Charles Wesley Borders was born in April 1922 in Kenedy, Texas. He was the third child of six. His father was a school teacher. At age five they moved to Halletsville, Texas. At 11, they moved to San Antonio, Texas. He stayed there until World War 2 started. He considers San Antonio his hometown. His son served in Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. His older brother was in the Navy on PT Boats [Annotator's Note: patrol torpedo boat] in the North Atlantic [Annotator's Note: Atlantic Ocean]. They lived in a farming community and his mother knew how to farm well. They had a three acre garden and butchered their own meat every Fall. They ate well and had good clothes but there was very little cash in those days. The Federal Government recommended the local farmers produce tomatoes for sale back East. [Annotator's Note: During the Great Depression.] Borders graduated from high school in 1939 and went to work in San Antonio. He also went to junior college to get credits. He wanted to go in the Army Air Corps and in those days you needed a degree and a recommendation to get in.

The war started and 50 of Charles Wesley Borders' classmates went to Canada to join the RCAF [Annotator's Note: Royal Canadian Air Force] to fight in the Battle of Britain [Annotator's Note: 10 July to 31 October 1940]. Borders applied [Annotator's Note: to the RCAF] in San Antonio [Annotator's Note: San Antonio, Texas] and was going to get his orders on 8 December [Annotator's Note: 8 December 1941]. 7 December was a Sunday [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. The recruiter [Annotator's Note: RCAF] was packing to leave and told Borders to go sign up down the street. He became a United States Army Air Corps Aviation Cadet. When he was eight years old, three De Havilland DH-4s [Annotator's Note: Airco DH.4 bomber aircraft] got lost and landed in a field next to his house. One damaged his landing gear. That plane remained a week while being repaired, and the pilot let him sit it in it. That hooked him. He wanted to fly airplanes. He put in his paperwork in January, but did not get called until May 1942. He entered at Kelly Field [Annotator's Note: now part of Joint Base San Antonio] for preflight. Lackland Air Base [Annotator's Note: Lackland Air Force Base in Bexar County, Texas] had just opened, and he was in the first group there. He went to Vernon, Texas [Annotator's Note: Victory Field] and flew PT-19As [Annotator's Note: Fairchild PT-19 primary trainer aircraft] there. Advanced flying school was at Brooks Field in AT-6s [Annotator's Note: North American AT-6 Texan advanced trainer aircraft] and BC-1s [Annotator's Note: prototype version of AT-6]. The observation school was at Brooks Field [Annotator's Note: later Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas]. He learned about aerial photography. They trained in an O-52 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss O-52 Owl observation aircraft]. One thing he learned that is unique, is how to adjust artillery for both the Army and the Navy. Just him in a P-39 [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft], adjusting a whole armada's artillery for a landing. MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] had found out they could do that and that is how they got the job for Hollandia [Annotator’s Note: Battle of Hollandia, New Guinea; Operation Reckless, 22 April to 6 June 1944] and Wakde Island [Annotator's Note: Battle of Wakde, Operation Straight Line, New Guinea, 18 to 21 May 1944].

Charles Wesley Borders served for about two months in the Louisiana Maneuvers in 1943. He and five others were sent there to haul the umpires around for the war games in civilian airplanes like Piper Cubs [Annotator's Note: Piper J-3 Cub light observation aircraft]. He then went to P-39 [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft] fighter school in Thomasville, Georgia. He was assigned to a special assignment at Key Field in Meridian, Mississippi. The British had devised a system of cameras in highspeed Spitfires [Annotator's Note: British Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft]. The survival rate was better. The British sent eight officers as instructors to Key Field. Ten pilots from the P-39 fighter school, ten from the P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] school, and ten from the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] school. They were the first tactical reconnaissance class in the country. Borders was assigned to the 82nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group. He joined the unit as a filler pilot, flying the P-39 in fighter roles. The reconnaissance training was quite a bit different. They graduated from the fighter school and were qualified as fighter pilots. Their reconnaissance training from the British included a lot of low-level work. Navigating with stopwatches, crossing streams at treetop level. The purposes were for evasion and surviving. They could get tremendous coverage by the cameras they carried, flying low. They did visual reconnaissance. They also learned to adjust artillery at puff ranges, or miniature ranges that use lights instead of rounds. Later, they used live fire ranges.

