William S. Meyers, Jr. was born in February 1924 in Tulsa, Oklahoma with one sister. He grew up in Tulsa where he attended school through college. His father was an attorney which did not make the Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States] hard on his family leading up to 7 December 1941. Meyers was attending school at the University of Oklahoma [Annotator’s Note: Norman, Oklahoma] in the Civilian Pilot Training program when he heard the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was in disbelief and thought Orson Wells [Annotator’s Note: Orson Welles’ radio program The War of the Worlds incited panic of listeners on 30 October 1938, when they thought his story of a martian invasion was true] may have been on the radio again, but he soon discovered that the event indeed happened. Meyers was in a college fraternity with 77 brothers, and 75 of them went into the service. The other two men had physical problems keeping them from serving in the military. All his brothers were also in ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] because the University was a state land grant college and required two years of basic military training. Meyers was told that he would enter OCS [Annotator's Note: officer candidate school] because of his previous military training, but in the end, he was drafted. He was selected to go into the Army infantry and was sent to Camp Fannin, Texas for basic training. While in camp, he encountered many things he did not like, for example, they were never given sheets for their beds; he only received a blanket. His training consisted of rising early in the morning, completing calisthenics, eating breakfast, then working all day. He was always exhausted at the end of the day because of doing long marches. After completing boot camp, the army sent Meyers and others with two years of college experience into ASTP [Annotator's Note: Army Specialized Training Program; generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers]. Meyers was sent to Fordham University in New York City [Annotator’s Note: New York City, New York] for classes. At this time, he had little to no military training. He applied for the Aviation Cadet Program and was accepted. However, shortly after, the Army Air Corps decided that they had enough pilots, and Meyers was never asked to report for training. The Army instead assigned Meyers to the 415th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division at Camp Carson [Annotator’s Note: Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, Colorado] in the fall of 1943. He was not happy in the infantry and asked to be transferred to the 929th Field Artillery unit, which was granted.

William S. Meyers, Jr. [Annotator’s Note: serving with the 929th Field Artillery Battalion, 104th Infantry Division] began preparing for overseas deployment. He enjoyed his voyage overseas and was excited to get into combat. He often slept on the deck on the ship. His unit arrived in Cherbourg, France and unloaded from the ship in the pouring rain. Then he marched two miles with a duffle bag. He and his unit camped out in a field during the rainstorm. His unit was held in reserve for the Battle of Brest [Annotator’s Note: the Battle for Brest, 7 August to 20 September 1944; Brest, France]. He really does not recall the point at which he was in combat, just that it rained all the time. He had no other clothes to change into. He realized how dramatically his life had changed. He was sleeping on the ground and just doing what he was told. His was given orders to ride the Red Ball [Annotator’s Note: The Red Ball Express was a famed truck convoy system that supplied allied forces moving quickly through Europe] which he learned how to drive and delivered supplies for a month. His unit was then assigned to the Battle of the Dikes with the First Canadian Army. The bulk of the Division moved near Aachen, Germany to relieve the 1st Division. His unit used 105 mm howitzers [Annotator's Note: M2A1 105mm howitzer; standard light field howitzer] and 155 mm artillery guns [Annotator's Note: M1 155mm howitzer; nicknamed "Long Tom"; heavy field gun]. Meyers job was to pull the lanyard of the guns. When they ran out of ammunition, he found a wood plank to lay on, and fell asleep in the rain. His division then moved towards Stolberg [Annotator’s Note: Stolberg, Germany] where he worked as a forward observer. He went to deliver a radio to the observation party but could not find them. When he did locate them, they were angry with him, because the Germans saw him but he did not give away their position. He soon realized that he was scared because it was so easy to die.

William S. Meyers, Jr. befriended a guy, named William Mafree [Annotator’s Note: phonetic spelling], while he was at Fordham University in New York. They were assigned to different regiments in the 104th Infantry Division. Unfortunately, Mafree was killed in action when he attempted to jump in a foxhole. His family thought he was missing in action, but when Meyers found out about his death, he contacted Mafree’s parents to give them the unfortunate news. Meyers never formed a closer bond with anyone else because he kept changing to a new assignment or job. Meyers’ regiment was in three main campaigns, including capturing Cologne [Annotator’s Note: Cologne, Germany] on the Rhine River. He stayed in the stall of a horse stable on the first night outside Cologne, and the next two nights he stayed in the town. After three days, they received orders to cross the Rhine River near the Remagen Bridge [Annotator’s Note: Ludendorff Railroad Bridge at Remagen, Germany]. The Navy was there to put up smoke screens as hundreds of troops crossed the river. He recounted the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] and how the 107th Infantry Division was eliminated during the German advance. The weather was cold and bitter. Everyone was sick with diarrhea. Meyers traveled through so many towns in such a short period of time, he could not keep up with all of them. Sometimes his unit travelled 80 miles a day. He thought that the Germans were very active and were good fighters, but they lost their momentum.

William S. Meyers, Jr. [Annotator’s Note: serving with the 929th Field Artillery Battalion, 104th Infantry Division] thought the hardest battle was near Lucherberg [Annotator’s Note: Lucherberg, Germany]. He carried a 40-pound radio with wire around his neck as he tried to move from Lucherberg to Merken [Annotator’s Note: Merken, Germany]. At one point, he was mistaken for a German soldier and was shot at by his own troops. After his unit captured Cologne [Annotator’s Note: Cologne, Germany], the war ended and German soldiers began surrendering to his unit for fear of being captured by the Russians. There was not very much celebration when the war in Europe ended because he knew that he would have to fight a new enemy, Japan. His unit was selected to make the initial assault on the southernmost island of Japan. He had no desire to go fight Japan because he heard how fanatic the Japanese soldiers were as combat fighters. He had never heard of anything like the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] until they were dropped on Japan, but he sees them as his salvation because he was spared of fighting against the Japanese. After the war, Meyers suffered from severe Posttraumatic Stress. He had nightmares and always slept with a loaded gun. During occupation, he lectured at the Separation Center on the advantages of saving the G.I. insurance. He was discharged around Christmas of 1945 when he had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. When he returned home, Meyers finished his degree in two semesters using Public Law 16 [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment]. He attended Harvard Law School and worked until his retirement in 1987. He also taught law at Oklahoma universities and became a district judge. He was active in the Reserves and retired with the rank of colonel.

William S. Meyers, Jr.’s most memorable experience of World War 2 was when he was in Brussels [Annotator’s Note: Brussels, Belgium] and went into a building where he was offered an ice cream soda and received a new change of clothes. He fought because Germany was trying to control the world, and America was fighting to make sure that did not happen. The war made him more mature and he learned a lot about Americans from different areas of the country. He had never been out of academia until he went to war and met average Americans. He thought that his service was a very unusual experience and he was given a grand tour of Europe. Today, the average American knows nothing about World War 2 and has very little interest in it. He believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations.