William King was born October 1925 in Brooklyn, New York. It was a nice community that was rather mixed, Italians and Irish. It was nice to grow up that way. He had a mixed group of friends. After the service, that disappeared. That community was not there anymore. His father was a painting contractor and his mother a housewife. His only sister died at birth. His parents had to sign for him to enlist and it was difficult to get that signature. He is glad he did because there is a certain stigma to being drafted. He wanted to serve. His father was born in Germany. If he had been born there, he wonders where he would be now. He was sent to Fort Dix [Annotator's Note: Fort Dix, New Jersey]. The captain told all the men who enlisted to step forward. He wanted them to watch the draftees clean up the area. He was sent to Camp Crowder, Missouri by train. He had not realized how big the country was. He had never been anywhere before. Joplin [Annotator's Note: Joplin, Missouri] was swamped by the number of men in the camp. In the town square, he saw a way of life he had never seen before. In the barracks, it was a mixed group. King does not remember any fights. Everyone was lonesome and unhappy. The age group was pretty close, all young men. The climate was not to his liking. They got up before the sun and were told what to wear. They had a good chef. All of the officers ate dinner in the mess hall because he was that good of a cook. King was trained to repair and maintain communications equipment. It was interesting and different. The equipment they came across was antiquated.

[Annotator's Note: William King was trained to repair and maintain communications equipment at Camp Crowder, Missouri.] King went to a replacement depot in Pennsylvania. The casualties were lower than expected in the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day Invasion, Normandy, France landings on 6 June 1944], so they were sent back to Missouri. He was there for a few months. He then went to Boston [Annotator's Note: Boston, Massachusetts] to go overseas. He was told that he was supposed to be nervous going up the gangplank. His rifle kept slipping off his shoulder. He forgot to be nervous. The ship was horrible. The quarters were cramped. There was one hold for Black soldiers and it stunk. He was put on guard duty, complained of the smell, and was put on KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police]. He had never been on a boat before. They went to Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France]. It was horrible and he went AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent without leave] with another soldier to Rouen [Annotator's Note: Rouen, France]. They went into a bakery and the woman spoke to him in English. He was shocked as he did not expect that. The MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] caught them. He had to clean the officer's quarters for a week. He went to Liege [Annotator's Note: Liege, Belgium]. That was the closest he got to the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. He then went into Germany, which was so different from France. It was really bombed, and the people were different. There was a lot of despair and not much intact. The Germans had a supply depot underground. He got a pair of binoculars that he brought home. He heard German voices. He got out fast because he had no weapon. The war ended and he was sent back to France. They were sending men to Marseilles [Annotator's Note: Marseilles, France] to catch a boat to go to the Pacific [Annotator's Note: Pacific Theater of Operations]. King was part of the processing group. He heard that some men would be sent to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] after the camp closed. A captain had a footlocker of looted souvenirs. He asked King his chances of it getting home intact. King said he would sleep with it if he was put on the list to Paris. He was. He became the Supply Sergeant. He sold soap. White web [Annotator's Note: cotton webbing; waterproofed and dyed] equipment was given to the soldiers for the parades in each capital in Europe. The soldiers were only given a half a pound of soap a month to keep it clean. The people buying the soap were leaders of the underground. He had money in his pocket and was a king in Paris. People were lovely. He went to Amsterdam [Annotator's Note: Amsterdam, Netherlands]. He saw a Dutch soldier hitchhiking on leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. They took him home and his parents asked King to stay for dinner. He saw they had no food, so he made an excuse to leave. King took all the tours he could. He was stationed around Saarbrucken [Annotator's Note: [Annotator’s Note: Saarbrücken, Germany]. He saw the most spectacular V-E [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] Parade on the Champs [Annotator's Note: Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris, France]. Then he went home. He wanted to attend an out-of-town school, but he was an only child and his parents did not want him to go away again. He stayed and got married.