When the Hollandia [Annotator's Note: Battle of Hollandia, New Guinea; Operation Reckless, 22 April to 6 June 1944] invasion was being planned, MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] met with staff off Goodenough Island, New Guinea. Charles Wesley Borders and a wingman were invited to explain their capabilities in reconnaissance. They showed them how they could adjust artillery from the P-39 [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft]. Borders learned how to develop the film and put it together. They also had to do 18 words per minute on the bug [Annotator's Note: listening, or communication in code device]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks how the P-39 performed in the role.] Any kind of an airplane would do. Speed is survival. Low-level too. You cannot hear an airplane low-level until it is right on you. They would use terrain to hide. The cameras were placed close to the "CG" [Annotator's Note: center of gravity] and it did not affect the aircraft's performance. They put three cameras in a P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] and called it an F-6, but it did not change the airplane. Borders flew to Dobodura [Annotator's Note: Dobodura Airfield Complex; near present day Popondetta, Papua, New Guinea], Papua, New Guinea in November 1943. The 82nd Squadron [Annotator's Note: 82nd Reconnaissance Squadron, 71st Reconnaissance Group] was short four pilots. Borders and three others joined them as filler pilots and then the squadron was changed to tactical reconnaissance. Borders was an instructor most of the time to train the other guys.

They [Annotator’s Note: Charles Borders and his fellow pilots in the 82nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group in New Guinea] got some very unusual missions. When the Japanese were turned around in the Solomons [Annotator's Note: Solomon Islands] and New Guinea, they started retreating north. They had way stations where they tried to recoup. There was a big one at Madang, New Guinea. They had a herd of cows they were using to feed the soldiers. Borders and four guys went up to destroy the herd. One pilot pulled out and could not do it. He was a rancher from Wyoming, Jim Richardson, and he had been raised with cows. They did a lot of shooting and bombing from low-level. They were called the "Strafing Saints." They did reconnaissance on the side. The 71st Group was a strange mix. It had two fighter squadrons, one B-25 [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] squadron, and one L-5 [Annotator's Note: Stinson L-5 Sentinel light observation aircraft] squadron. They lived in a tent city with lots of mosquitos. Dengue fever and malaria were rampant. They did not get a lot to eat. They did not have water most places. On the islands it was pretty easy as they were normally on the shore. They learned to dig a hole and it would fill with brackish water they could use to bathe. They moved about every two months. If you had a river, you were really lucky. Water was the number one priority. First bathing and then drinking. Borders started at 178 pounds and came home at 147. He could lose eight pounds to sweat on a mission. The aircraft did not have air conditioning. He could not wear underwear. There were terrible rashes. The old time khaki pants would get really soft and absorb sweat.

When Charles Weskey Borders got to New Guinea it had not been secured. The worst time was when he was based at Noemfoor [Annotator's Note: Noemfoor, Papua New Guinea] in the Fall of 1944. The Army invaded, pushed the people back, made an airstrip, and left [Battle of Noemfoor, 2 July to 31 August 1944]. Borders and his unit [Annotator's Note: 82nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group] brought in their airplanes, set up shop and put their latrines in the woods. They then found that the perimeter was between the tents and the latrines. At night, the Japanese would send in banzai attacks [Annotator's Note: Japanese human wave attacks]. It was not a concern mostly. They had a lot of antiaircraft activity at night. They [Annotator's Note: the Japanese] would ferry planes to the airfields at night to refuel and load bombs. It was mostly nuisance bombing at night. The men would go sit around the 90mm [Annotator's Note: 90mm antiaircraft gun] as a cheering section. It was kind of scary. They dug foxholes and they would hit them when they heard the aircraft coming. The P-39 [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft] was getting obsolete. It was not a good fighter against the Japanese Zeros [Annotator's Note: Japanese Mitsubishi A6M fighter aircraft, referred to as the Zeke or Zero]. If chased by a Zero, the P-39 would go into a steep dive and pull up at the last minute. The P-39's wings would not come off, but the Zero's would. It was an ideal plane for strafing. It had two .50 calibers [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun] in the nose with a 37mm cannon [Annotator's Note: M4 37mm Automatic Cannon]. The wings had a .50, or two 30s [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .30 caliber machine gun], in each wing. Borders preferred the "N" model that had four .30s, two .50s, and a 37mm. You could kill just about anything with that. The 37mm is pretty good sized shell. They used it very successfully on Japanese small shipping and barges. One 37mm in the gas tank of one barge and you did not have to shoot anything else. They teamed up with Navy PT-Boat Squadron 9 [Annotator's Note: Motor Torpedo Boat Squadron Nine (MTBRon 9)]. Two airplanes would go with the boat along the coast and hit the Japanese way stations. The P-39s would take out the guns for the PT Boats before they got there. Borders had to ditch once and one of the PT Boats picked him up.

