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Lexie WWII Interview 2/5/08 Hello, my name is Lexie Franc, and I am interviewing Eddy Sunder. Sunder was in Naples, Florida during the interview, and I was in St. Louis, Missouri. We e-mailed via computer, during January 28, 2008, and January 31, 2008. I chose Ed because I had originally chosen my Grandfather, but he didn’t know much about it. So he directed me to his friend down in Naples, who was a pilot in World War Two. Because of this, I chose Eddy Sunder. Eddy Sunder was born in 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri. He likes to play golf, and he went into the war at 21 years old. I don’t really know much more about his biographical information because my grandfather interviewed him. My grandfather only asked about the war, and not his biographical information. I would have loved to know more about him, though. Captain Eddy Sunder received a notice in the mail one day saying that he was drafted into the war. He then took a physical, and since he passed it, he went into the army. He was drafted to build up troops and was in the infantry. In February of 1942, Eddy went into officer training, and became an officer soon after. Pearl Harbor sped things up. Eddy then went to Maryland to train other officers. Most of the officers he trained were sent to South Africa, and suffered serious injuries. Eddy was then sent to Fort Meade to finish his pilot training. He went through another year of pilot training, and after that he was assigned to flight crews. He flew his first mission on August 11th of 1944, in conjunction with the famous invasion of Normandy (D-Day). In July of 1944 Eddy flew a B-24 bomber to Germany. He was with the elite eighth air force in England, and flew thirty missions into Germany. He was a lead pilot and had sights for bombing missions. During the thirty missions, he was so badly damaged from enemy fire that they had to land before they were out of fuel, but they made it back each time. Eddy’s last mission was in 1944, when he was the lead plane for the air force and they dropped supplies down at tree top level to our troops. Our troops had gone in to the brine river for the final invasion of Germany, and they were very badly shot up. After the battle, Eddy was very grateful to serve on behalf of the country. He came back to St. Louis for some rest and recreation (r & r). When he came back to St. Louis, he got many job offers because everyone had gone to serve in the army. He chose to work in the insurance industry. My grandfather (Terry Franc) remembers that those who didn’t go into the war bought war bonds, planted victory gardens, factories stopped making cars and instead made tanks, women made bandages out of sheets, gasoline rationing, and that there were rationing stamps for food. Everyone was doing their part to help the war efforts. Some lesshons that other people should take from reading this interview is that we should never let anything like this happen again. We killed millions of people, and we lost almost a whole generation. Another lesion is that if something like this does happen again, we should talk to the people who were involved in it while they are still alive, so we know the full story. I really appreciated doing this interview and learning more about the war.