William King did not want to stay in the Army after the war. He bought an Army surplus jeep with ten cartons of cigarettes. When the weather got cold, he sold it to buy the engagement ring for his wife. His military career was quite an education. He had been raised to believe that New Yorkers were smarter than everyone else. In the bunk next to him, there was a Wisconsin farm boy who was bright. He realized New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] did not have a monopoly on brains. He learned to respect other people more after that. He had never been anywhere other than New Jersey. His father was born in Germany. He had come from further east than Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany]. His father had gotten a telegram at home that his family was wiped out in a concentration camp. He never really wanted to talk about it. He was glad he had gotten out of there when he was a teenager. He said life had been very hard there [Annotator's Note: in Germany]. That was one reason King enlisted. King had never known the people who had been killed so it meant nothing to him. His father had a brother and they did not get along. His father was successful before the Great Depression. He had a summer home on Long Island [Annotator's Note: Long Island, New York]. He was wiped out in the Depression, both financially and emotionally. He never recovered. King grew up in a Jewish household but not particularly religious. His father was a big deal in the synagogue when he had money, but not after. Life was difficult for his parents then, but not for King.

William King never experienced any discrimination while in the service. He never thought about it. He wrote home regularly. His primary thought was "where are we going tomorrow?" His group all got along. It was a great experience for him to meet all of these people from around the country; a chicken thief from Kansas, a farm boy from Wisconsin; listening to people talk about lives different from his. He was never close to combat except once in Germany. He heard the shells and guns but did not get involved. King repaired and maintained switchboards. The concentration and death camps were very remote from him. He never knew anyone in any of them. They had never come to this country. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee how he was treated when stationed in Paris, France.] The Parisians were lovely if you got off the hotspots. The stores were empty. The food stores had very little. It improved very slowly, but it did improve. Those people suffered horribly. The Germans had taken everything that was not nailed down. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had wanted Paris blown up. The General in charge did not do it.

Coming back to the United States was better than going over for William King. King did not like the regimentation of the Army, so he did not reenlist. He used the G.I. Bill for a while. It was a great idea. Before the war, 15 percent of high school graduates went to college. That rate soared after the G.I. Bill. It was great for this country. Whatever it cost; it was worth it. King majored in business. There was a lot of anti-Semitism still around. You [Annotator's Note: Jewish people] could not get a job at a big corporation. It got easier as time went on. It disappeared. He was not surprised by it. It was much less than before the war. As a teenager, his friends would tell him not to apply for certain jobs. King worked for his father-in-law for a while. He then took it over and expanded it. His most memorable experience of World War 2 was hearing the guns in Saarbrucken [Annotator's Note: [Annotator’s Note: Saarbrücken, Germany]. He thought it was finally his time. He was not scared or nervous. He had good equipment and was trained, but it did not happen. He wanted to be in combat. He learned later that for every man in combat, there were 11 behind him. That made him feel better. He did not want to be in the Pacific. One Irish fellow lived in King's neighborhood. He was in the Marines and had fought in the Solomon Islands. He came home on leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and he was gaunt. He was telling them stories about it. King thought that was where he was going to be sent. He said the Japanese hide in the trees. He told stories that scared King. One fellow in their group was crying he was being sent to the Pacific. He went to Hawaii and spent the whole war there. King decided to serve because he owed. Had his father had not come here [Annotator's Note: United States], where would he have been. He did not want the stigma of being drafted so he enlisted. The war changed his life a lot. He realized that New York City [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] is not the center of the universe. His service is just a memory today, but a great education. The Army was still segregated then. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks the interviewee what he thinks World War 2 means to America today.] How wonderful and great peace is. King never wants to see another one. His granddaughters are going to be in one. It will all be fought with drones and artillery shells shot from computers. It breaks up families. Another one's devastation will be unbelievable. The museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important. It is part of our history. You cannot escape that. We are great for doing the Marshall Plan for Europe [Annotator's Note: European Recovery Program, ERP, 1948]. That is a great lesson to know.