Eugene Yackel was born in March 1925 in Sanborn, Minnesota. He was raised on a farm. He spent the first ten or 12 years of his life there and then moved to town where he went to school. He played a lot of kid games but had to do a lot of farm chores. He did not like the farm. His father had a year of bad health, so Yackel and his brother had to do work for him. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks about life during The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945.] It really did not affect his family that much because they were self-sufficient on the farm. It was a difficult time. As a kid, he did not know any different. Then, the war solved the Depression. Yackel's first seven years of school were in a country school. There was one teacher for all seven grades. He was the only pupil in the sixth grade. He went to high school in town for a year or so. The farm had been owned by his grandfather who sold it during the Depression. The German aggression [Annotator's Note: in Europe] was discussed in school but not to any great extent. He did not pay much attention to it. They did not know anything about Europe. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Yackel how he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He and his friends went out hunting jackrabbits. Then they went to the pool hall where they hung out. The owner told them the news. They did not think it would affect them and would be over shortly. It did not register to them that people could get killed and shot at. He had to register for the draft. He thought it might be over before he was ever called.

Eugene Yackel had to register for the draft after he graduated from high school. He did not know what he wanted to do exactly. He was hesitant to make plans because of the draft. He registered in April [Annotator's Note: April 1943] and was called to report to Minneapolis, Minnesota at Fort Snelling. His older brother had registered and was called in at the same time as Yackel. He reported to Fort Snelling and was there for two weeks. He then went to a camp in the South. There were seven from his town who went in the service at the same time. His high school class was 25 people. Three, including Yackel, ended up in Texas. His brother went to California. He and the others kept up when on passes [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time], but ultimately were dispersed elsewhere and lost touch. Yackel was put in the infantry. Basic training was a lot of drill work and strength building. They shot a lot on the range. The training instilled in the men that if somebody gave a command, they did it automatically. After basic training, Yackel was shipped overseas out of New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. Everything was fun and games and they thought they were getting a thrill going to see France. They really did not give any thought to being in combat. He was in a large convoy on a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship]. He did not think much of the ship. There were a lot of people on it. Part of the time they slept on the deck and part of the time below in a bunk. They landed in the Marseilles [Annotator's Note: Marseilles, France] area. French soil looked like American soil. They moved out and went into combat. Prior to combat, they continued training for a short time.

Combat is something Eugene Yackel will never forget. They [Annotator's Note: 103rd Infantry Division] moved out in trucks and ended up in the early morning in a heavily wooded area [Annotator's Note: in Chevry, France, 8 to 9 November 1944]. His first taste of combat was crossing an open field. They realized that they could get killed as they were being shot at. The Germans had a crossfire across the field. There was a creek they had covered. His outfit spent the night in the woods in foxholes. It was a rude awakening. The foxhole gave him a little protection. The Germans moved out during the night. It is difficult for him to remember the next few days. They did a lot of moving by trucks and by walking. Periodically they would run into small fire or cannon fire going from town to town. It was kind of a mop-up situation. Yackel does not know how long a period it was after he got into combat that he had a close call. They were in an area where they were going into a town where some Germans were to surrender. That did not happen, and they had to retreat. Yackel got a bullet almost through the elbow. He spent almost the whole day in a foxhole. During the retreat, he was shot and had some scrapes. Those things you do not forget. He was with the 103rd Infantry [Annotator's Note: 103rd Infantry Division]. Shortly after that, the 45th [Annotator's Note: 45th Infantry Division] got pretty beat up and several of the 103rd got transferred to them. He spent time with the 45th. Yackel does not like to remember being on the retreat when several of his company were captured. He took off and confronted two German soldiers. He got his comrades back, but it was not a nice situation. He killed the two soldiers. [Annotator's Note: Yackel is hesitant to talk about it.] He was awarded the Bronze Star [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]. It is not a nice thing for him to remember that. Every day was kind of the same thing. They moved from one area to another. They would get rest periodically for baths and new clothes. Not too long after, he was shipped over to the 45th.

The 45th [Annotator's Note: 45th Infantry Division] got beat up in some conflict, and several men from the 103rd [Annotator's Note: 103rd Infantry Division] were shipped over to them, including Eugene Yackel. He went to G Company [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division]. He knew some men who went to I Company [Annotator's Note: Company I, 3rd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division]. Yackel was made a squad leader then. He was in charge of around 25 men. There were three squads in each Company. They were kept moving through France and into Germany. Every day was the same. Some days they did not move at all. Some days they ran into opposition and some days they did not. Prior to going into Aschaffenburg [Annotator's Note: Aschaffenburg, Germany], they were supporting Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] tanks. They heard that Patton had sent back a message that some troops in Aschaffenburg were ready to give up. They spent a few weeks taking the town [Annotator's Note: 28 March to 3 April 1945]. There were days they did not move more than a block. They lost a lot of nice people. Thankfully he made it through it. There was a little schoolhouse where the Germans ended up after several days. There were attempts to get into it. His company was in a warehouse across the road. The captain came to them and wanted to know what it was like. The Germans had a machine gun covering the road. Yackel was asked to get across the road. He said he would take a shot at it. Yackel made it across, but his two runners did not. He got into the schoolhouse. These things are written up in flowery language. Yackel threw grenades and had help coming in. The Germans finally gave the white flag [Annotator's Note: waving a white flag is an international signal of surrendering]. It was estimated to be about 200 soldiers. Yackel got 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] for that. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Yackel what he feels about receiving an award like that.] It was nice and meant a lot, but he did what he thought had to be done. That was what was instilled in him in training. You do not quite think of the consequences. They left Aschaffenburg after some time and continued their journey through Europe. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Yackel about a story about a body hanging in Aschaffenburg.] Yackel never saw it, but he heard from another organization, that a German soldier had been hanged. He does not know the rank of the German. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Yackel what he thought of war atrocities like that.] At the time, he did not give it a lot of thought. They did it, what can you do about it, and it is part of war even though it should not be. The same thing was done when they went through Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany, 29 April 1945]. He never saw that either.

After Aschaffenburg [Annotator's Note: Aschaffenburg, Germany], Eugene Yackel went through Nuremberg [Annotator's Note: Nuremberg, Germany]. They [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division] had very little resistance and one day they had a pretty good time. They came across a warehouse full of cognac [Annotator's Note: alcoholic beverage] and ice cream. They did not leave much behind. They confiscated a German truck and they loaded it up. The lieutenant took charge of the cognac. Every evening, he would send down several bottles to each squad. Yackel thinks his squad was close. He liked his guys. You did not want to get too close because tomorrow one might be gone. He does not know if they enjoyed him as their boss. He made friends with guys from other squads too. He does not remember a lot of them. They were on the move, and their objective was Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany]. They liberated Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany, 29 April 1945]. It was quite gruesome. They liberated some Americans from there as well. He saw the ovens. The area he approached from was the railroad tracks. There were a lot of open train cars that had a lot of bodies in them that were primarily Jewish. They could see the skeletons. The smell was terrible, and he cannot describe it. He knew what he could see but did not realize what a concentration camp was like. As they moved through it, he got the concept of what it was like. He wondered how somebody could do that to some other person. He was a kid and sometimes those things just did not register. The prisoners had no protection or resources to fight back. It was murder. Yackel and his outfit captured some Germans [Annotator's Note: at Dachau]. One company hanged some Germans. At that point, the German soldiers were ready to give up. As he moved through France and Germany, the soldiers gave up right away. Yackel does not recall how long he stated in Dachau before going to Munich, where he was when the war ended. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if Yackel knows of his outfit finding some prisoners in a house, but he does not.] In one of the barracks, there were a couple of prisoners who could not move. They were just skin and bone. They moved through and he does not think they spent the night there. Dachau was not far from Munich.

Eugene Yackel and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division] had no resistance going into Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany]. They moved into town some distance. Suddenly, they were told to bivouac [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary camp] in assigned houses. His company was in charge of guarding a German hospital. He stayed back at headquarters but took food out to them daily. Yackel had no real duty at that time. They did not know if they were going on to Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany] or not. He did not have a lot to do with the German people. He talked to some of the nurses, and they seemed like they could have been American nurses. Cranston [Annotator's Note: later US Army Colonel Cranston R. "Chan" Rogers] and he had dinner one night with a German family. They were not staunch Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] people. He does not recall how Cranston met them. Yackel did not have any real animosity other than soldier to soldier. He did not have contact with any real amount of German people. He thinks the majority of them were happy they were being liberated really. A lot of times, they would offer drinks. Yackel was in Munich for the German surrender [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. He does not know if he celebrated or not. He was in Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] when the Japanese surrendered [Annotator's Note: Victory Over Japan Day, 15 August 1945] and that was a party.

When Eugene Yackel first heard they had dropped the bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945], he did not realize the destruction the bomb had done. He feels like they got what they deserved. He could go home. He was happy to be back. He thinks 90 percent of them were just looking to get back with their lives. He thought about staying in the Army and would have considered it if he could have stayed in the United States. He was sent to Camp McCoy [Annotator's Note: now Fort McCoy in Monroe County, Wisconsin] and could have taken a field commission. He did not want to go the Pacific. He did not really have a plan. He got home and got to celebrating. He got out in October [Annotator's Note: October 1945] and spent a couple of months in celebration. He and two other friends went to Minneapolis [Annotator's Note: Minneapolis, Minnesota] and checked out schools. In January [Annotator's Note: January 1946], he went to business college on the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment]. They got 300 dollars when discharged. After that, they got money each week. They were asked what their plans were regarding work. Being a civilian felt nice. Yackel does not recall dreaming about what he went through specifically. Yackel did not really like a lieutenant named Kirby [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] in Europe. They got along but he got killed one day.

Eugene Yackel and Cranston Rogers [Annotator's Note: later US Army Colonel Cranston R. "Chan" Rogers] got along well. Rogers was a good military man and had good control over the Company [Annotator's Note: Company G, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division]. He did not play favorites. Rogers, Siriani [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] of 2nd Platoon [Annotator's Note: 2nd Platoon, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division]. and Blackman [Annotator's Note: unable to identify] of 3rd Platoon [Annotator's Note: 3rd Platoon, Company G, 2nd Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division], and Yackel got along good together. Yackel did not attend any reunions. He wanted to leave it alone and get over it. He thought of going at times. As the years passed, they became fewer. He enjoyed the newsletters. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer mentions that earlier in this interview, Yackel seemed reluctant to discuss his military decorations.] He supposes he would like to forget it. It was something he did in the spur of the moment without a lot of thought. His most memorable experience of World War 2 is getting discharged. [Annotator's Note: Yackel laughs.] When he looks back, it was a good experience. He learned things. As a kid, he had a good time. There were times when he was scared, but they had some fun. They had conflict during the day, and cognac at night. It is not an experience one would like to have, but now that he made it back, he says he had a good time. He was drafted and did not have a choice but to fight. Everybody was going to do their part and he figured it was something he had to do. They were forced to go by the draft, but it was something they had to do. He went and did his part and tried to do what he could do. Everybody joined together and got the job done. He was young to start with and his life was really starting to begin. Yackel does not know what the war means to America today. It has been so many years, so many people have forgotten. Yackel thinks the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important, as is teaching about the war. He does not know if he was taught a lot about World War 1 which has been practically forgotten. Teaching about the war is an honor to the people involved. The participants would like to be remembered. It looks like that will be done in New Orleans anyway. They were soldiers and did what they were told and were sent home. He thanks somebody that he made it. An awful lot of people did not make it, including people in his unit.