William Scott Stroud was born in June 1921 in Huntington, Arkansas but soon moved to Shady Point, Oklahoma where he grew up. It was a rural area. His father was a coal miner who worked for eight dollars a day. Stroud had two sisters and one brother. They always had food on the table as they grew up on a small farm. Stroud was 20 years old and working for the Glen Martin [Annotator’s Note: Glenn L. Martin Company; American aircraft and aerospace manufacturing company] aircraft plant in Baltimore, Maryland when he heard about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. The woman who owned the company told him about it was he was leaving work. He knew he would be going in because of his age and that he was single with no children. He quit his job and enlisted in the Air Force because he did not want to be drafted into the Army. He was told he did not have enough education for flight training. College education was required for the officer roles on planes of pilot, copilot, navigator, and bombardier so Stroud settled for flight engineer school. He trained at Keesler Field, Mississippi. The people there did not like servicemen. He then went to Ypsilanti, Michigan to work on an assembly line at a Ford plant there. Mississippi and Michigan were like night and day. While people in Mississippi hated the servicemen, in Michigan they treated them well. He could never buy his own beer because someone would always offer to pay for him. Stroud then had to go to gunnery school in Harlingen, Texas [Annotator's Note: then Harlingen Army Airfield, now Valley International Airport, in Harlingen, Texas] because flight engineers also operated the top turret gun. They were all very well-trained. They even learned how to ditch a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] which would come in handy. Otherwise, they would not have known what to do. From Texas, he was shipped to Wendover, Utah [Annotator's Note: Wendover Field, later Wendover Air Force Base, in Wendover, Utah] where crews were formed, then on to Boise, Idaho to pick up their B-24.

William Scott Stroud was put into an air crew in Utah [Annotator's Note: Wendover Field, later Wendover Air Force Base, in Wendover, Utah] and they were then sent to Boise, Idaho and assigned a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber]. They did training to become accustomed with the plane. From Boise, they went to Colorado Springs [Annotator's Note: Colorado Springs, Colorado] for a final bit of training. Stroud's father passed away from cancer while he was there. He was given one day to get to the funeral, and one day to get back, otherwise he would be assigned to a new crew. He made it back just in time and they were sent to Topeka, Kansas to load up their brand new plane and headed for Hawaii. The only difference between the B-24 and B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber] was that the former could not fly as high, but it flew much farther. They did even more training in Hawaii. The crew realized they were not going to be sent to Germany when they were told they would only need khaki uniforms. Stroud wanted to go to the Pacific to get even [Annotator's Note: for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941]. While in Hawaii, Admiral Nimitz [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Sr., Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet] had the final say, even though they were in the Air Force.

William Scott Stroud departed Hawaii for Kwajalein [Annotator's Note: Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands], stopping over on Johnston Island to refuel. His crew flew about 20 missions, one every three or four days, from Kwajalein. Truk [Annotator's Note: Truk Atoll, also known as Chuuk Lagoon, northeast of New Guinea] was one of their main repeated targets, as well as Eniwetok [Annotator's Note: Eniwetok or Enewetok Atoll, Marshall Islands] which had not yet been secured. They never flew a mission that lasted less than 12 hours. Stroud's first mission was a joint Navy and Air Force mission gathering photographic intelligence for the invasion of Saipan [Annotator's Note: the Battle of Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands; 15 June to 9 July 1944]. They were expected to make the entire round trip in 18 hours. All the planes except for Stroud's made that time. When they reached the target, they saw fighters [Annotator's Note: Japanese fighters] taking off. They were hit by flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] and left on their own. They had to ditch the plane [Annotator's Note: a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] at sea, landing in the ocean. They were the first plane of the type to do so. The life rafts inflated like they were supposed to. Nine of the ten members of the crew survived. It is assumed that the one man who did not make it died from a shark attack, having been bleeding from a shrapnel hit which would have attracted a shark. He was 33 years old and had children at home. This was their first mission. The survivors drifted for ten days. They had a Gibson Girl radio [Annotator's Note: a type of survival radio carried by ships and aircraft to facilitate rescue in case of an emergency], but lost it when the raft it was on flipped over. They each had their water canteens, and some cheese. They would see planes nearly every day, but could not attract their attention. They were finally rescued on the tenth or eleventh day. A Navy rescue plane came for them and landed, but busted its fuselage. They were able to radio back to Eniwetok, however, and a destroyer [Annotator's Note: possible the USS Gainard (DD-706)] was sent out to pick up both downed crews after spending another night in the ocean. They were put in the field hospital on Eniwetok, then taken back to Kwajalein before being shipped back to Hawaii for R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation]. They had each lost around 15 pounds and were blistering from the sun exposure. They spent about a month in Hawaii recuperating.

William Scott Stroud's [Annotator's Note: Stroud was shot down on his first mission in the Pacific, survived ten days at sea, and was then sent to Hawaii for rest and recuperation] pilot was a good man, While at Hickam Field [Annotator's Note: Hickam Field, Oahu, Hawaii], the pilot told Stroud they could either take a brand new plane and go back into combat, or stay stateside and train other air crews how to safely land a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] as they had done. The entire crew voted and decided to go back into combat, and returned to Kwajalein [Annotator's Note: Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands]. They wanted payback for Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941].

William Scott Stroud and his crew carried out 39 strategic bombing missions. [Annotator's Note: Having been shot down and surviving at sea after their first mission, the crew opted to return to combat once they had recuperated in Hawaii.] They left Kwajalein [Annotator's Note: Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands], their first base, for Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands]. They often hit Truk [Annotator's Note: Truk Atoll, also known as Chuuk Lagoon, northeast of New Guinea], generally targeting air fields, as well as Iwo Jima [Annotator's Note: Iwo Jima, Japan]. They completed around 15 missions on Iwo Jima. Their plane [Annotator's Note: a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] could carry around 8,000 pounds flying at 13,000 or 14,000 feet. While on Saipan, Stroud saw a single B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] take off from Tinian which was unusual, as they usually flew in groups. He did not know at the time, but it was the Enola Gay [Annotator's Note: the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb in warfare, on Hiroshima, Japan, 6 August 1945]. Stroud had just finished his missions and was preparing to go home. When the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] were dropped, they knew they would get to go home. He was in Saint Louis, Missouri when the war was declared over [Annotator’s Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945]. Stroud was then discharged about three months later. His crew kept in touch after the war, but Stroud is the only remaining member alive [Annotator's Note: at the time of interview].