Chafer Honea was born in November 1924 in Anderson, South Carolina. Growing up in Anderson was a lot of fun. His father worked in a textile plant and his mother raised the family. Honea was young but remembers the Great Depression was a hardship on his mother. She had 11 children, four of whom died, and she raised seven of them. Honea was the youngest. [Annotator's Note: Honea gets emotional.] His father died when Honea was only four years old. The children all worked. The textile plant allowed children to work at a very early age. When Honea was in high school, he read about what was happening in Europe and Japan but did not understand much about it until his senior year. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, it really sunk in. The attack scared him because he did not know what was going to happen in the country. He did not think much about going in the military after it, but figured he would be drafted. With the war going on, it made it hard to envision any life other than being in the service.

Chafer Honea was in his senior year of high school and many people were being drafted. Students were allowed to complete that year before being drafted. He had already received his notice to report on the night he graduated. The next morning, he was on his way to Fort Jackson, South Carolina with nine other students. Three of them did not come back from the war. He considers himself one of the lucky ones. Honea liked the military. He tried to get in the Marine Corps, but their quota was full. He chose the Army then as he felt safer on the ground than being on the ocean in the Navy. Basic training was tough. His was 17 weeks long. He was at Fort Jackson for two weeks and then went to Fort Eustis, Virginia for the 17 weeks of training. He was assigned to an antiaircraft outfit. The training was very similar to infantry training. He trained on the 90mm antiaircraft gun, machine guns and rifles. They also trained with bayonets but he never had to use it. They knew they would be going overseas at some point. Honea went for advanced training at Fort Hood, Texas and in New Mexico. From there he went to Fort Meade, Maryland for about ten days. They received their uniforms and vaccinations there. Then they were off to Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia when D-Day [Annotator's Note: the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944] came. They were then sent back to Fort Meade for a few weeks. They got orders to ship out late at night and Honea thought this meant they would stay overnight in Newport News, Virginia. When they arrived in Newport News though, they were marched straight off the train and onto the ship. It was a new ship and it held 6,000 soldiers. They were assigned quarters for the night. The next morning, Honea and a friend wanted to go topside to get one last look at the United States before leaving. When they got here, they could barely see any land as they had departed that night without them realizing it. They traveled across the Atlantic for 11 days to Naples, Italy.

Chafer Honea landed in Naples, Italy at night. After leaving their ship, they boarded 40 and eight train cars [Annotator's Note: 40 and eight refers to the size of the boxcar, they could hold 40 standing men or eight standing horses], were given some K-rations and went to Caserta, Italy. It took them all night to go the 35 mile distance. They then boarded trucks to a tent camp replacement center outside of Caserta where they stayed for about a month. The invasion of Southern France [Annotator’s Note: on 15 August 1944] was happening while they were waiting in the camp. They got orders to move out and went back to Naples and got on another ship to southern France. They landed at Saint-Tropez, France. Honea was assigned to Battery C, 433rd Antiaircraft Battalion [Annotator's Note: Battery C, 443rd AAA AW Battalion (SP)]. The first sergeant was from Honea's hometown [Annotator's Note: Anderson, South Carolina]. They moved up to Toulon, France. The French had scuttled their own ships and they were sticking up out of the water. They moved up the Rhone Valley and stopped at an airfield to guard it for a couple of days before moving up to the front at Lunéville, France. Honea's unit was attached to the 939th Field Artillery Unit [Annotator's Note: 939th Field Artillery Battalion] there. They dug in their 40mm antiaircraft gun [Annotator's Note: Bofors 40mm automatic cannon]. They had a trailer with four multiple-caliber machine guns which had to be dug in as well. Two German fighter aircraft strafed the field artillery unit injuring one of the men. Honea was afraid at that time. The antiaircraft fire hit one of the German planes and the pilot bailed out. The antiaircraft fire was then aimed at the pilot which was not supposed to happen. He does not know if the pilot was hit by it or not.

Whenever the 939th Field Artillery Unit [Annotator's Note: 939th Field Artillery Battalion] moved, Chafer Honea and C Battery, 433rd Anti-aircraft Battalion [Annotator's Note: Battery C, 443rd AAA AW Battalion (SP)] moved as well, which was a lot. They set their guns close to the artillery guns to guard against enemy fighters. Sometimes they would move daily. They made it up to the Rhine River in Oppenheim, Germany. They were transferred to Third Army under General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] from Seventh Army under General Patch [Annotator’s Note: US Army General Alexander McCarrell Patch]. Honea and his unit set up their antiaircraft guns in support of soldiers building a bridge over the Rhine. They spent a couple weeks there and then moved to Mainz, Germany. They set up about 20 feet from the Rhine to provide cover for more bridge construction. One night, Honea was on guard duty on the gun and heard through his headset that President Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin D. Roosevelt] had died. The other men were asleep, and Honea had to tell them the news. The news scared Honea as he did not know what would happen after that. The war was dying down and Roosevelt did not live to see it. Honea then went through Frankfurt to Steinheim and then to Nuremberg, Germany. On the way there, a jeep stopped at his truck and asked for him personally. He was told to get off and take a three-day pass to Paris, France.

