William "Bill" Parker was born in November 1924 in Torrance, California. Parker grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In his adolescence, the family raised cattle. He had an older brother, a younger brother, and two younger sisters. His father farmed, worked in the oil fields, was a cattle rancher, and horse trader. Being a cowboy was always in Parker's blood. He was 17 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. That day he was riding on horseback to go visit his girlfriend. A girl ran out from her house to Parker and told him about the attack. He had no idea where Pearl Harbor was or even what it was. As soon as he turned 18 the Army drafted him, still a high schooler at the time. Parker's father got his military service delayed until he could finish school and graduate. Within two weeks of completing high school he was in the Army. Parker was one credit short of getting his diploma but was allowed to participate in the ceremony. His principal told him that he could earn that credit over the coming summer, but Parker was not able due to his obligation to the military. 67 years later Parker finally received his high school diploma. Parker went to Camp Wolters, Texas [Annotator's Note: later Fort Wolters in Mineral Wells, Texas] for basic training. His life as a cowboy prepared him well for the hard work to come. His strict upbringing also prepared him for the discipline of the Army. Parker's older brother [Annotator's Note: James "Jim" A. Parker] flew many missions over Germany in the Army Air Corps as a B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] tail gunner. After basic training, Parker was allowed to go home for seven days before traveling to Britain. They traveled from Camp Shanks, New York [Annotator's Note: in Orangeburg, New York] via the Queen Mary [Annotator's Note: RMS Queen Mary]. Parker suffered from seasickness the entire voyage. During the trip the vessel traveled alone in a zigzag pattern [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver]. Parker was on KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police] while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The Queen Mary docked in Ireland where Parker transferred to England.

William "Bill" Parker arrived in southern England where he and other soldiers began preparing for a land invasion. Eventually the Army assigned Parker to the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Division [Annotator's Note: Company E, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division]. The soldiers knew that they were being trained for an invasion, although they had been reassured that the war would be over before the military needed to mount an invasion. The Army did not give Parker any leave time [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] while he was training in Britain. The night before the D-Day invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], the soldiers slept on ships. That morning, they were loaded onto landing craft. Parker's job for the invasion was to cut and clear wire. He was equipped with a pack, a rifle, and Bangalore torpedoes [Annotator's Note: M1A1 Bangalore torpedo]. Parker was the first one off of the landing craft, getting off in waist-deep water. He proceeded through the water with shells and machine gun fire all around him. All six soldiers of his wire cutting section made it onto the beach, where they placed and detonated their Bangalore torpedoes in tandem. Once the wire cutters completed their job Parker looked back to see that no one else had made it off their landing craft. A mounted machine gun inside of a pillbox [Annotator's Note: type of blockhouse, or concrete, reinforced, dug-in guard post, normally equipped with slits for firing guns] on the cliff in front of them pinned Parker and the rest of his section down. They were running low on ammunition and were out of grenades by the time that someone else disabled the machine gun. Joined by the other soldiers, Parker advanced on the pillbox, checking for survivors. When Parker inspected the inside, he saw numbers written on the wall next to the gun, which he surmised were for range. The machine gunner was not shooting at Parker and the rest of the wire cutters because he was assigned to shoot at other distances. Parker thanks the Naval battleships behind them for shelling the pillboxes and destroying them, allowing those stuck on the beach to advance. Once they got past the cliffs, they encountered the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation]. Once darkness fell, Parker stayed in place and did not continue forward. The next morning, because he was out of ammunition, he went back to the beach and took ammunition off of the dead soldiers there. The beach was littered with dead soldiers, the water tinged red along the shore. The wounded hid underneath the cliffs. He saw a soldier from his company that was so bandaged up from a head wound that Parker could not converse with him. Parker and the soldiers following him decided to head in a direction that they heard shooting from. They found a road heading toward Ver, France and traveled along it. He was now with a random assortment of soldiers all from different units because he could not find anyone from his original group. When this new group of soldiers met up with a lieutenant in Ver, the lieutenant promoted Parker to sergeant. Parker helped take Ver, and then traveled to Saint-Lo [Annotator's Note: Saint-Lô (Saint-Lo), France] which had been taken by the 175th Infantry, 29th Division [Annotator's Note: 175th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division].

