Charles Acker was born in February 1922 in Willow Grove [Annotator's Note: Willow Grove, Pennsylvania]. His father was a builder and then he worked for the courthouse as a transcriber. His father was a builder up until the Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s], then they went to California for a year. When that did not work out, they moved back home, and his father got into politics. Back then they went to school and then went to work to help the family out. Acker joined the Army at 20 years old. He volunteered for jump school with the airborne and went to Fort Benning [Annotator's Note: Fort Benning, Georgia] for training. He ended up in England somewhere near London [Annotator's Note: London, England with the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] and trained there until the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. They studied sand maps. It gave them a three-dimensional look at the grounds. They loaded the planes and took off. It was like being in a fireworks display when they went through the anti-aircraft fire. Planes were catching on fire. They ended up 15 miles from where they were supposed to be. They had clickers to identify themselves. They would click once to identify themselves and then the other person had to give two clicks. Acker had landed in a field with a lieutenant. They all grouped up and moved to their objective. On their march to Carentan [Annotator's Note: Carentan, France] they ended up between their guys and the Germans and were getting shot at by both ends. They were only supposed to be there for three days, but they ended up being there a month. Then they went back to England. This was when Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] broke out and made his way to Germany. Acker's group was supposed to jump and take the towns and then Patton could bypass them. They tried this twice, but Patton did not wait for them to jump. Montgomery [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery] came up with a plan for them to jump in the northern part of Germany. They were supposed to jump on 17 September [Annotator's Note: 17 September 1944] in the afternoon. The Germans had already moved out. The 82nd Airborne [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] had caught some action, but his group did not. It turned out to be a disaster. They stayed there from September [Annotator's Note: September 1944] to November [Annotator's Note: November 1944]. Then they went back to France and took a vacation in Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. Then they moved into Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] where they were surrounded by Germans and the snow was very deep. Everything was freezing. Then Patton broke through. They ended up in Austria. At this point, they had to have points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to get out of the Army. He had enough points to leave. He went to Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France] to go home. The guys who left from Austria made it home before he did, and he left a month before they did. He and some friends thought they were going to end up in New York. They ended up in a camp in Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington, D.C.]. Then they were broken up and he ended up in Indiantown Gap [Annotator's Note: Fort Indiantown Gap in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania]. Then he went home.

Charles Acker [Annotator's Note: of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] shows the interviewer a picture he had taken in France after they were in Holland. Their colonel wanted to do an anniversary jump. Acker did not want to do it. When he was riding in a jeep with Colonel Sink [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General Robert Frederick Sink] after Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], the Germans had piano wire strung up. They did this so they could cut people's heads off while they were riding in jeeps. Someone came up with the idea to put a bar on the front of the jeeps in order to cut any wires they came upon. They were riding down hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation]. He took a couple of trips with him as he took his tours around the division. Before the war at Fort Benning [Annotator's Note: Fort Benning, Georgia], Colonel Sink wanted to see him. The colonel received a letter from Acker's father suggesting Acker be sent to OCS [Annotator's Note: officer candidate school]. The colonel told him that is not how things work in the Army. When Acker went home on furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] his father asked him how the letter worked out. His father said he would have to go through someone higher than the colonel. Acker was then in charge of arresting people that were out after dark. The next morning they would get out of jail. Acker did not like that he was arresting people and they were getting out the next morning. He was proud to be in his outfit. The 82nd [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division] was a good airborne outfit. Half the people in a photograph he has have passed away. One guy survived the war but died in an automobile accident immediately afterward. They marched 40 miles a day. One time they marched from Atlanta [Annotator's Note: Atlanta, Georgia] to Fort Benning. When they got to Fort Benning, there was a band playing. It looked like a parade. Out of the original group, about 200 men came back [Annotator's Note: from the war]. He lost a friend in Normandy.

Charles Acker went through live-fire training. They had a little town set up and they would fire live machine guns and throw some dynamite in the town. It was good training, but it did not prepare them for the real thing. The awarding of medals was foolish. Some people got medals, while others who did the same or more did not get a medal because of their background. One guy received a Silver Star [Annotator's Note: the Silver Star Medal is the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy] because his background looked good, he was a college graduate that played ball. They wore the same clothes for over 30 days. They did not have the opportunity to have a bath. When they [Annotator's Note: 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] were in England, they had one cold shower. If they wanted a hot shower, they would have to light the furnace. When he was in England, they would take furloughs [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] in London [Annotator's Note: London, England] and see a movie. If a buzz bomb [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] came over they would turn the movie off and wait for it to pass over. They could hear them coming and if it quit buzzing it was going to come down. If it kept buzzing, then it would pass over. A lot of buildings were bombed. Acker made it through the war without a scratch. When they fought in the forests, they were beautiful until the shells took down all the trees. His mother died when he was in the service. He did not know until a month after when he was already in England. Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] was blown apart when he got there. A lot of it was bombed out. He wondered where all the people had gone. He saw frozen dead bodies and debris everywhere. When they were at Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] the weather was nice, and the dead bodies were bloated. He does not think people get used to dead bodies. He thinks people get hardened from seeing the dead. The smell was terrible. If he went out on patrol, he planned on losing somebody. One time he went on patrol and had to cross a canal in a rubber boat. They had a couple of new recruits. The Germans found their position and they started to drop mortars [Annotator's Note: a short smoothbore gun which fires explosive shells at high angles]. Acker was told to go back with the new kids. He was sitting in the back and one of the kids was pulling on the rope to take them back across. When the mortars started being dropped both kids started pulling on the rope and it caused the rubber boat to tip over and they both ended up in the water. Acker was in water up to his hips. He told them to swim. He could not tell the new kids anything because they would not listen. One time a new kid was taking flares out of a German flare gun and there was black powder in front of him. The kid was going to light it. He said he was in demolition and knew what he was doing. Acker told him not to do it. He burned the skin on his hands and his face. Acker does not know what happened to him after that.