Chafer Honea was on his way to Nuremberg, Germany with C Battery, 433rd Antiaircraft Battalion, 939th Field Artillery Unit [Annotator's Note: Honea was a member of Battery C, 443rd AAA AW Battalion (SP) which had been attached to the 939th Field Artillery Battalion] when the truck he was on got pulled over. He was told to get off the truck and then was given a three-day pass to Paris, France. His battery had eight gun sections and the battery received four passes. They held some kind of drawing for the passes. His section won and then they had to draw again because there were 15 men per section. He was lucky to get one of them. He went to Frankfurt, Germany and boarded a train to Paris. Just before getting to Paris they got word that the Germans had surrendered. That night the Champs-Élysées [Annotator's Note: Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris, France] was crowded with thousands of people celebrating. He was going down the boulevard by himself and he came across four women walking side by side. [Annotator's Note: Honea asks the interviewer if he can talk about a girl.] He went around them and heard one tell him to come back to them. Only one of them spoke English and she invited him to lunch with them the next day. Honea took the metro to their home and had a nice meal and conversation. After he went back to his outfit, he started corresponding with the one woman. Later, he received a seven-day furlough plus travel time to London, England. He went through Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland. He had a 22 hour layover in Paris, but he could not get in touch with the woman. He then went to Le Havre, France to a holding camp where he got on a ship to Southampton, England. While there, word came that the Japanese had surrendered. Honea then went to London where he got to take part in that celebration as well. After his furlough, he returned to Southampton, spent the night, and then went back to Paris for another 22 hour layover. He tried the woman again but got no answer to his call. He wound up back with his outfit in Nuremberg. They were inside the stadium [Annotator's Note: Nuremberg sportplatz, Nazi party rally grounds, Reichsparteitagsgelände] in Nuremberg where Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had made many speeches. They left there and went to Marienburg, Germany. [Annotator's Note: Honea pauses to think.] Honea stayed there about three weeks and then he got orders to move. He did not have enough points to go home yet, so he was transferred to the 581st Antiaircraft Battalion [Annotator’s Note: 581st AAA AW Battalion (Mobile)] where he stayed for two or three months. He had more points accumulated than that battalion, so he was transferred again to another unit that was close to being able to go home.

Chafer Honea was in the 581st Antiaircraft Battalion [Annotator's Note: 581st AAA AW Battalion (Mobile)] after the war ended. He mostly pulled guard duty. There was no training or fighting to do. After two or three months, he was transferred to another unit near Heidelberg, Germany. He went into town once to what was called the largest servicemen's club in the world. This was the town where General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] was killed in an auto accident. He had just gone through there before that happened. After a few weeks, he was ordered to move again to Le Havre, France. On 9 January [Annotator's Note: 9 January 1946] he boarded the George Washington [Annotator's Note: USAT George Washington]. It was very cold. When they arrived in New York, the Hudson River was frozen over. Honea and a friend wanted to see the Statue of Liberty and went top side hoping to see it. It was freezing and they waited for two hours. The ship dropped anchor right there beside it. An ice breaker worked the Hudson so they could get through. They docked at 34th Street on the Hudson and unloaded. There was a big band playing. Honea finds it hard to describe how wonderful it was to be home. The band was great. They boarded a ferry and were taken across the bay to New Jersey where they boarded a train to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. He spent 22 hours there with nothing to do before going down to Fort Bragg, North Carolina where he got new clothes and shots. He was discharged at Fort Bragg. Honea had a girlfriend waiting for him at home, so he did not stay in the Army.

Chafer Honea was discharged at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It was late at night and there was a soldier at Fort Bragg who offered to take some of the men to Charlotte, North Carolina to catch a bus home. Honea got to his hometown of Anderson, South Carolina around 1:30 in the morning. He went to his sister and brother-in-law's house and they were glad to see him. Honea went to see his girlfriend around two in the morning. He had sent a telegram from the ship, so she knew it was him at the door that time of the morning. He spent some time there and then went to Liberty, South Carolina to see his mother and had a good reunion. [Annotator's Note: Honea gets very emotional.] She knew he was coming back, but she still could not believe it. [Annotator's Note: Honea gets very emotional again.] He met his new stepfather and really liked him. The war did not affect Honea negatively in any way. His most memorable experience was being strafed by two German aircraft when he first got overseas. He was only 100 yards away from the artillery they were strafing. He could see the pilot sitting in the plane. He recalls a time when they were guarding a Cub [Annotator's Note: Piper J-3 Cub, known in the military as the L-4 Grasshopper, light observation aircraft] field. The gun pit he was in had a homemade heater and the stove pipe stuck up out of the pit. Their orders were to track the Cubs with their antiaircraft guns as practice. A Cub was coming in for a landing and the pilot did not like that they were tracking him. He flew over the gun pit and turned and hit the stove pipe. Honea saw him coming and got out of the way. The wing knocked the pipe off. The men tried to get their sergeant to make a complaint, but he would not do it. That was scary to him. Honea did not decide to serve in the war, Uncle Sam decided for him by drafting him. The war made him appreciate what he has. He feels he helped bring peace but is worried about how long it is going to last now. He is proud to be an American and that he got to serve his country. It is a great feeling. He would not trade anything for it. He feels that it is important for the young people to learn what World War 2 was. The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana would open young peoples' eyes. He wishes everybody would visit it.