After the D-Day invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], William "Bill" Parker was separated from his unit [Annotator's Note: Company E, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division] and was not reunited with them until he made his way to Saint -Lo [Annotator's Note: Saint-Lô (Saint-Lo), France]. Parker fought through the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation]. Parker's company began getting replacement officers because there were none left. They fought for 43 days straight. Parker never had the time to even wash his face or shave. The soldiers were taken to a mine where they were allowed to shower and change clothes for the first time in over a month. Parker soon became a platoon leader. They were just boys. One soldier looked so young he had no idea where to place him in the unit, so Parker made him a messenger. Another was so big that he made him the BAR [Annotator's Note: M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle; also known as the BAR] carrier, taking his brand-new rifle from him. One morning, they were attacked, and Parker decided to stay in position until receiving orders to come help. He never received orders, so he proceeded alone to see what was happening. He traveled along the road until he encountered some hedgerows, where he saw a unit of German soldiers gathered around with a machine gun pointed at the entrance he had just walked through. He and the enemy soldiers saw each other at the same time. Parker managed to run, but they shot Parker's rifle out of his hand, and managed to take his backpack off of him as well. Parker escaped and returned to the foxhole where he had left his young messenger but found him dead. That was the worst thing he had seen in the war. He estimates that he walked over 600 miles on foot throughout Europe. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Parker if he participated in the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945.] Parker is not sure; he may have been wounded at the time. He received a wound in his foot, and after three weeks he could no longer walk. The medics were preparing to amputate his foot due to gangrene [Annotator's Note: tissue death caused by a lack of blood supply], but a captain suggested that they soak it in hot water and Epsom salt [Annotator's Note: crystals of hydrated magnesium sulfate]. They were then able to remove the shrapnel in his foot but had to perform the operation with no deadener [Annotator's Note: anesthetic]. The Army then sent Parker to an evacuation hospital but not long after that he was sent back to his original unit. There was a miscommunication with command and Parker was not given transportation to his unit in Brest, France. He had to find his own transportation across Europe to get to his unit. During the trip, he encountered a pair of nuns who gave him the first food he had in days. An officer picked him up and took him as far as he could. Parker was on foot again when some GI [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] trucks passed by. From one of the trucks he heard someone say, "Well there's Sergeant Parker." It was the group that he was originally supposed to travel with that he was not sent with.

As soon as William "Bill" Parker returned to the 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division, he was put on patrol [Annotator's Note: with Company E, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division]. Upon arriving in Brest [Annotator's Note: Brest, France], Parker and his unit were almost immediately sent to Holland. A young soldier assigned to carry the BAR [Annotator's Note: M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle; also known as the BAR], wanted to get off and see Paris, France while they were passing through. Parker did as well but did as ordered and went to Holland. In the morning the young soldier was gone, he had gotten off the truck near Paris. There were apples everywhere when they arrived in Holland. The young soldier who snuck off to see Paris eventually returned and was court martialed [Annotator's Note: tried by court-martial, a judicial court for trying military members for breaking military law] but was only docked some of his pay. The new captain in charge of the company told the soldiers that they were allowed to eat any apples that had fallen on the ground. On the way out, a soldier named Melton [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], picked an apple off of a tree. He was court martialed for this and his pay taken. The men marched to the Roer River [Annotator's Note: in Germany]. The Americans were on one side, and the Russians were on the other. Parker and his unit did not move at night. One night Parker saw a man through a window and demanded that he freeze, throw away his weapon, and put his hands up. Parker used his .45 pistol [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] to shoot the man in the head. When he went to investigate, Parker realized that he had shot and destroyed a bust of Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler]. Parker got the .45 pistol in a trade with someone from the tank corps who wanted Parker's .32-20 pistol [Annotator's Note: unable to identify], of which Parker never had ammunition for anyway. Parker and the tank corps soldier cleared German soldiers out of fortifications together. The German soldiers were much more willing to surrender because of how poorly the war was going for them. Parker customized the handle of his pistol by putting a picture of his girlfriend into it under a piece of plastic. A lieutenant asked Parker if his pistol was regulation to which he replied, "Why not ask that of General Patton?" [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.], as Patton was often seen carrying around various different pistols, the .32 being one of them. After this the lieutenant did not bother Parker any more about the gun, which Parker still has. He does not know where he was when the war ended and did not learn that it was over until days later. At the end of the war, Parker was head of the guard one night when they were having a social dance for the soldiers. He went to change out the guard, but all of his jeep drivers were drunk. One soldier offered Parker use of his jeep. Parker had not driven in almost three years. During the trip he picked up a soldier and a girl he was helping home. While driving the girl home, the road suddenly ran out and Parker flipped the jeep over, luckily no one was seriously injured. At this time soldiers were being sent home on 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]. Parker had enough points to return home but was not allowed to until his leg healed from the jeep accident.

While waiting to go home William "Bill" Parker was named First Sergeant [Annotator's Note: in Company E, 116th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division] and given responsibility that he did not want. They were having trouble feeding both the Allied troops and the German prisoners, so Parker and some men took a jeep with a trailer and killed a yearling cow for steaks. The officers saw that the lower ranked men were eating steak and wanted steak as well. They took three more cows, and Parker had to defend himself against the farmer, armed with a shotgun, who apparently owned the cattle. Parker returned to the United States on a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. The military marched the men to a theater for some entertainment. The soldiers were then put onto trains and sent to military camps for discharge. Parker arrived at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas [Annotator's Note: now Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center, in Fort Smith, Arkansas] for his discharge. That night Parker and another soldier went to Fort Smith. The other soldier was from Warner [Annotator's Note: Warner, Oklahoma], and he ran into someone else from Warner. They drank whiskey together, while Parker decided to return to Camp Chaffee instead. At Camp Chaffee the next day his mother and father arrived. He was discharged the next day. Parker's brother was also back from the war. Parker's brother convinced him to join the Reserves with him. Parker married his pre-war girlfriend that October [Annotator's Note: October 1945].