Stay ConnectedWe explore the oral histories of World War II veterans from interviews conducted by your hosts Tony Lupo and Ryan Fairfield.
We play selected clips from these veteran interviews to explore their experiences in their own words with the hosts providing compelling commentary and historical context. Be ready to get some mud on your boots!
Copyright: © 2022 Warrior Next Door, LLC
Welcome to Episode 1 of the 6 part series featuring Tech Sgt Bill Parker who landed in the first wave on Omaha Beach on D-Day with Co. E of the 116th Reg 29th Div. In this episode Bill talks about his great life growing up in SE Oklahoma during the Great Depression and how he spent his youth as a cowboy breaking horses, roping calves and getting into a little trouble also.
In this final episode in the Edward Patterson series, Col. Patterson discusses the end of the war and rather than going home back over the hump, which he knew to be extremely dangerous, he chose to go home eastward through Shanghai. He also discusses an amusing story in which he and a buddy single handedly evicted a Japanese garrison out of a Shanghai hotel after the war's end.
In Episode 4, Col. Patterson discusses the event that got him awarded the Soldiers Medal, his near death experience getting thrown from a plane door during a crash landing, the first incendiary raids on Japan and rumors of a new bomb that could end the war.
In Episode 3, Mr. Patterson discusses his role in overseeing the movement of supplies over "The Hump", he discusses the 20th Air Force attacking Japan from the west for the first time since the Doolittle Raid, Operation Matterhorn, the logistics of supplying the B-29 raids as well as the seeds of the tense present day geo-political relationship between China and Taiwan.
In Episode 2, Edward Patterson describes the end of the fighting in North Africa and the Mediterranean battleground. Instead of being sent north toward the war in Italy, he is sent east to the China-Burma-India theater where he is assigned to the 10th Air Force to begin the airlift of supplies over the Himalayas to China.
Welcome to the first episode of the Edward Patterson series. In this episode Mr. Patterson describes how he got involved in the military, details his travel to the North Africa theater in 1942 and being strafed by an ME-109. He would go on to serve in logistical troop support in the battle against the German Army and Field Marshall Erwin Rommel.
In this final episode in this series, Ira talks about attacking Chi Chi Jima and the resulting atrocities perpetrated on the captured US airmen as well as transitioning back to the US to train new crews.
Join us now for episode 3 of 4 where we hear about Ira Bewley's squadron attacking Guam, Ira’s impressions of a new weapon called Napalm as well as preparatory bombing of Iwo Jima in June/July/August 1944, the Philippines and New Guinea.”
Welcome to Episode 2 of the 4 part Ira Bewley series. Buckle up as we continue with Ira’s experience in the first battle of the Philippine sea and we hear about the chaotic night landing that accompanied the late-in-the-day US attack on the Japanese fleet.
In this series of episodes we follow the experiences of Ira Bewley, a TBF Avenger turret gunner in VT-31 stationed aboard the USS Cabot in the Pacific Theater. In episode 1 we hear about his first battle experiences in the Marianas Islands attacking Truk Harbor, Guam, Saipan and Tinian.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
