Storyteller: Parker, William (Bill)

Interviewer: Livingston, Leslie

Date: 07/31/2019

Language: English

Initiative: Tulsans Talk

Description: Bill Parker was raised in LeFlore and Latimer Counties. He fell out of the touring car on the way to California. Drafted in 1943, he left New York on the Queen Elizabeth. His sweetheart Colleen worked at the Douglas Aircraft Plant in Tulsa. He was a wire cutter on June 6. He thinks he was the first man alive on Bloody Omaha Beach. The unit fought hedgerow to hedgerow and walked 600 miles in 43 days. At the far French border he stole a cow and the unit had steaks to eat. Bill was wounded twice. Bill returned and married Colleen in December,1945. Later he bought a little white house on the north side of Tulsa. Bill's story was in the Tulsa World and is in the Eisenhower Museum and the National World War 11 Museum.

Subjects: Farming, Schools, Lovesickness, Drafted, Seasickness, the Queen Elizabeth Ocean liner, Omaha Beach invasion, Walking across France, Being wounded twice, Stealing a Cow for Steaks, Medals awarded, the Little white house