On August 31, 1944, near the town of Archingny, France, I was the loader in a Sherman tank called 'Wolverine.' We had been pushing through France for three weeks straight without resupply — eating K-rations, sleeping in the mud, smelling like diesel and gunpowder. On that day, we crossed a small bridge and found ourselves facing four German Panthers that had been abandoned — out of fuel. The crews had stripped them and walked east. Our driver, a kid from Detroit named Tommy Kowalski, got out and examined the Panthers. He found a German soldier's lunch pail in one of them — still had actual bread and sausage in it. We sat on those German tanks and ate their lunch. I remember thinking: this is the strangest war in the world. Three hours later we liberated a village that had been occupied for four years. An old woman came out and kissed our tank. I still have the bread sack.

I was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. I was a seventeen-year-old signalman aboard the USS Oklahoma. When the attack came, I was asleep in my bunk. The first thing I knew was the sound — this enormous roar, like the whole world was tearing apart. I ran topside and saw a Japanese plane so close I could see the pilot's face. He was young. He looked scared too. Then the torpedoes hit. The Oklahoma rolled over. I ended up in the water with oil all over me. I remember thinking: the water is warm. That's the thing I remember most — the water was warm. I got picked up by a destroyer that was itself on fire. I spent the next three years in the Pacific, at Midway, at Leyte, at Okinawa. Every time I went into battle, I'd think about that Japanese pilot's face. I never hated the Japanese people. I hated what the war did to everyone. I still have the oil-stained Bible I was reading the morning of December 7th. I can't bring myself to open it.

I flew 35 missions over Ploiești, Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin. My closest call: over Vienna in February 1944, my B-24 took a direct 20mm shell through the cockpit, killing my co-pilot instantly. His blood covered my flight controls. I had to land the plane with my hands covered in it, trying not to look at his face. His name was Paul Hartman. He was 21. We made it back to Foggia, Italy. I delivered his body to the medics and went to get coffee. Then I threw up for twenty minutes. The squadron commander came and found me and said: 'You're flying again tomorrow.' I said 'yes sir.' What else was I going to say? I flew 20 more missions. I came home. Paul didn't. I looked for his family after the war and found his mother living alone in Ohio. She didn't know who I was. I didn't tell her. I sent flowers every year on the anniversary. I still do. She died in 1987. I still send them to his grave.

I was 19 when I volunteered for the U-boat fleet in 1942. I thought it was my duty. I went through basic training in Bordeaux — the U-boat pens there were massive, underground, concrete cathedrals. I made four patrols. On my fourth, in April 1944, a British frigate dropped a pattern of depth charges that shook us so hard that three of our crew urinated involuntarily. We could hear the steel hull screaming. The order came: 'Dive to 280 meters.' Our maximum rated depth was 200. We went to 280. The boat held. We escaped. I later learned that 75% of U-boat crews were killed during the war — the highest casualty rate of any branch of any army in the war. I survived 54 months of that. After the war, I couldn't be in enclosed spaces for years. I couldn't sleep without a window open. Even now, at 97, I can't sleep in a bed — I sleep on the floor. Something about being at floor level, away from the ceiling. I think it's about not wanting to be trapped above.