Joseph Venerloh was born in 1923 in Saint Louis, Missouri. He was one of seven siblings. His dad worked in the office of a wire-rope company. As a boy, Venerloh attended school and delivered books and worked as a caddy for extra money. He remembers that on 7 December 1941, while his family had their traditional noon meal, a neighbor came over to tell them about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Venerloh was drafted into the Army on 6 March 1943. He was shipped to Camp Campbell, Kentucky to train with the 2nd Armored Division. He learned to drive in half-tracks and received minimal training on tanks. He was then sent to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey where he boarded a ship for England. He recalled seeing ships in all directions at the port. He arrived in England two days before the invasion of Normandy, France [Annotator's Note: the Allied invasion of Normandy took place on 6 June 1944]. He waited in England for two weeks before he boarded a British ship to Normandy. He was told to go down on the ladders and then into a boat, then they were told to wade in the chest deep water and hike up to an area where they had tanks set up. Venerloh remarked that the tanks were there to protect his unit. The next morning, they hiked to Sainte-Mère-Église into an area where a replacement depot was located.

Joseph Venerloh was sent to a replacement depot, from there was assigned, and loaded up into a truck. He was dropped at the 2nd Armored Division and met the guys in his squad in a restaurant [Annotator's Note: Venverloh was assigned to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 41st Armored Infantry Regiment, 2nd Armored Division]. He felt like he was accepted right away and was not difficult to get into the rhythm of things. He also did a lot of clerical work throughout his service because he had that background. Venerloh recalls his first combat in France. He remembered it being exciting, and an experience he never thought he would have. He remembered that artillery fire was always rough. It would just reign in on the troops. In the summer of 1944, his unit was in constant combat with the Germans, going through one town after another. He remarked that German soldiers were good fighters, but later in the war he would run into soldiers that looked like kids. At the border of France and Germany, Venerloh recalled the difficulty of breaking through the Siegfried line. He also remembered the difficulty in finding their way through the hedgerows as they traveled through Normandy looking for the enemy. In most of the towns they captured, the civilians would give them food and wine, and in return the American soldiers often gave them chocolate. Venerloh recalled going out on patrols every so often, sometimes to capture a prisoner in order to get information. In fact, the first German soldier he saw face o face was a prisoner.

Joseph Venerloh remembered the attack on the Siegfried line, which was numerous amounts of pill boxes staggered around following the French Maginot Line, and a trench was running through the area where Germans had dug in for a while. The resistance was very heavy at times. They had to find a routine of what to do and a way to protect one another. In order to knock the German offense, they would often call for artillery. Venerloh does not recall the call for airstrikes, but he remembers watching dog fights in the sky and seeing planes get hit and begin to go down, then he would see parachutes come out. When they arrived at the Ruhr River in Germany, they made bridges to ride tanks and half-tracks across. When they ran into resistance, they would jump off their vehicles and get into a safe position.

Joseph Venerloh was informed about the Battle of the Bulge from a notice on a bulletin board while they were in a rest area. They got his unit [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 41st Armored Infantry Regiment, 2nd Armored Division] mounted up and got them going towards the combat area. Venerloh remembered the cold, wet weather. The tanks and half-tracks were slipping and sliding due to the ice. On Christmas Eve 1944, they were told to hide because a German convoy was coming through. Venerloh hid in a ditch with his M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 rifle, also known as the M1 Garand] rifle while the German soldiers passed. He and the rest of the troops were waiting for the signal to open fire, and when they did, they wiped out the Germans convoy. He could not see much at night, just the shadow of the vehicles, but when the sun came up on Christmas morning, there were dead Germans all over the place, and laying around vehicles. Later that day, Venerloh dug in on a hill and set up for a lot of defense. He saw an American plane fire at the German troops ahead. He was happy to not have to fight that day. While in the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], he was not equipped with the proper winter clothing. He would keep his feet dry by carring a pair of socks on his chest to keep dry and warm. He recalled a time when a tank was hit and the wheel begun spinning. He banged on the turret of the tank and the guys abandoned it before it was shelled by the enemy. The Battle of the Bulge came to an end for Venerloh in January 1945, when his unit met up with allies coming from another direction.

After the Battle of the Bulge, Joseph Venerloh and his unit [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 41st Armored Infantry Regiment, 2nd Armored Division] rested in Tilff, Belgium sometime around February 1945. They were assigned to a residence and the family's name was the Petrie family. The man was once a colonel in the Belgian military, and his son had died in combat. He had a wife and two daughters and Venerloh became close to one. Venerloh recalled that the Belgians were happy to see Americans. By the end of February 1945, they had left their cozy residences and began to cross the Rhine River into Germany by way of a pontoon bridge. As soon as the whole unit crossed, they headed deeper into Germany. They did get into parts of Holland and took over some towns. They kept going until they reached the Elbe River and the city of Magdeburg, Germany. His unit was preparing to take Berlin, Germany when they got word that the Russians wanted to, so they hung back. Venerloh was on the Elbe River when he got hit by artillery shrapnel. He was put on an ambulance, sent back to Paris, France where he took a plane back to England, and was admitted into a hospital to recover from shell shock.

After being injured at Elbe River, Germany, Joseph Venerloh was sent to England to recover in a hospital. He was hoping to eventually get back to his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company F, 2nd Battalion, 41st Armored Infantry Regiment, 2nd Armored Division], but the war in Europe ended before he ever did. While in England, he was able to get passes to London a couple of times, which he enjoyed. He was eventually shipped back to France to the Calas Staging Area, and since he had clerical experience, was given the job to process troops as they made their way back to the United States. Venerloh was finally able to return home. He was discharged from the Army in December 1945. Venerloh recalled the celebrations of the end of the war in Europe because he was outside the Royal Palace in England. He was in France at the time America dropped the atomic bombs and glad it was us that did it, because he would have been going to Japan if not. He used his G.I. Bill benefits to go to the University of St. Louis, Missouri and received a degree in commerce and finance. He was able to get a job at Ford Motor Company as a clerk. Venerloh admits that he had nightmares for a while after the war, but they have subsided.

Joseph Venerloh has a couple of memorable experiences of World War 2. First was the Siegfried Line because of the amount of artillery fire they recieved was so heavy at times. The second experience is when a tank ran over him. While riding on a tank, they were trying to cross some water, when he was hit above his right eye. He fell off the back of the tank. The tank, trying to retreat from the fire, began to reverse. Venerloh, had to roll towards the center of the tank, so he would not get smashed by the track. He then started to crawl towards a tree line and into a gully where a medic patched him up. Venerloh fought in World War 2 because he believed it was his duty to his country. The war means more to him today then ever before and he is proud of what he did. He does not know how Americans feel about World War 2 today. Having The National WWII Museum should behoove generations to learn about what happened and the lives that were sacrificed in this war.