William Meredith was born in Norfolk [Annotator’s Note: Norfolk, Virginia]. They went through the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s]. He sold Liberty Magazine. He went to high school. He polevaulted and swam. They were afraid the war would be over before they got there. [Annotator’s Note: Meredith discusses being with his fraternity brothers and the governor.] They all wanted to go into the service as pilots. They went into primary training in Texas. Everybody wanted to be pilots and fight the Nazis.

William Meredith had the option to train to be a pilot, bombardier, or navigator. Meredith was in civil engineering. He left New York for the west coast of England for reassignment. He went through flight school. They tested to see if they would be fighters or bombers. They had to be chosen to be in the 336 Squadron. Most of the men in this Squadron came from Canada. [Annotator’s Note: Meredith’s wife comes over and tries to get him back on track in the conversation]. The squadron commander was a good person and a good flyer. Meredith went with the 336 Squadron [Annotator’s Note: 336th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, 8th Air Force] per assignment. When he got there, he was put into a big room with the rest of his squadron. Most of them flew P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft].

William Meredith’s job was to help escort bombers to their targets and back. If they did not run into trouble, they could stay in the air for three to four hours. He was credited with one and a half planes shot down. He did not know how the Germans could stay in the air because they were the early jets from Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler]. One that he hit began to smoke. His wingman was behind him by 300 yards. The plane he hit came out of the clouds. The plane was going down trying to land on a German base. Meredith was able to shoot at the plane again. The plane crash-landed in an open area. They did not have real dog fights. They tried to hit and run. On another mission, they were out longer than they had planned. They did not have enough fuel to get back to England. They had to land in Czechoslovakia to fuel up. Meredith was testing another pilot’s P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] and he had to bring it back in a dead stick. He crashed landed the plane because of fuel shortage. The other pilot was afraid it had not been properly fixed. He had to do a belly land. When he landed, he busted his nose open. He had to be taken to the hospital. They fixed his nose.

William Meredith remembers the 336th [Annotator’s Note: 336th Fighter Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, 8th Air Force] was brought over to the base where he was being fixed up. They interrogated him about what had happened. Another pilot asked him to fly his plane. The plane was flying well. The bottom of the plane hit the ground and his face was banged up. They took him to the hospital. He flew 20 missions in the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft]. He was also good at flying the P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft]. He was flying again with bandages because they were short on pilots to fly in Germany. He met one lady who was the sister of a pilot in the RAF [Annotator’s Note: Royal Air Force], and he was supposed to bring her to the United States when he returned home. [Annotator’s Note: Meredith talks about the man who wrote the book about his experiences.]