Bernard Ellenberg was born in 1921 in Poland and had five brothers and one sister. His father was born in Austria, and drafted into the German Army during World War I. He was captured by the Russian military in 1914 and sent to a camp in Siberia [Annotator's Note: Siberia, Russia]. They hunted and chopped wood. Not given any shoes, they would wrap burlap around their feet. His father was released after the war and worked in Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China] for a while, eventually making his way back to Europe by boat in 1921. In 1923, the family immigrated to Manhattan [Annotator's Note: Manhattan is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York]. They did not have beds, just a single mattress placed on top of four chairs. They moved to the Bronx [Annotator's Note: the Bronx is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York], where Ellenberg went to high school.

In 1942, Bernard Ellenberg [Annotator's Note: born in Poland in 1921, immigrated to New York, New York as a child] was out of work and saw a US Army advertisement that if you had an IQ [Annotator's Note: intelligence quotient] of 121, they would pay to send you to school, given that you volunteered for four years of service. He followed through with the offer and was sent to school in Philadelphia [Annotator's Note: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania], until being shipped to a replacement depot in England with around 3,000 men. There were only 10 men who knew how to type, including himself. He got to work as a typist for the Stars and Stripes [Annotator's Note: United States military newspaper]. Part of his job was inspecting abnormal requests for clothes, food, etc. He was later transferred to a company that used camouflage and tents to resemble tanks, fooling the German Air Forces into bombing useless targets. The Germans started using buzz bombs [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug]. When Ellenberg was still a civilian in New York, he knew a neighbor who was a very skilled swimmer. This man participated in D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. The boats could not get to shore, so troops had to walk from the water to the beach carrying their rifles and packs, many of them drowning. The man he knew went back and forth 17 times to save drowning men and bring them back to the beach, and he was awarded three Bronze Stars [Annotator's Note: the Bronze Star Medal is the fourth-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy].

Bernard Ellenberg's [Annotator's Note: assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division as a typist for the Stars and Stripes, United States military newspaper] outfit had its own plane and flew into Normandy [Annotator's Note: 3 days after D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He was then writing stories about different companies, the number of men lost or wounded, how they were getting along, what they needed etc. They were also still doing work with artificial tents [Annotator's Note: Ellenberg had previously worked with a team setting up inflatables and camouflage to look like tanks to fool German air forces]. When they entered Germany, they captured the largest air base at Eindhoven [Annotator's Note: Eindhoven, the Netherlands], in Cologne, Germany [Annotator's Note: Köln, Germany]. The Germans had practically no air force left at this point. 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], his unit was in Liège, Belgium. He wrote a weekly story for the Stars and Stripes. The weather and fog were so bad during the Bulge, on 17 December [Annotator's note: 1944] that American planes could not fly. The Germans were so desperate after the Bulge that they were putting uniforms on 15-year-old boys and giving prisoners guns to fight the Americans without any training. They also put English-speaking Germans in American uniforms to fight. To counter this, they [Annotator's Note: the Americans] used passwords, such as "Who won the World Series?". They were 40 miles outside of Paris, France but could not enter until De Gaulle returned [Annotator's Note: French Army General Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle; later President of France] to enter the city first. The armistice was signed in Reims, France. Ellenberg was in the city at the time. There was a beautiful library there built by John Jacob Astor [Annotator's Note: German American businessman]. France did not have much damage as they conceded to the Germans early on.

When Bernard Ellenberg went into the service, he enlisted in the Army because he was told they would send him to school. He learned discipline from his time in the Army, as well as how to fend for yourself. When he was at Fort Dix, New Jersey [Annotator's Note: now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in Trenton, New Jersey], everyone smoked except for Ellenberg. He does not remember anyone objecting to fighting in the Second World War. He is grateful that he came out alive without any wounds. When Ellenberg was at Eindhoven [Annotator's Note: Eindhoven, the Netherlands] airbase in Cologne [Annotator's Note: Cologne, Germany] he spoke to some older civilians who did not believe that Germany could lose the war. He did not like having to march during training, but appreciates it now, as well as learning how to take orders. Ellenberg retired from the real estate business in 1995 or 1996.

When Bernard Ellenberg [Annotator's Note: assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division as a typist for the Stars and Stripes, United States military newspaper] was in the service, British soldiers trained alongside American soldiers. The English were such determined fighters because it was their land, while the Americans were more lackadaisical. Though men were not afraid during the war, there were some psychological problems afterwards. When he first arrived in England, they were six men to a tent. They were not allowed to eat any vegetables in England because they were fertilized with human manure. Powdered eggs, powdered milk, and SPAM [Annotator's Note: canned cooked pork made by Hormel Foods Corporation] were popularized during the war. Family life is the most important thing to keep you going.