Wilfred R. Pehl
Era: World War II
Military Branch: Army
Wilfred R. Pehl was inducted into the Army on June 13, 1941.
He was a Sergeant and a section leader with Headquarters Company,128th Armored Ordnance Maintenance Battalion, 3rd Armored Division.
He landed in England in September 1943. The unit arrived at Omaha Beach in Normandy in July 1944. He says: "There was hardly a foothold there. We were attached to the 1st Army. After St. Lo we moved pretty fast. We were the first to cross the Belgian border and the first to pierce the Siegfried Line in September 1944. We took the Germany city of Rotgen, which was the first taken by anyone. We took a lot of prisoners.
On the way to Belgium to stop the German push in the Battle of the Bulge we looked up to see a big formation of B-17s going into Germany on a bomb run. Out of the clouds came two airplanes -- the first jets anyone had seen. "They knocked out six of the B-17s before anyone knew what was happening....We watched the tail section of one B-17 float down like a feather from side to side. When it hit the ground a tail gunner stepped out with not a scratch. We bandaged a lot of broken arms and legs. Some didn't make it but most did.
The next day we were stopped again and looking back along the column. I saw an ME-109 strafing. I jumped on our vehicle and started shooting the 50-caliber machine gun. My crewmen were yelling "You're on him!" I just kept shooting and all of a sudden the plane shot straight up in the air then down to the ground. A big flash and then black smoke and I had an ME-109 to my credit.
When the Battle of the Bulge was over, we headed back into Germany. At Nordhausen we captured our first German concentration camp. The ovens were still hot. Bodies were piled like cord wood. We had the people of the city dig mass graves and bury the corpses. That was hard to look at. We went all the way to the Elbe River, the last barrier to Berlin. Here we had orders to turn over our positions to the Russians. The war here was over for us. Our Division got its nickname from General Bradley's orders which read: "The 3rd Armored Division will spearhead this battle" from France to Germany. We were in combat for 231 days.
We got orders to get ready to go to Japan. They were shipping the high-point men home. "I had over four years in the service and a son home whom I hadn't seen and was 18 months old. I was in England when he was born. They gathered the high point men together and shipped us by train to Marseilles, France, where we boarded flak-riddled B-17s with no seats.
We landed in Casablanca and a couple of days later boarded C-47s. We landed in New York the day they dropped the bomb on Japan."
Mr. Pehl received the: Good Conduct Medal, American Defense Service Medal, European-African-Middle East Campaign Service Medal with five bronze battle stars, World War II Victory Medal and three Overseas Service Bars.
He was discharged on Aug. 12, 1945.
Source: Hometown Heroes: The St. Louis County World War II Project. 243.
Please see the TRIBUTE page on Pehl for more information and photos.