Charles Wesley Borders' unit [Annotator's Note: 82nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group] was supposed to get P-63s [Annotator's Note: Bell P-63 Kingcobra fighter aircraft] which was the follow-on to the P-39 [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft]. It was in competition with the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] for construction. The P-51 got out ahead of it. As they started running out of airplanes, some P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] were found in the United States and they got two squadrons worth of those. They flew them concurrently with the P-39s. They finally got P-51s to replace the P-40s. They never stood down a day. They never had any formal training and did an amazing job converting [Annotator's Note: with the aircraft]. Borders never met a sharper group in his whole life. Borders picked up the first P-51 in November 1944. He and five others went down to Finschhafen [Annotator's Note: Finschhafen, New Guinea] from Biak, New Guinea where six of them were. He had never seen one before up close. There was no documentation with them at all. They had a five-hour flight over water, so they checked them out first. He had only flown the P-40 around a couple of times before he went on his first mission in one. On his second mission in one, he wrecked it.

The United States was going into Biak [Annotator's Note: Biak, Western New Guinea] and the Japanese thwarted the landing using artillery from caves. Charles Wesley Borders was flying missions, shooting into the caves and trying to drop 500 pound bombs in the holes. Owi Island was offshore and the engineers were building a strip there. Borders got hit on one pass and his propeller ran away. The propeller was electric on the P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] and must have been hit. It would run up on its own. He had noticed there were two airplanes wrecked on the side of the island. He told them he was going to try to land there. He dropped his gear manually. He noticed his brakes were gone but he was supposed to have emergency brakes. He touched down he had no brakes at all. He was down to about 60 miles per hour and he hit some barrels and a roller [Annotator's Note: runway machinery]. The airplane snapped in half and the engine was knocked off. All that was left was him in the cockpit sliding down the runway. The driver of the roller had jumped off. Borders did not have a scratch. That was his second mission in a P-40. It was a workhorse. It had to be man-handled. You would be physically tired after a mission in a P-40. It had six .50s [Annotator's Note: Browning ANM2 .50 caliber machine gun] and could carry three bombs or two bombs and a belly tank. The P-39 [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft] was a fun airplane to fly. Visibility was fantastic. You could see everything. It was really touchy, and you had to be careful.

Charles Wesley Borders and his fellow pilots all started at about the same time. They had three flights of 11 pilots, with one ops [Annotator's Note: Operations] officer and a commander. The Pacific Theater was a second priority to the European Theater. They were controlled by what happened over there. For a long time, they did not get any replacements. The first year they lost 30 pilots out of the 35. Seven of the losses were what was called combat fatigue. They would start wrecking planes. Borders flew more missions than anybody with 205. Some he flew sick. It was more fun flying than sitting around camp with malaria. It [Annotator's Note: losing a pilot] did not seem to affect anybody unless you saw them go in. Flying is a distraction of sorts and not a direct thing. If you see your buddy blow up, that is different. Borders knew it was a high-risk operation and became a flight leader. After a briefing, he would get whoever was going with him, and have another briefing to discuss actions when vulnerable. He would accept no other action than that, and he only lost one guy in the next nine months. That paid off. They were all very young. The young take chances. He reduced that as much as possible in the details. The one Borders lost violated a cardinal rule. They were strafing an airstrip. Borders had a flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire] suppression idea. The one guy was happy he was successful and turned to shoot again and they got him. He was young and new. Kids grow up in a hurry. Being detached from the blood and guts helped. A friend of Borders was severely burned in a crash. They had no hospital at the time. He did not want to go back to the United States. Borders volunteered to be his nurse and had to do all of the bodily functions for him for three weeks. That pilot [Annotator's Note: later US Army Air Forces Captain Paul Mudge Lipscomb] stayed and got the Distinguished Service Cross [Annotator's Note: the Distinguished Service Cross is the second-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy].

