Edward G. Willette was born in August 1924 in Chicago, Illinois. He and his sister, the children of a milk salesman, grew up in the area. As a young man, Willette enjoyed music, and played with the school concert band and orchestra. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] on 7 December 1941, Willette heard the news on the radio, and he knew he had to gear up for coming events. In his senior year of high school, he took Morse code, thinking he could get into the signal corps. The school's gym was newly equipped with athletic equipment of the type that the military used for physical training. When Willette graduated from high school, he was inducted into the armed services at a camp in Michigan. He was sent to North Camp Hood, Texas for basic training. Once completed, he entered the ASTP, the Army Special Training Program, and was sent to New York University [Annotator's Note: New York University or NYU in New York, New York] to take college courses in chemistry, physics and English, at a pace that was double the normal for the time. The recruits drilled in Washington Square, and had permits for free access to all the plays in New York. While he was there, he attended a party given by a tobacco magnate, who gave him a pass to Carnegie Hall venues. When the ASTP program was dissolved, he was sent to Camp Carlson, Colorado [Annotator's Note: Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs, Colorado] for advanced infantry training. The invasion of Europe had already started. From New York, he sailed on a confiscated German cruise liner that had been converted to a troopship. He was among the first American troops to land in Normandy after the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], arriving late in August [Annotator's Note: August 1944].

Edward G. Willette lived in tents [Annotator's Note: in Cherbourg, France], and the closest he came to combat at the time was probing the sand of the south beach of the Normandy peninsula [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] for mines. They found none, but from their position they could see a German occupied island in the English Channel. He was assigned to Company E [Annotator's Note: Company E, 2nd Battalion, 413th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division] and was first gunner on a 60mm mortar [Annotator's Note: M2 60mm lightweight mortar]. His job was to set the sights on the mortar. Collectively, his weapons platoon operated two or three mortars and two or three machine guns. They moved by truck or train and went through a famous town in Normandy where he saw bombs that had failed to explode laying all over the railroad tracks. Continuing from there, they were the first American troops to arrive in Brussels [Annotator's Note: Brussels, Belgium], where his division was put into the British Second Army. They moved north toward Holland, and the first time he lined up his mortar was when they suspected enemy forces on a hill. While there, Willette met some Canadian troops who were returning from the so called front lines and had some discussions with them to find out what it was all about.

Edward G. Willette and his division [Annotator's Note: Willette was a mortarman in Company E, 2nd Battalion, 413th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry Division] began moving at night [Annotator's Note: on 23 October 1944], marching north, and learned that their objective was Rotterdam [Annotator's Note: Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands]. They hit an area where artillery shells exploded over their heads but didn't seem to hurt anybody. When they reached a flat, soggy area, they were told to dig in. He started to set up his mortar, but neither the foxholes nor the mortar position could be dug very deeply because of the mud. The Germans had flooded the area. At daybreak, all hell broke loose. In front of them was a small stand of trees, and the German machine guns were firing. His sergeant took a position near a barn and started to call orders back to the platoon. When daybreak came, they found they were lined up out of order, and the riflemen were behind the mortar line. The sergeant ordered Willette to switch foxholes with him. On the count of three, they both dashed for cover, and right when his sergeant hit the foxhole Willette had just vacated, a grenade exploded there, killing him instantly. From that moment, Willette became religious. Willette's second gunner was hurt and was crying out. Willette started to call for help but realized the enemy grenade must have come from the nearby barn. He tossed one of his own grenades into the barn, setting it on fire. He emptied his .45 [Annotator's Note: .45 caliber M1911 semi-automatic pistol] into the doorway, but no one emerged. The platoon was frozen there for a while, until the artillery started to come in. An order was relayed for their captain to report to their general. The captain was trapped and could not get out of his position. A lieutenant, moving out of a foxhole just below the captain's, was shot. Willette called for help for his second gunner. The medic was hit by machine gun fire. An unknown soldier came to his aid. While they were moving the second gunner, the machine gun opened up again, wounding the newcomer and killing their patient. The sound of bullets hitting flesh is a sound Willette will never forget. It was cold, and he had to take cover. He was still carrying his little shovel. The flaming barn became a target for the artillery, and the shots started coming one after another. Willette thinks he lost consciousness then. He awoke to medics carrying him into another barn, where he was told to remain.

