I was born at home during the "roaring twenties" on the sixth of June in1923. My parents, William and Louise Ihlefeld, were living on a farm in Scott County, Iowa at the time and I was their fourth son. They named me, Carl. Following the birth of their fifth child, my only sister, our family of seven was complete.
After attending several country schools and finishing the eighth grade, I graduated from Pershing, No.7. The nearest high school was in Davenport, Iowa, and having no transportation for the 20 mile trip each day, I was unable to attend. Instead, I began supporting myself by working with various farm families around the county for $30 a month plus room and board.
My horizons widened along with our country's recovery from "The Great Depression". I began taking jobs in other Iowa counties and even on some farms on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.
By 1939, the world was at war. America joined in the fighting December 8th, 1941, the day after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. During October of 1943, the headlines reported Italy's declaration of war on Germany and America's disastrous losses of both men and equipment following an attempt to destroy the ball bearing plants in Schweinfurt, Germany. That month, I was drafted into the army. I had not yet celebrated my twenty-first birthday.
My basic training took place at Camp Blanding, near sunny Jacksonville, Florida. It lasted 13 weeks and was followed by a short furlough back home to Iowa and its cold winter days. In February of 1944, I reported to Camp Shanks, New Jersey, for departure to England.
The converted French ship we sailed on had originally been built to transport cargo, not military units. Space was extremely limited and there wasn’t enough room for everyone to sleep at once. While some men slept in the bunks below, others walked the decks above and waited for their approved time to rest. During the entire two week voyage, the waves rocked the ship back and forth while our sleep cycles rotated in designated shifts. We had only two meals a day. It was always the exact same meal: black coffee, hard boiled "cold storage" eggs and piping hot potatoes which were boiled in their peelings. Everyone stood to eat, but because of our crowded conditions, that too was done by rotation. Due to the ship's constant motion, seasickness caused many to throw up on the steps and hand railings. The slime of vomit and the odor it caused could sure kill the appetite of the next group that made their way through it when it was their turn to eat.
After two monotonous weeks of eating the exact same meal twice a day, we arrived at Belfast, Ireland, where huge amounts of oranges, green bananas, and other foods were unloaded from our ship. None of us had any idea such tasty items had accompanied us across the ocean. It is probably best we weren't aware of it!
From northern Ireland, we moved on to Glasgow, Scotland, exchanging our ship for a convoy of trucks bound for somewhere in England. We set up camp in a bare field, in squad tents, each of them able to house about twelve people. When a load of straw and weeds was needed to stuff the mattress bags in the camp, I volunteered ride along on the truck and help gather it. Everyday, hour after hour, we were kept busy--constantly walking or running from one town or another and back again in an effort to regain the endurance we'd lost while at sea. When the tent kitchens were set up, bottle gas was used for fuel because there was no electricity available. Since the area was sandy and had a free-draining soil which didn't hold water for long, it was inhospitable and considered a heathland. We gathered "dry heath" (basically parched scrub grasses and stubble) for heating water to wash our mess kits. We washed our own clothes in a creek about half a mile from our camp. A few times, in the two months we were there, a semi-truck with a double row of shower heads came through. They were all open, so the men could take turns having a refreshing shower.
About the first of June, we boarded LCI's and LST's smaller boats and landing craft) and waited to be sent into combat. Five days later, the invasion began. It was my 21st birthday and I spent it onboard, in readiness for battle. We were the replacements to be assigned to a regular infantry division. Our LCI was sent to Utah beach which was located south of the Cotentin Peninsula. There, on the seventh of June, we joined the 4th Infantry Division. I had the charge of a light mortar squad. The Germans used every possible tactic to stop us, including flooding a belt of low-lying land (extending from the mouth of the Douve River to Quinneville) to close off all the fields and roads in the area. They positioned themselves in firing trenches and behind the seawall with sniper pillboxes and tank turrets that were raised up by concrete walls. The area between them and us was heavily mined and protected by barbed wire. Due to poor weather conditions and various complications, our landing didn't go exactly as planned. And yet, at the points where the Germans were not expecting us, we were able to get in. As a result, the forces at Utah Beach had fewer casualties that day than those at Omaha Beach suffered. Even so, many bodies were floating about, showing we also had heavy losses. We didn’t have to scale cliffs at this site, but we were under constant fire from artillery and air power. We traveled less than a mile that day. From June 6th to June 28th, the 4th Division had 5,450 casualties, and over 800 soldiers were killed in action. This was just the twenty-second day into our objective of taking the city of Cherbourg. In July, as our 4th Division was trying to break out from the peninsula of Cherbourg our 22nd Regiment was assigned to Patton’s Third Army.