When Charles Wesley Borders was not flying, he had some reading material and records. They would also play ball. There was not much spare time. The Pacific war was making a landing, cleaning up, make another landing and keep moving. They did that just about every two months. They would try to build a bar if they could find anything to put in it. Later on, they got a little bit of beer and liquor from Australia on R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation]. Every so many missions, he would get a week off. On one trip, he left his clothes and brought back 19 bottles of whiskey. His bag weighed 91 pounds. They had a party, as they had not had a drink in three months. The Australians were very mad at the English because they took their young men, sent them away, and kept them away for six years. There were a lot of women with nothing to do. Americans married 60,000 of them. The Red Cross took over a hotel on the edge of Sydney, which is where they stayed. The people were very friendly and grateful, and they expressed that. The Coral Sea battle [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Coral Sea, 4 to 8 May 1942] was the turning point [Annotator's Note: the Americans stopping the Japanese invasion of Australia]. While in New Guinea, Borders had some interaction with the native people. They were very primitive, and the average lifespan was 30 years. It was hard to live in Papua New Guinea. There was very little wildlife and some poisonous fish in the rivers. Most of them lived by the sea and ate a lot of breadfruit. They do not grow anything. On the north end, they are a little further along. Borders and the men used them to help clean up around camp. They were very pleasant, easy to get along with, and jovial. The Australians were responsible for them on the south end and the Dutch on the north end.

As Charles Wesley Borders' squadron [Annotator's Note: 82nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group] got the P-40s [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft], they retired the P-39s [Annotator's Note: Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter aircraft]. Their sister squadron, the 110th [Annotator's Note: 110th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group, 5th Air Force] got their old P-39s. They just parked them when they all moved. In the highlands area of East New Guinea, a group started collecting old war stuff. One of those was Borders' old airplane. It was cleaned up and put on a pedestal at the gate of a museum. They finally found Borders. Borders sent pictures so they could paint it the same way it was. Shomo's [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel William Arthur "Bill" Shomo; Medal of Honor recipient] airplane was brought back to the United States that way. Another one called "The Brooklyn Bum", Peter McDermott's [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Peter McDermott] plane, was recovered too. Borders named his plane "San Antonio Rose", which was a favorite song and symbolized the city. He named the ones he had time to, the same name. The other side had his wife's name, "Jacquelyn." Borders came home in June 1945 and got married. He liked flying the P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] in combat the best. It was the epitome of combat aviation. It was a marvelous machine. He feels the same way about the C-130 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo and transport aircraft]. It is still flown by 66 countries and can do things you would not believe.

Charles Wesley Borders moved to Biak [Annotator's Note: Biak, Western New Guinea], then Halmahera [Annotator's Note: Halmahera Island, Maluku Islands, Indonesia], Noemfoor [Annotator's Note: Numfoor Island, Schouten Islands, Papua New Guinea], then to San Jose Island south of Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines], on 1 January 1945. He spent New Year's Eve there. About a week after the Hollandia [Annotator's Note: Hollandia, New Guinea] invasion, Wakde Island [Annotator's Note: Wakde Island, New Guinea] was invaded. They had an airfield and a Japanese contingent. Borders flew up to Hollandia and spent the night on a hill with the 90mm [Annotator's Note: 90mm antiaircraft gun]. He took off the next morning and checked in with a Navy cruiser. He told them to fire their first artillery and then he gave them some corrections that worked. He then said to "fire with effect" and the whole world lit up. One guy shoots and everybody else adjusts their guns based on what Borders tell them. This was rockets and big guns and it was amazing. B-25s [Annotator's Note: North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber] moved in a week later and there was nothing left that was higher than two feet. Before hitting the Philippines, they had not been in any civilized countries. No road, hardly any people, just Japanese dug in. Reaching the Philippines, it was a whole different environment. Borders flew up to the north end at Tarlac [Annotator's Note: Tarlac, Luzon, Philippines] and through Baguio Pass [Annotator's Note: Baguio Pass, Luzon, Philippines]. The Japanese were already pulling stuff out of the Manila area. The roads were just jammed. He caught miles and miles of Army [Annotator's Note: Japanese Army] equipment and they picked them off until they were almost out of ammunition.

