John B. Butz was born in Fort Worth, Texas on 14 September 1920. The Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945] was not very devastating for him and his family. His father's pay was reduced but prices of goods also fell. Both of his parents were born and raised in Fort Worth. Butz graduated high school and was enrolled at the University of Texas [Annotator's Note: unable to identify which campus in which city] when World War 2 started. He and a friend originally planned to go into the Marine Reserves, but his friend failed the eye exam. The two eventually found themselves in the Air Corps Reserves. If his friend had passed the physical, their bones would be bleaching somewhere in the Pacific. Because the bombing runs during daylight hours were accruing huge losses, Butz and hundreds other classmates were pulled out of school to help replace the people and materials lost. He was given a physical in Dallas [Annotator's Note: Dallas, Texas] and then sent to Sheppard Field [Annotator's Note: now Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita County, Texas]. Because there were too many new pilots to go into flying school, they were sent to various universities across the United States to await openings in pilot schools. Butz went to the University of Tennessee [Annotator's Note: unable to identify which campus in which city]. He was in college for three years before he was activated from the reserves in October 1943. He went to Southeast Training Command at Maxwell Field [Annotator's Note: now Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama], Union City, Tennessee, Blytheville, Arkansas, and B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] training in Smyrna, Tennessee. Training was hard, but it was good. He traveled to Boise, Idaho to join a RTU [Annotator's Note: replacement training unit] where he met the crew he would be working with while deployed. They flew training missions including nights, days, cross-country, and bombing practice. The base was run by Colonel "Killer" Kane [Annotator’s Note: US Army Air Forces Colonel John Riley "Killer" Kane] who famously ran a bombing raid on the Ploesti [Annotator's Note: Ploesti, Romania] oil fields. Kane wad a great commander who did a lot for his soldiers. Every other group either flew a plane to Europe or had to take a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. Butz was unfortunate enough to be one of the groups who had to spend almost a month at sea on a Liberty ship traveling from Norfolk, Virginia to Naples, Italy.

When John B. Butz arrived in Naples [Annotator's Note: Naples, Italy] it was extremely run down. The citizens there were very hungry and desperate. They traveled by truck to the unit they were sent to bolster. Butz was assigned to the 460th Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 760th Bombardment Squadron, 460th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force]. Upon arriving Butz was told that rockets could hit aircraft further away than they could return fire, and that the enemies had jet aircraft that were too fast for Allied gunners to shoot in the air. They did not even know what a jet aircraft was. Butz ended up in Spinazzola, Italy, west of Bari [Annotator's Note: Bari, Italy] on the Adriatic [Annotator's Note: Adriatic Sea]. There Butz trained again before becoming a contributing part of the bombardment group. The hardest mission he flew there was to the Blechhammer [Annotator's Note: Blechhammer, Germany] oil refinery. It was a clear day, and they could see flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] so dense it created a cloud. They stayed in a tight formation to discourage Germans planes from attacking. Butz saw one of the planes in front of him explode from flak. He and his crew made it to their target and succeeded in their mission. The OSS [Annotator's Note: Office of Strategic Services; pre-runner to today's Central Intelligence Agency or CIA], formed a new group in Brindisi, Italy and their new missions [Annotator's Note: now with 885th Bombardment Squadron, 2641st Special Group, 15th Air Force] were to fly at night to deliver weapons, supplies, and spies behind enemy lines to help the various resistance movements. It was less dangerous than the bombing raids, but the crew needed to be more skilled due to flying alone at night. For the Blechhammer mission, Butz flew nine hours straight in formation, demanding his complete attention the whole time. The navigators for the night missions had to be extremely precise due to the small targets and the need of the partisans to remain hidden from the enemy at times. For one night mission they had to drop a spy near a train station west of Milan [Annotator's Note: Milan, Italy]. One night over the Adriatic they flew into a situation that created St. Elmo's fire [Annotator's Note: a weather phenomenon that creates a glow, in this case around the leading edges of the plane's wing]. Having read about this before, Butz did not panic and assumed that his plane was damaged. One night near Vienna [Annotator's Note: Vienna, Austria] they could make out the Germans and Russians firing at each other as far as they could see. One mission they had to fly during a heavy snowstorm, visibility was so low that they had trouble seeing the runway to take off. They could not fly high due to concerns about the plane icing over and needed to get out of the snowstorm. They planned to fly west and then south towards Africa to do so. The front moved north away from them, and they were safe from the inclement weather. One night returning to base, the weather was undercast [Annotator's Note: them being above clouds instead of below them] and all they could see were the runway lights piercing through the clouds. Butz had to fly under the clouds then make a series of left turns to return to the runway. The artificial horizon, the main flying instrument for weather, went out and Butz had to fly using needle, ball and airspeed [Annotator's Note: antiquated instruments used to show if a plane's wings are level]. He credits his good training for being able to do so and return safely.

