Elmer Olds
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
Elmer Olds served in World War II in the European Theater.
He served in the U.S. Army from July 22, 1944, until July 1946. He went to boot camp at Camp Hood, Texas. Then he was sent across the Atlantic by boat to France. He boarded a 40-and-8 French boxcar--so called because it could accommodate forty men or eight horses--and joined his unit. He was assigned to Company B, 11th Armored Division, 3rd Army. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
His rank was Corporal.
Mr. Olds was born in 1925 in McGrath, Minnesota. He is the son of Lewis and Claffe Olds. He graduated from high school in 1944.
Source: Veterans’ Memorial Hall veteran history form; veteran’s account (below)
“One month after high school, in July of 1944, I was inducted into the Army. I took a troop train to Camp Hood, Texas, for seventeen weeks of basic training. I then was shipped home for a four-day furlough before going to Boston Harbor and an eleven-day trip across the Atlantic. We landed at Le Havre, France. We then boarded the famous 40-and-8 boxcars, which took us to where I joined my outfit, Company B of the 11th Armored Division of General Patton’s 3rd Army. I came in as a replacement because my company of 240 men was down to sixty after twenty-one days in the Battle of the Bulge. From that point, I had three months of combat until the war ended on May 8th of 1945.
“After one month of combat, I was the only one of my squad of twelve men that had been on duty every day: some were dead, some wounded, some evacuated with frozen feet. My faith in God protected me, and I never got a scratch.
“I am 86 years old now. I love this land in which we live. It was a privilege for me to help in my small way to defend the freedom we all hold dear.”