The scariest mission Charles Wesley Borders flew was just before the invasion of Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. They were to go up to Tarlac [Annotator's Note: Tarlac, Luzon, Philippines] to a railyard near Clark Field. Borders wanted to shoot a train, and he did. He pulled up around a big water tank that had palm fronds all over it. That bothered him. He made another pass to get another tank and then pumped a couple rounds into the tank. It blew up in his face. The concussion lifted the airplane about 1,500 feet straight up. He pulled out and could not keep his feet still. That was the most exciting trip he ever made. [Annotator's Note: Borders laughs.] The tank had fuel instead of water. Borders was scheduled for a mission [Annotator's Note: on 11 January 1945] into the north valley [Annotator's Note: past Baguio, Luzon, Philippines] looking for traffic. Their squadron commander, Major Shomo [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Colonel William Arthur "Bill" Shomo, Medal of Honor recipient] had met some people who had just arrived in a new P-51 [Annotator's Note: North American P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft] outfit. He arranged to fly a mission with them. Shomo took one flight, Lipscomb [Annotator's Note: US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Paul Mudge Lipscomb] took one, and Borders another. The mission of the others was to go up the coast looking for airport traffic. They would all meet at the north of the island at Aparri [Annotator's Note: Aparri, Luzon, Philippines] to return. Borders was almost out of ammunition and fuel, and told Shomo he had to go back. Shomo decided to return the way he came up. Borders switched his flight to a different radio channel. [Annotator's Note: Borders backs up in the story.] The visiting fighters had gotten called back, so it was now just Shomo and Lipscomb alone. The two of them ran into 12 fighters [Annotator's Note: Japanese] and a Betty bomber [Annotator's Note: Mistubishi G4M medium bomber, known as the Betty]. They had a big fight and Shomo and Lipscomb shot down ten of them in ten minutes. Meanwhile, Borders broke out of the clouds to see another set of 12 fighters and a Betty bomber. The four closest [Annotator's Note: Japanese fighters] dove on them. Borders got away and got behind the Betty. He and his wingman only had one gun each left with 50 rounds each. They shot the bomber down. The fighters never chased them. Borders went home. His number three plane could not make it home. They began a long, slow glide home. At 7,000 feet, the plane ran out of gas. They were about 20 miles out, but he made it to the runway and landed safely. That airplane was a wonderful machine. Borders gave the kill to his wingman. They did not keep track of the airplanes they shot on the ground. Borders shot hundreds. Very few of his unit [Annotator's Note: 82nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group, 5th Air Force], had any aerial victories.

Charles Wesley Borders was up at the north end of Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines] just before the invasion [Annotator's Note: 9 January 1945]. Two unescorted Japanese transports were nearing the coastline. Borders and his flight were on a mission and saw the ships. The ships only had three guns. They took out all three guns in one pass. They had armor-piercing incendiary ammunition. They set one of the ships on fire. One of the pilots in the other flight got hit and was bailing out. Borders escorted him down. He waved that he was safe. They stayed around as long as they could before heading back. The next morning, a PBY [Annotator's Note: Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat] recovered him. He had gone ashore at night, and he was chased so much, he went back out into the water. The PBY took some rifle hits that severed a fuel line but it was able to get airborne and got him home. The next day they found the boat they had burned. There were hundreds and hundreds of men on deck on those boats.

Charles Wesley Borders was strafing a target in New Guinea and got hit. He nursed the airplane back to a temporary base at Saidor [Annotator's Note: Saidor, Papua New Guinea]. There was a detachment there on a new strip. One bullet had hit his distributor cap. They fixed it and he took off to go back to home base. Just offshore was a huge thunderstorm. He went around it and the engine quit cold when he was 30 miles out to sea. He ditched the airplane. He spun around and got out. He got his raft out and jumped in. The other two airplanes stayed around awhile. One of them found a PT Boat [Annotator's Note: patrol torpedo boat]. Borders had been in the water for 45 minutes. The commander apologized that his ice cream machine was broken. After destroying two Japanese transports, Borders flew another 20 missions. They were all pretty exciting. They [Annotator's Note: US military] were getting ready to go into Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. They were supporting some of the invasion operation. Mostly he did mop-up operations all over Luzon [Annotator's Note: Luzon, Philippines]. There were still Japanese everywhere. Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] had been taken, and a lot of the Japanese had gone into the foothills. A friend of Borders borrowed his airplane to go on a mission, got shot down and was lost. Years later, one of the guys was in Midland, Texas for a show and a lady came up to him. She was the sister of the man who had gone down. A guy from Houston [Annotator's Note: Houston, Texas], and a guy from Florida who had been the wingman, got on the phone with the family and told them the story. The guy who was shot down had a son born afterwards. The son lived down the street from his former wingman in Florida. J.B. Cox [Annotator's Note: the pilot who was lost flying Borders' plane] was from Sweetwater, Texas.

