gone to college anyway, but he would have had to work his way through without the G.I. Bill. The war changed his life completely. It gave him a much broader view of the world. He was an avid opponent of the Germans and Germany. He was not a guy who was drafted and did not care who won. That did not change. He liked the German people, but they were stupid to let Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] do what he did. He absolutely believes there needs to be a museum like The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana]. He went as soon as he could after it opened.