Edward G. Willette's son talked with someone familiar with that particular battle [Annotator's Note: battle at the Mark River, Holland, 2 November 1944]. The platoon lieutenant, Cecil Bolton [Annotator's Note: Army Lieutenant Cecil Hamilton Bolton] was awarded the Congressional Medal [Annotator's Note: the Medal of Honor is the highest award a United States service member can receive who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor] for that action. He was the man who, on 2 November 1944, saved Willette's life. He is unsure of what actually happened, but thinks he was rendered unconscious by a shell blast. When he came to, he had a loud ringing in his head. He was taken to General Terry Allen [Annotator's Note: US Army Major General Terry de la Mesa Allen, Sr.] to report on what happened, but Willette couldn't hear or respond, and was carried away. He wound up on a train, in a cot next to Lieutenant Bolton, and they were both taken back to the 203rd General Hospital in Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. Willette's eardrums had been shattered. After about a week in hospital, he spent about a week in rehab [Annotator's Note: rehabilitation] on a beautiful estate. He was then moved to the third repo depot [Annotator's Note: 3rd Replacement Depot] in Belgium and expected to join the 104th [Annotator's Note: 104th Infantry Division] again, but he ended up in the 1st Army, 101st [Annotator's Note: 101st Airborne Division], doing oddball jobs. In Belgium, buzz bombs [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] came over quite frequently. In late December [Annotator's Note: December 1944], they got word that there was action going on at the border. The Germans were changing the signposts, and Willette was sent with some others to make sure the signposts were correctly indicating directions. One night they slept in a barn next to a country road. The next morning Willette saw a guy walking next to a bicycle who was wearing German paratrooper boots. When the man ignored Willette's order to stop, he put a shot from his burp gun over the man's head. The man halted, and Willette turned him over to the village authorities. A day or two later, Willette joined other soldiers on a roof to witness his first aerial dogfight. Afterward, they learned that the Germans had made a breakthrough, and the Americans were fleeing. Willette and another man left in a jeep to help ensure that the Americans were going in the right direction. Their jeep got stuck in the snow, and some American tanks came along and pulled them out. American medics in the group diagnosed Willette with pneumonia, and he was sent to a monastery outside of Brussels [Annotator's Note: Brussels, Belgium]. Prescribed a daily shot of Scotch, he was cured in three days and returned to work.

Edward G. Willette was in Verviers, Belgium, and wrote home quite often. One of his letters described how, when the buzz bombs [Annotator's Note: V-1 pulse jet flying bomb, German name: Vengeance Weapon 1; Allied names: buzz bomb, doodlebug] came over, he would duck under his desk for cover. A censor brought the letter back to him, telling him he was revealing too much information. He also met Sol Polk [Annotator's Note: unable to positively identify], who was with the 1st Special Service Company, 1st Army that dealt with the entertainment of troops. He joined the outfit in Bad Godesberg, Germany, where troops were sent for rest and relaxation. The company operated libraries, a radio station, an 18 piece band, and the scheduling of celebrity entertainment. It was a good job, and he had the chance to meet Mickey Rooney [Annotator's Note: born Ninnian Joseph Yule, Jr.; American actor and entertainer] and Bob Hope [Annotator's Note: Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope KBE; British-American entertainer who was famous for entertaining American troops serving overseas during World War 2, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War]. He crossed the Rhine River, going into Germany towards Cologne [Annotator's Note: Köln, Germany], and saw the cathedral [Annotator's Note: Cologne Cathedral, or Kölner Dom, officially Cathedral Church of Saint Peter], noteworthy because every other building in the city was destroyed. As they headed toward Marburg, Germany, with battles still going on ahead of them, they liberated a factory that had been operated by slave labor. He was put in charge of two of the former prisoners. He shared a box of butter cookies with one of the men and said he will never forget the expression on the man's face when he tasted butter for the first time in years. When the war ended, Willette was deep in Germany, in a small town that had only one tavern where the American servicemen got all their food. Once while in the Special Services, he lacked transportation to Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt, Germany] to arrange for some upcoming entertainment. While hitchhiking, he accepted a ride in a car with a Russian Army General who was on his way to Frankfurt to meet with General Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States].

When the war ended, Edward G. Willette had 60 of the 85 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] necessary to get out of the Army. He was transferred into southern Germany, where there was an opera house, the first floor of which was reserved for American servicemen. Willette saw his first full opera there. He went from there to Marseilles, France to take a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] home. It took 30 days for him to sail into New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] on 31 January 1946. He was discharged at the end of February 1946 at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Willette doesn't know people of today understand what his generation went through in the war. Since the time he was in an explosion, he has remained hard of hearing, and he has learned to live with it. He listens to classical music to mask the low pitch whistle he always has going on in his head.