Charles Wesley Borders heard about Roosevelt's [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] death while he was in the Philippines. Everybody felt sorry for him, but they all knew he was having trouble. They did not do anything special. The news of the German surrender [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945] made the rounds. They were all uplifted because they knew all of those goodies were coming to them. They had been low man on the post for so long. Harry Truman [Annotator's Note: Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States] dropped the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. The Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan] offensive was so brutal, so many men were lost. A lot more than D-Day [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. People think that D-Day was the end all, they should read up on Okinawa. It was vicious. They were getting ready to go to Japan. Borders was sent back to the United States because they had a lot of people coming over. He was asked if he wanted to be the squadron commander [Annotator's Note: of the 82nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group, 5th Air Force] or go home. He wanted to go home and get married. He left from Lingayen Gulf [Annotator's Note: Lingayen Gulf, Philippines] to Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Luzon, Philippines] and caught a brand new transport ship home. The last three days on the boat were a riot. When they passed Hawaii, they pumped the ballast out and were going wide open. They hit the Japanese current and the ship almost rolled over. They ate standing up for three days. Nobody cared and everybody was laughing. They came in at San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. His wife-to-be was waiting for him and they went to Colorado to get married.

Charles Wesley Borders was home when the Japanese surrendered. He celebrated for a week. Borders fell in love with flying airplanes and wanted to fly more. He had some job offers that were quite attractive, but he decided to stay for 30 [Annotator's Note: 30 years]. He eventually got a regular commission and he got to fight in all of the wars [Annotator's Note: World War 2, the Korean War and the Vietnam War]. He did not fly fighters in Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. When he met the board to get his regular commission he was asked what he could do. He told them he was "the best damn pilot in the world." They asked what else he could do. He said he was good at numbers, so they sent him to management school and he became a comptroller in 1947. He continued to fly. When Korea started, he was the comptroller of the 51st Fighter Wing [Annotator's Note: 51st Fighter Wing, 7th Air Force] in Naha, Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Naha, Okinawa, Japan]. They went into the Inchon landing [Annotator's Note: Battle of Inchon, 10 to 19 September 1950; Incheon, South Korea] and opened up the Kimpo Airfield [Annotator's Note: Kimpo Air Base, or K-14, Seoul, South Korea; now Gimpo International Airport]. They ran three fighter squadrons. They went to Tsuiki, Japan after getting kicked out of Korea. He flew C-47s [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] medevac [Annotator's Note: medical evacuation], 105 missions of medevac and supply. He flew Marines out of Chosin [Annotator's Note: Battle of Chosin Reservoir, 27 November to 13 December 1950]. He became a numbered Air Force flying training officer for National Guard fighter squadrons in seven states. All of the units were converted to airlift instead of fighters. He had converted the wing at Pope [Annotator's Note: now Pope Field; formerly Pope Air Force Base], Fort Bragg, North Carolina from C-123s [Annotator's Note: Fairchild C-123 Provider transport aircraft] to C-130s [Annotator's Note: Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft]. He was the squadron commander of a C-123 squadron and started them to Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] in 1962. When Lyndon [Annotator's Note: Lyndon Baines Johnson, 36th President of the United States] started the big push, all of the 123s were sent over permanently. Borders volunteered to go run the operation in 1964. He then ran the entire Pacific airlift fleet in Hawaii, moving 92 percent of the shipping in Vietnam.

Charles Wesley Borders retired from the United States Air Force on 1 September 1971. He got to be a Wing Commander which was nice. There is no greater honor than to lead men. Borders thinks that the water tank [Annotator's Note: Borders describes this mission the in the clip titled "Shooting Down a Betty"] is the most memorable experience of World War 2, but every day was something. Borders was fighting for his country. He started out from high school when we were not getting into the war. He wanted to fly airplanes and the only way he could do that was to go to war. He tried to join the Royal Canadian Air Force [Annotator's Note: RCAF] for that reason. He was home one Sunday morning when he heard of the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was packed because the next day he was to leave for the RCAF. World War 2 changed his life completely. He grew up in the war. His service is old memories and old friends. It was a time like no other and he feels very fortunate to have been around then. He thinks the war is nostalgic for Americans today, and not much else. New wars happen. New interests happen and that is the way it should be. He would tell younger people of the future to pay attention to their government and try to keep them out of trouble. It is a great country. Try to keep it. He has had a blessed life. A big part of that is the lady that he married. For that he is very grateful. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Borders his thoughts on The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Borders thinks there is nothing more important than remembering your history. The more we can remember, the better off we will be. He has two wonderful sons who both served in the Air Force. One has 184 missions in F-4s [Annotator's Note: McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jet fighter aircraft] in Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975]. The other spent 20 years shooting big missiles down range. He is very proud of both of them.