Elmer Nicholson, Jr. was born in September 1924 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He had three sisters and one brother. His sisters were older. His brother George was killed in Italy in 1943. His father died when he was ten. His mother had five children so she had to work. His grandparents helped every once in a while. His mother did housework for other families. Most of the people he knew were poor [Annotator's Note: he is referring to the Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. They lived in half of a double and they had one lamp. There was an outside pump and an outhouse that five families used. Everybody ate beans and potatoes. When they went to someone's house they would eat. He walked to school. His good friend was Bill Purdue [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity]. They would go to the park and play football and baseball. They would walk downtown at night to see a movie and get some White Castle [Annotator's Note: a restaurant]. He was walking to his neighbor's house when they told him Pearl Harbor was bombed [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. They knew it was far away. He wanted to go into the Army. His brother volunteered for the Army. His brother and mother did not want him to go. He [Annotator's Note: Nicholson's brother George] wanted him to stay home and take care of them [Annotator's Note: their mother and three sisters]. He got a job at a machine shop for 35 cents an hour. He worked ten to 12 hours a day. He had to wait until he got drafted to go.

Elmer Nicholson, Jr. went to high school for two years. He went into the CCs [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps] and he did school for half of that. They learned how to type and how to do all the paperwork for the Army. He was drafted on 10 March 1943. His mother did not like that he was drafted. While he was in service his brother got killed before he went overseas. If there was only one son, they did not have to go into combat. He wanted to go into combat. He loved the Army. He went to boot camp at Camp Blanding, Florida and got an expert infantry badge [Annotator's Note: a special skills badge of the United States Army which is presented for completion of a course of testing designed to demonstrate proficiency in infantry skills] there. They moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. He was with the 66th Infantry Division. After that, they went to Camp Rucker, Alabama. He was there to train guys for a while. He was one of the first PFCs [Annotator's Note: Private First Class; E-3] in the company. Later on, he made corporal [Annotator's Note: the lowest rank of non-commissioned officer in the United States Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force; E-3] and then sergeant [Annotator's Note: the lowest rank of sergeant in the military; E5]. He was a squad leader, and then he was made staff sergeant [Annotator's Note: non-commissioned officer rank just above sergeant and below technical sergeant or sergeant first class; E-6]. Later on, he was a section sergeant. He tried to do the best he could. They had 20 mile hikes. They also did five mile hikes that they had to complete in 56 minutes. He thought they [Annotator's Note: the Army] were going to kill him before he made it overseas.

Elmer Nicholson, Jr. went to Southampton, England first. They [Annotator's Note: Nicholson and the rest of the 66th Infantry Division] crossed the Channel [Annotator's Note: English Channel] on Christmas Eve 1944 [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1944] on two ships, the Leopoldville [Annotator's Note: SS Léopoldville] and the Cheshire [Annotator's Note: SS Cheshire]. They loaded up on the dock. Their captain refused to have his men board the ship until they got coffee and donuts. Each ship took half the division. Nicholson had to wait and get on the other ship [Annotator's Note: the SS Cheshire]. On Christmas Eve the Germans sank the other ship [Annotator's Note: the SS Leopoldville was torpedoed by the German submarine U-486 on 24 December 1944]. The ship sank in two and half hours. They could see the lights in the distance. They knew the ship was over there because of the lights. There were other ships trying to save all the guys. They were dressed with all their equipment to be ready to hit the ground when they got there. With all that weight on them, the men sunk. A British destroyer [Annotator's Note: HMS Brilliant (H-84)] was trying to save it. Onshore they were having a celebration [Annotator's Note: celebrating Christmas] so they did not send as many people as they could have to help. The next morning when they came in [Annotator's Note: to Cherbourg, France], they saw all the guys being carried around. They had to stay there overnight. They got rid of their big bags. He had the job of taking the big duffle bags to put on trucks. Then they got on a train. There was a boxcar where they had food. They were passing out jars of marmalade [Annotator's Note: a fruit preserve]. When they disembarked, they went up to the line. As they walked, the artillery fired over them. When it would get dark, they would stop and dig in. They had to dig into the trenches. The heavy weapons were attached to the rifle company. They had machine guns. They went up to relieve the 94th [Annotator's Note: 94th Infantry Division]. They had a lot of casualties. There was a big battle going on. They dug inside a hedgerow [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation]. They crawled in there to get warm and to try to not get shot. He went up to a big building to take over the operation. There were mortars. The 94th guys were up there. He fell asleep and did not wake up during the fighting. He was tired. They would set up and fire at the Germans.

Elmer Nicholson, Jr. remembers the Germans had patrols. Both sides knew they were not going anywhere. The Germans did not want to get out in the open because the United States Air Force would go in and destroy them. They tried to stay where they were. The 66th Division [Annotator's Note: 66th Infantry Division] had a French division in the middle of them. The Germans were armed with 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. The 66th was dug in or they were inside houses. They had their mortars [Annotator's Note: a short smoothbore gun which fires explosive shells at high angles] out. They had one machinegun positioned in front of the house. One night, the Germans had a patrol out and one them was throwing concussion grenades into the houses. The sergeant [Annotator's Note: the American sergeant] said they were coming out. The Germans captured them and they were prisoners for the rest of the war. The war did not last much longer. Nicholson saw them afetr the war and they told him they had been treated well. They never knew when a shell was going to hit them. The Germans surrendered on the eighth [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. All the Germans were lined up in green uniforms, standing at attention in formation. The Americans rode by them on their jeep. The Germans could not imagine they had lost the war. He thought the Germans were organized. They were on both sides of the road. They had no weapons or headgear on. He thought they were good soldiers. His brother was a rifleman in the 3rd Infantry Division. All the Germans seemed to be healthy. Later in the war, they were all young guys, but the main ones were good soldiers. His brother was with a patrol in the mountains. He went through two invasions. When a night patrol went up, he stepped on a Bouncing Betty mine [Annotator's Note: German S-mine, Schrapnellmine, Springmine or Splittermine]. He was killed on 3 November 1943 and was buried in Italy, south of Rome. Nicholson's grandson went there and took a picture of the headstone and cross.

Elmer Nicholson, Jr. had to stay in Europe for about six months after the war ended. They went up the Moselle Valley to a bridge. The Germans were crossing and had to be checked. The people had to move out of their houses and his division moved in. They could not tear up the houses. They went to France where they were deploying troops to Japan. They were helping to stage the area for them to ship out. They were at their staging area when the war ended. He went to Austria until the end of the war. They were at a stockade, or prison, that the Germans had. Now the Germans were in it. He wanted to get out of the Army. If he would have stayed, they probably would have sent him to Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953]. He took some training in carpentry. They gave him some tools and he worked with housebuilders until the program was cut. He then started working for guys who were building houses. He was a contractor and he started a business for himself in Indiana. He retired when he was 62 years old. He was married in 1947. They were married 69 years. They had one daughter. He liked belonging to something. He did his job and they took care of him. Most of the time they had good stuff to eat. Overseas they had C-rations [Annotator's Note: prepared and canned wet combat food] and K-rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals]. He was never sick while he was in. Nicholson's most memorable experience of the war was when they were in a French farmhouse and the Germans were zeroing in on them with the 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. That was the only time he was scared. He thinks World War Two is too far in the distance now. And people cannot know how it was unless they were there. He does not know if they teach kids in school about World War 2. He thinks they should learn about wars. He thinks they had to get into World War 2.