Our Air Force was bombing the resistant German forces. We had red artillery smoke bombs to mark where our front lines were, but a strong wind came up and the red smoke drifted back over our own troops, who were then mistakenly targeted as enemies. We finally had a successful break-through against the German Army and were among the first troops to enter Paris. For this initiative, our division received the Presidential Citation. From Paris we continued on to Belgium. September 4, 5,and 6th we headed for the Siegfried Line and the German border. Five days later, we entered Germany. In early November, the division moved forward and assembled in the Hurtgen Forest, east of Eupen and southeast of Aachen. This was a top secret maneuver and was expected to be a big attack. It was a savage fight and the most grueling battle in Europe from D-Day (the Normandy invasion) to V-E Day (Victory in Europe). Our mission was to seize the main road from Hurtgen to Durenand, attacking the forest on Nov.16, 1944. This area was heavily mined and defended by four German divisions whose soldiers carried countless machine guns that were aimed directly at us. The battle took a heavy toll and we suffered many casualties. After 19 days of battle, our company of 160 men received about 300 replacements. I was lucky to be one of the thirty-five men who were able to walk away from the combat on their own power.
After only 12 days out of Hurtgen Forest, we were back in action and struggling to stop the German advance. The winter of 1944-45 was the coldest ever on record in Europe. On Dec. l6th, the German army launched an attack to take back the city of Luxembourg. That was the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. Our losses were grave and yet, soldiers with battle experience were needed even after the new replacements arrived. Many of the same men, who'd fought in the Hurtgen Forest conflict, immediately returned to action. We had to use 1/2 pound blocks of TNT to blast soil loose in order to dig our foxholes. No boots were issued to us until the first of March. Because the weather conditions were so severe, many of us fought for the land those Germans were attempting to reclaim, with frozen hands and feet. In January, after an extremely bitter fight, we took Prum. It was an important city to Germany. During this battle, I was awarded the Purple Heart after being injured by shrapnel in my chin. It was not deemed to be severe enough to be sent back to the hospital. Instead, I was treated and bandaged by the medic as all were needed in the fighting. After this battle was over, we were sent to southern France where we were relieved for about l0 days following the arrival of many replacements.
On March 30, 1945, we crossed the Rhine river. It was Easter Sunday. The first day after crossing, we were assigned to an armored division and by riding all day on the tanks, we made forty-five miles. For the first time, we weren't required to walk through the entire advancement because there wasn’t much resistance at that point. We crossed the Danube river April 26, 1945, on pontoon boats. We were not with the armored division anymore because that was just for one day. We moved through Winterbach and Glottany toward the Alps, crossing the Lech River with little resistance, and advanced to the Amper River, capturing 1000 prisoners. My 2nd battalion seized a bridgehead on the east bank of the Saar River, then swept on in increasingly cold weather to the Bavarian Alps. The final objective was to take Hitler’s hideaway, but the war ended before that ever happened. We were relieved on May 3, 1945 and the 22nd infantry, which I belonged to, went to Nuremburg which we occupied and guarded.
In early June we received word that our regiment would be returning to the states for a 30 day rest and recuperation before proceeding to the Pacific for further operations, but happily, the war ended beforehand. With a loss of 35,355 men, our 22nd Regiment had the highest casualty count of the division's three regiments.
From the time we landed after D-Day, we went 199 days without a hot meal. We were promised a hot turkey dinner for Thanksgiving. It arrived in the Hurtgen Forest at 2 a.m. the next morning. The turkey sandwiches and black coffee were frozen!
With the rank of sergeant, Co. G, 22nd Infantry, 4th Division, I was discharged from the army October 23, 1945, at Camp Croft, SC. The next day, the United Nations was officially born. I gladly returned to the quietness of our family farm. The following month the Nuremburg trials began.
During the summer of 1948, I met Marilyn and we married December 8, 1951. For about a year and a half, we worked on a farm for the State of Iowa, then rented a farm near Wolcott, Iowa where we lived the next four years. In March of 1957, we were able to buy a farm in the Spencer-Loyal area of Clark Co, Wisconsin and have called that " our home" for nearly fifty years.
By Carl H. Ihlefeld
