Benjamin Wolf Cohen got his legal middle name after he contracted Polio as a young child. He was cured miraculously after a person his parents called a Gutahnyim [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling] blessed him. Cohen was born in 1923 in lower Manhattan, New York City [Annotator's Note: Manhattan is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York]. As he grew up in the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s], he did not realize how poor his family was at the time. However, his parents refused to take any federal relief. He recalled that adults in his neighborhood would pay him one dollar to watch out for the police because the adults were playing the game of craps [Annotator's Note: a gambling game using dice] in the yard. He went to a camp one summer that cost his parents three dollars for three weeks. He has fond memories of being at the camp. He became interested in art and took life classes where he had to draw the human body using a nude model. He was embarrassed to look at the model. His father sold cold products. Cohen would ride with his dad in the wagon as he sold ice goods to people. He and his family lived in a tenement where they had to share a bathroom with three other families. Prior to joining the military, Cohen graduated high school and found a job in construction. He received his draft notice and reported to Grand Central Station [Annotator's Note: in New York, New York]. After basic training, he was sent to school at University of Penn [Annotator's Note: University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] for the ATSP [Annotator's Note: generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers] where he studied mechanical engineering. The Army soon discontinued the program, and he was sent to get combat engineer training. Cohen was assigned to the 95th Infantry Division [Annotator's Note: Company A, 320th Engineer Combat Battalion, 95th Infantry Division] and prepared to go overseas.

Benjamin Wolf Cohen went overseas [Annotator's Note: with Company A, 320th Engineer Combat Battalion, 95th Infantry Division] on the SS America. During his voyage, he was worried that the war would conclude before he got over there; later, he realized he was wrong. The ship zig-zagged [Annotator's Note: a naval anti-submarine maneuver] all the way to South Hampton, England where he trained for some time. Cohen and his company landed on Omaha beach [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France on 14 September 1944] after the Allies had secured it. He was on the beach for only a short time, so his unit could get organized. They soon were given orders to clear the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation]. The terrain was very difficult to get through due to the hedgerows. He did not see too much action until they reached Saarland [Annotator's Note: Saarland, Germany, November 1944]. Cohen's main function was in communications, where he acted as the radio man. Since they were not allowed to use the radio due to interception, he had to string wire to communicate which were often cut by shelling. He also used a telephone on the frontlines, and he had to crank it up to get it to work. Cohen was ordered to go to an area in Saarland and rev up engines [Annotator's Note: pump gas to make loud engine noise] to trick the enemy into thinking they are preparing for a large scale offensive. Before reach the Saar River, Cohen's unit lost a lot of men when they were ordered to capture the town of Metz [Annotator's Note: Metz, France, 18 to 22 November 1944]. His division was known by the Germans as the "Iron Men of Metz."

After fighting at the Saar River [Annotator's Note: Saar River, Germany], Benjamin Wolf Cohen and his division [Annotator's Note: Company A, 320th Engineer Combat Battalion, 95th Infantry Division] were assigned to General Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] 3rd Army during the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Medical help was almost non-existent. They could not get to the frontlines due to the weather. Several times he sat down to eat his cold meal and he would see bodies right beside him. After his part in the Battle of the Bulge, he was transferred to military government [Annotator's Note: April 1945]. He was part of the interrogation team because he knew Yiddish [Annotator's Note: High German-derived language historically used by Ashkenazi Jews]. His unit was also put in charge of a displaced persons camp. He was also surprised how the Russians treated each other. Their commanders would beat the soldiers. One of them burned down a barn because he wanted to eat the pigs locked inside of it. At the end of war in Europe, Cohen was sent back to the United States. His division was given a choice to either invade Japan or occupy Japan. The men did not like either of those choices. There was almost a mutiny [Annotator's Note: on 29 June 1945]. Luckily, the United States dropped the two atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] on Japan and most of the men had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on several factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] that they did not have to go to Japan for occupation. Cohen had enough points to be discharged.

Benjamin Wolf Cohen and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company A, 320th Engineer Combat Battalion, 95th Infantry Division] participated in the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], but Cohen cannot recollect much of it, except that it was cold. The morale was very low because the men did not feel there was much organization. He does remember that many of the men died due to trees exploding from German artillery shells. He also recalled the German Tiger tanks [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI heavy tank, known as the Tiger] would go through all the American encampments and crush them. When planes did fly, he remembered the Germans planes had a terrifying screech sound. At one point after the Battle of the Bulge, he came across a prison camp near a railroad car stacked with bodies. He then noticed that many of these bodies had something sewn under their ribcage. A group of female camp survivors approached the soldiers and told them that several German soldiers had changed out of their uniforms and into civilian clothing and had gone into town. They thought that the soldiers should send someone to pick them up. Cohen does not recall if some American soldiers were dispatched to collect them. His unit did not stay long because they had orders to get to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] as fast as they could. When they reached the outskirts of Paris, they were told not to go into the city but to camp outside. [Annotator's Note: Cohen coughs for a few seconds and comments on it at 0:44:49.000.] When they would build bridges to cross the Rhine or other rivers, the Germans zeroed in, and blew them up. His friend was in CIC [Annotator's Note: Counter Intelligence Corps] and interrogated SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] members. He traveled in a jeep and always brought along a Russian kid who would sometimes kill an SS member. After the war in Europe ended, Cohen was sent to a camp in France to wait for a ship to return to the United States.

Benjamin Wolf Cohen returned to the United States right before the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] were dropped on Japan. He was soon discharged from the military. Cohen used the G.I. Bill for art school and became a commercial artist. He met his wife at a JCC [Annotator's Note: Jewish Community Center] before he left for combat. Cohen has become hardened by his experiences in World War 2. He believes that America justly fought in the war and changed the rest of the world. The aftermath of World War 2 change the initiatives of the winner of world wars because the Allies helped build up their enemy's economy again. If America had lost the war, Cohen believes the country would had been destroyed.