Rufus Ehlers

Before the war started, I worked hard on my parents’ farm in Missouri. My brother Elden and I were the sole support of my parents and our six other siblings, because my father had suffered a stroke. We managed the farm and cut wood and fence posts to sell. I think that our family was representative of families in the Depression. We had to walk to school even during the winters and had no indoor plumbing and no electricity. If we had homework from school it was done by the light of a kerosene lamp -- we only got electricity after the war. In those days, money was very scarce and farmers suffered because crops were very poor and cattle had little grass to eat because of the drought. I think that the hard times we endured are the reason why America was such a great fighting force at home and in battle.

Pearl Harbor happened on a Sunday and I was in church. In the afternoon the radio was turned off and we got feed for our cattle so we did not hear any news of it. The next day we had a meeting at school and we were told. I was only 16 years old, and even though it was a complete surprise to me, I wasn’t worried. Many people were killed, so then we had to get into the war. The war shouldn’t have happened, but Hitler wanted to conquer the world with his "superior race," so the U.S. was in a bind.

I was eighteen when I reported for induction. I was supposed to join in June 1944, but got a deferment until September so that I could help our family get all the crops in. I was inducted on Spetember 9, 1944. I didn’t get to choose my branch of service because I was drafted. My parents didn’t approve of my military service, but they believed that it was my constitutional duty to serve my country.

Other recruits and I went by train to Camp Joseph T. Robinson near Little Rock, Arkansas. In the next six weeks we received extensive infantry training in personal hygiene, physical conditioning, orientation, marching, hiking, firing rifles, inspection and how to protect yourself from the enemy in battle. We saw movies about different diseases, and we also went through an obstacle course during which you crawled under barbed wire for one hundred yards while live ammo was fired over our heads! We were brainwashed to hate the Germans and the Japanese.

I had my first Christmas away from home. Some other soldiers and I were invited to dinner with a family in town. It was a delicious home cooked Christmas meal, and I will always remember the hospitality of those people.

We finished basic training in January and were given leave to go home. My parents met me at the train station in Sedalia and then we drove to our farm near Cole Camp, Missouri. This was the last time I saw my father because he died while I was overseas. We thought that we would be assigned to the Pacific, but because the Battle of the Bulge had begun in Europe around this time we went there instead. We went cross-country and then embarked on a ship for Liverpool, England. We made the journey across the Atlantic in eight days. We went from England to Le Havre, France and then went on to Belgium where we were issued our combat gear. I was promoted to Private First Class when I arrived overseas and my pay was $82.50 a month, plus $10 overseas pay and $10 combat pay. My biggest fear was that I would be badly wounded in battle, but not die.

I was sent in as a replacement in the 75^th Infantry Division, which was first activated on April 15, 1943 at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It was the first division activated in Missouri, and it was also known as the "Diaper Division" because it was the youngest division in the Army at the time, with an average age of 21.9 years. Its patch is red, white and blue with a diaper on it. The 75^th had already fought in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium and in France, and over 600 of its men had been killed and many more wounded. When I joined the division it had moved to relieve the British 6^th Airborne Division on the Maas River in southeast Holland. The Germans shelled our unit across the river as we occupied a cellar in the town of Roermond.

sign.jpg (62396 bytes) We moved to a bank of the Rhine River on March 10, 1945. I was issued a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle). It weighed 21 pounds and could fire a full clip in less than 15 seconds. During the night, we sat in foxholes and moved into shelter during the day. On March 24 our unit supported the 30^th and 79^th Infantry Divisions across the Rhine. I burned up the barrel of my BAR by firing so many rounds of ammo.

One of the funniest things that happened to us was when we’d found some chickens in someone’s backyard and caught and put two of them on the stove. Before they’d had a chance to cook we were ordered to fall out and move on, so we left them. But somehow, our leader got turned around during the march and we came back by the same house! One of the men went into the house and grabbed the chickens and we passed the meat around. Did we have a meal of chicken!

During this time our patrol was heading across a field, and it had been raining and visibility was poor. Bullets were snapping around our heads and kicking up dirt. I had my rifle to protect, along with many clips of ammo and a grenade. I was lying down and trying to dig a hole. It was hard! After the firing stopped we continued with our attack.

On the April 20, 1945 Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower assured us that the German Army was done for. He told us that the German armies west of the Rhine (in France and the Low Countries) had been destroyed and that 317,000 German prisoners of war had been taken. We were assured that the Germans were on the threshold of defeat.

When we heard that Germany had been defeated the following month, I prayed that the war in the Pacific would soon be over. Our commanding officer told us that the bombing of Hiroshima was a blessing because the invasion of the Japanese mainland was about to begin — and if that had happened many more people would have been killed.

Seeing your buddies die was the saddest thing. One time a soldier had been mortally wounded. His friend asked him to say the Rosary with him. He replied by saying, "I am not Catholic."

"Let’s say the Lord’s Prayer together."

"Sure, it’s all the same," the dying man said.

Those were his last words. He died the next day.

groupehlers2.jpg (8671 bytes) I’m proud that I could be part of living history, and when I see a flag it brings tears to my eyes. I am proud that I could serve my country and with humility, and by the Grace of God, that I could return to my family in good health. Our descendants must know the price of freedom. I pray that the lives that were lost will never be forgotten and that those in the future will never face the terror and horror those millions faced. Without freedom there is no life, and the things most worth living for may sometimes demand dying for.

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