Charles Acker was in Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium with the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division] on patrol. They were supposed to pick up a German. Someone took a shot at the Germans and then they ended up in a shootout. This was the first time he shot his rifle. They were not supposed to be shooting as they were on a reconnaissance mission. On another patrol, they were out trying to find tanks. Instead, they found a group of their own men who were lost. Acker had to help them get back. On their way back they heard the Germans fire a Screaming Mimi [Annotator's Note: nebelwerfer; German multiple rocket launcher]. Their lieutenant stayed up on the road while the men took cover. The shell went over their heads and the lieutenant jumped in the ditch. Then once the shell went off, they picked up and started moving again, but the lieutenant had left his rifle in the ditch. Acker could not believe this guy was in charge of the outfit. Some parts were miserable and sometimes he had fun with the guys. He kept his sense of humor throughout the war. He never gave death a thought because he did not want to get himself into trouble by overthinking. His sense of smell and hearing were heightened because of the war. He was never completely at rest unless he was off the line. Once in Bastogne, he was laying on the ground in the snow watching the planes go over and drop flares and take pictures. He felt like he was going to take a bomb up his nose laying out in the field. There is nothing to prepare for artillery shells going in. The Germans had an 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] and they would hear the gun go off before the shell. He does not think anything can prepare someone for that. It is like living in the city you get used to the noise. He got used to the sounds. On his first trip to London [Annotator's Note: London, England] they had a blackout. During the battle, they just got used to the dark. He had a good sense of direction and pretty good night vision. After they got out of Bastogne and into Germany, they would chase people out of their houses for the night. He got the feeling that things were changing. When they made it to Austria there would be Germans waving discharge papers. He got the feeling that it was winding down. They were getting ready to go to Japan when they dropped the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945].

The people from one of the camps [Annotator's Note: he is referring to concentration camps]. They looked like ghosts in their striped suits to Charles Acker [Annotator's Note: with the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division]. Everyone wanted to feed them, but they could not. They had to keep them in there until the medics came. He did not think they could look worse than the dead bodies, but they did. In some of the camps, they [Annotator's Note: the Germans] had skinned people and used the skin to make lampshades. He did not think any American soldier could do the things the Germans did. The guys were always good to the kids. He wondered where all the people went. The towns would be blown up and the people were all gone. When they were in Holland most of the people could speak English. The resistance there wore orange bands on their arms. The men of the resistance took all the women that fraternized with the Germans to the town square and shaved their heads. They were the only ones he felt were grateful to see them. One time he was laying by a bridge and some nuns came along. The nuns were going to bring them a bed. In another town, they waited for a group of nuns and walked into the town with them. They discovered the Germans had left a couple of days before. He does not think the French thought too much about them. When they were leaving and in Marseilles [Annotator's Note: Marseilles, France] they were told not to go into town at night. One guy did not listen and went into town. The guy did not return that night, he returned the following day. He had been beaten up by some French guys. Luckily there were some MPs [Annotator's Note: military police] there who saved him from further beating. There was one guy that was going to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] and he was packing blankets and stuff to barter with. They were given D-rations [Annotator's Note: Army Field Ration D; chocolate bar intended as snack food] which were chocolate and it tasted bad. If they came across a box of it, they would save it and use it for bartering in towns. Then when they got home there were Germans serving food in the camps. They were serving a steak dinner and one guy wanted two, but the Germans were told only to give them one. A fight broke out between the soldier and the Germans.

Charles Acker does not regret his time in the Army. He was a Boy Scout [Annotator's Note: Boy Scouts of America, scouting and youth organization founded in 1910] and did scouting in the Pocono Mountains [Annotator's Note: mountain range in Pennsylvania and New York]. Being a boy scout came in handy while he was in the Army. He always liked the outdoors. He never had the desire to go back to Europe. He would not want to go to war again. He is not a sentimental guy, and the war did not help it. The war put some hardness in him, and it stuck with him. He worked for the phone company for 40 years. His wife spent 20 years with cancer and treatments. He learned to just accept things.