After World War 2, John B. Butz and his unit [Annotator's Note: 885th Bombardment Squadron, 2641st Special Group, 15th Air Force] were at Rosignano, Italy [Annotator's Note: Rosignano Airfield in Rosignano Marittimo, Italy] being briefed for their 49th mission. They were supposed to be sent home from duty after 50 missions. Instead of going on their 49th mission they were told the war was over. Butz flew a B-24 [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] from Italy to Marrakesh, Morocco to Dakar, French West Africa [Annotator's Note: now Dakar, Senegal] across the Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean] to Fortaleza, Brazil. They were briefed that there could be a storm in their flight path. Butz told his crew that if they took off, there was no way he was turning around. At the halfway point if an engine went out, land was too far away in any direction to make it back. After Brazil they went to Georgetown, British Guyana [Annotator's Note: now Georgetown, Guyana] crossing over the Amazon [Annotator's Note: Amazon River]. From there they went from Puerto Rico [Annotator's Note: unincorporated US territory] and then to Florida. Butz returned to school and got a degree in engineering. Butz' first mission was a milk run [Annotator's Note: slang term used by American airmen to describe an easy combat mission ]to a bridge in northern Italy. Butz was flying with an experienced copilot who laughed at him when he flinched and dropped his cigarette lighter because of a small burst of flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] near the plane. Every night the crews were posted for who was to fly missions the next day and they were woken up early in the morning for briefings and then brought to their plane via truck. He flew a few missions for the 885th Bomb Group. The biggest mission he took part in before being transferred was at Blechhammer [Annotator's Note: Blechhammer, Germany] oil refinery [Annotator's Note: as part of the 760th Bombardment Squadron, 460th Bombardment Group, 15 Air Force]. They were well briefed on the defenses at Blechhammer. They flew behind the lead bomber, following into the large amount of flak. He watched a plane in front of him explode due to it. Small pieces of flak hit his own plane but did not cause any damage. They received a double credit for the mission because of how long it was. The oil refinery they attacked had been attacked many times, but on Butz' mission it was completely destroyed. The attack on Blechhammer's oil refinery was the most dangerous mission he flew in the 460th Bomb Group. Fighters typically escorted the bombers, which dissuaded pursuit from enemy planes.

John B. Butz and his entire crew were transferred from the 460th Bomb Group [Annotator's Note: 760th Bombardment Squadron, 460th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force] in December 1944. They did not know anything about their new assignment [Annotator's Note: with the 885th Bombardment Squadron, 2641st Special Group, 15th Air Force]. The missions he flew with the 885th were all four to six hours, and at night. He flew using the plane's instruments and by listening to the navigator. The bombardier onboard helped spot landmarks. His new plane did not have any special equipment. The bomb bay doors were removed on this plane for spies to exit through instead. The ball turret underneath the plane was removed and the plane was painted black. Their altitude on missions differed due to weather and terrain, but they typically flew at 12,000 feet. They operated mainly in Yugoslavia, Northern Italy, and Southern Poland. All of the missions he flew were at night. He was not told anything about the equipment or people he was dropping behind enemy lines. On one notable mission he dropped a small blonde [Annotator's Note: woman] and a large man. On another mission they needed to land but the wind was so strong that they had to fly around to wait for a better opportunity. Butz got tired of flying around and managed to land in the strong winds despite his plane listing towards the side on the approach. His plane lost an engine one night over northern Italy. Initially he noticed that the fuel pressure dropped, so he activated the extra fuel pump. This lit up the sky with gasoline shooting out of the engine. They were forced to return to base. They saw flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] and ground fire occasionally during the night missions, but nothing dangerous. During the night missions they made deliveries with small flashlights being their targets. It was up to the skill of the navigator to find these small targets. The drop zones were all identified by codenames. He flew 48 missions with the 885th. In the 460th on bombing runs they flew at 25,000 feet to drop their payloads. They descended slightly once their planes were lightened. No one in Butz' crew was ever injured by shrapnel. When briefed for their next mission, they were informed that the war was over.

After the war ended in Europe, it was a possibility that John B. Butz and his crew would be needed again to fight Japan in the Pacific, but that theater of the war ended while Butz was home in Fort Worth [Annotator's Note: Fort Worth, Texas]. He traveled to San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] to be dismissed and then he returned to college. Butz used the G.I. Bill [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] to help pay for his schooling. The war for helped him mature. His performance in school increased as a result. He never had to look back at the war after it ended for him. World War 2 made an astounding difference in the world. How America came together to produce equipment during the war was impressive. America made 19,000 B-24's [Annotator's Note: Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber] alone. Everyone came together to fight for survival. Civilians at home had to ration food and gas, and they also had relatives fighting overseas. He is proud of the job that America did in saving England and France from the Nazis. The war helped President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] pull America out of the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945]. He is extremely impressed with the National World War II Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana].