Harold Hauberg was born and raised in Nebraska City, Nebraska in July 1918. He entered the service in 1938, when the military was not all that important. Fort Kirk, Nebraska, now SAC Air Force Base [Annotator's Note: Offutt Air Force Base, Strategic Air Command Headquarters in Bellevue, Nebraska] was right up the road, so he chose to join the Army. At the time of his enlistment, it was hard times, there were extreme drought conditions and there had been no crops for three years. He lived on a farm so was looking to earn a little extra money. At the time of Hauberg's enlistment, there was no basic training. Non-commissioned officers of the company took care of basic instruction. At the time he went in, there were only six men in the regiment. Not many people were joining at the time. In the fall of 1940, he was shipped to Fort Ord, California [Annotator's Note: now Fort Ord National Monument in Monterey Bay, California], where they did finally receive their first influx of draftees. Hauberg was with the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord when Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] happened. He had just reenlisted 45 days before. From Fort Ord, the division was broken up and sent all around California. His battalion [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division] was in Fort Bragg, California. He took desert training in Jolon [Annotator's Note: Jolon, California], doing maneuvers and mock battles. They were then sent to San Luis Obispo, California in 1942, and back to Fort Ord at the beginning of 1943. From there they shipped out overseas.

Harold Hauberg [Annotator's Note: with Company D, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division] landed on Attu[Annotator's Note: Battle of Attu, 11 to 30 May 1943 at Attu Island, Alaska] on Mother's Day 1943 [Annotator's Note: 9 May 1943]. They had had amphibious training, both stationary and from ships, at Fort Ord [Annotator's Note: now Fort Ord National Monument in Monterey Bay, California]. Hauberg was First Sergeant at the time of the landing. They did not know where they were going until they had been at sea a day or two. They were ill-equipped for the invasion; they did not have sleeping bags or arctic clothing. They lost a lot of troops to weather. The landing was delayed due to poor weather. The landing itself was a fiasco, the coxswains [Annotator's Note: person in charge of a small boat and its crew] did not know where to take the landing craft, no one knew where they were going. Once they did finally land, it was in the afternoon after having boarded the craft at daybreak, and everything went pretty smoothly. They could not orient themselves because they lacked good maps. They stopped the first night so as not to overshoot, which was a mistake, they should have kept going. They did not have the clothing or material needed to protect themselves. When they dug holes, they would fill with water. It froze that night, and the shelter half he was using to warm himself froze around him. They began receiving aerial fire from the Japanese. Hauberg was with D Company supporting a rifle company, so was not engaged in hand-to-hand combat. There was a lot of fog. They were providing support fire with mortars [Annotator's Note: a short smoothbore gun which fires explosive shells at high angles] and machine guns. Though Hauberg did not experience any exposure injuries, hundreds of men did and had limbs amputated. It was expected that Attu would be quickly taken, which turned out not to be the case. Hauberg and his men were relatively unaffected by a Japanese banzai charge [Annotator's Note: Banzai charge; Japanese human wave attacks]. They were never issued cold weather gear, even when they went to Kiska [Annotator's Note: Operation Cottage, 15 August 1943 at Kiska Island, Alaska].

Harold Hauberg [Annotator's Note: with Company D, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division] landed at Kiska [Annotator's Note: Operation Cottage, 15 August 1943 at Kiska Island, Alaska]. It was a fiasco, no one knew where they were. The Canadians and Americans were shooting at each other for a while until they discovered that there were no Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] on the island. They were put back on ships and shipped to Hawaii for training. They shipped out to Kwajalein [Annotator's Note: Battle of Kwajalein, 31 January to 3 February 1944 at Kwajalein Atoll, Marshall Islands]. The landings there were quick and dirty. There was enormous shelling before they landed, but they still took a lot of small arms fire. Hauberg could not tell where the front was, the Pacific atolls were so small the battle was everywhere. There were hundreds and hundreds of bodies all over the atolls from naval gunfire and bombs. After three or four landings in the Pacific, they went back to Hawaii for more training.

Harold Hauberg [Annotator's Note: with Company D, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division] departed Hawaii for Leyte [Annotator's Note: Battle of Leyte, 17 October to 26 December 1944 at Leyte, Philippines] in the fall of 1944. It took nearly 60 days to get there, the food was terrible. The landings on Leyte were relatively unopposed. The area where they landed and cleared is where MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] came in and made his "I have returned" statement [Annotator's Note: 20 October 1944 on the beach at Leyte, Philippines]. They never knew what was going on outside of their immediate front. Hauberg's unit was actively engaged on Leyte until shortly before Christmas 1944, and were pulled back into reserves, able to enjoy their Christmas meal. They remained there for several months. As a supporting firepower unit, they were not the heavily engaged in day-to-day scouting operations. The Filipino people were extremely friendly. Okinawa was a beautiful landing onto long, sandy beaches with shallow water [Annotator's Note: Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, 1 April to 22 June 1945 at Okinawa, Japan]. He could not believe they got in that easily, although once it opened up it got tough. His unit landed on 1 April [Annotator's Note: 1 April 1945]. They suffered enormous casualties on Okinawa. Less than 50 percent of their men were left at the end of the battle. Hauberg was stationed at a command post. They were under constant bombardment. The Japanese put up a good defense on the island. Okinawa was the toughest of all the invasions he participated in. The Japanese had tunnels throughout the mountains. Hauberg was sent home on a troop transport sometime in September [Annotator's Note: September 1945], after the bombs were dropped in August [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. He arrived in San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. Hauberg learned the Japanese had surrendered while in a replacement depot on Saipan [Annotator's Note: Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands]. Tinian [Annotator's Note: Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands] was not far from Saipan. The bombers that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki took off from Tinian. Hauberg was never wounded during the war.

Harold Hauberg [Annotator's Note: with Company D, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division] returned to the States after the war ended. He was discharged and reenlisted in Colorado, followed by several months of recruitment and R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation] which he spent at home [Annotator's Note: Nebraska City, Nebraska]. He went back to duty in Fort Lewis, Washington [Annotator's Note: today Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, Washington] and then to Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia and became a "60-day wonder" [Annotator's Note: derogatory slang for a newly commissioned graduate, officer candidate or midshipman school]. After being commissioned, he changed from infantry to the Medical Service Corps and stayed in the medics for his last eleven years in the service. He retired in 1958 in El Paso, Texas with the rank of Captain. He served in the Korean War [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953], leaving from Fitzsimons Hospital in Denver [Annotator's Note: Fitzsimons Army Medical Center in Denver, Colorado]. He went to Japan to treat Korean casualties, then to Korea in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital [Annotator's Note: or MASH]. They lost less than one percent of the men who came into the MASH. They had fabulous surgeons on duty.

After the war, Harold Hauberg completed junior college in Tucson [Annotator's Note: Tucson, Arizona], earning his associate's degree. He was already working in personnel, or human relations in a political subdivision at the county level. He retired after 12 years at the age of 62. During the war, every second was death assured. Hauberg has trouble recalling many of his experiences during the war because he had to put it so far out of his mind at the time. As First Sergeant with Company D [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division], he served as a coordinator between the officer and enlisted troops. He held every grade between Private and Captain.