Robert Eshback was born in 1924 in Beckersville, Pennsylvania. He was one of two sons of a foundryman. Eshback went to high school in Boyertown, but didn't graduate; he took a job in a hosiery factory. He wasn't worried about the war that was going on in Europe, and was having a meal in a restaurant when the news came over the radio about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He didn't think he would have to join the armed services, but in April of 1943, Eshback got his notice [Annotator's Note: his draft notice]. He was 21 and still living at home, and Eshback said his mother probably never got used to the idea. She worried about him. Eshback began his military career by going up to New Cumberland [Annotator's Note: New Cumberland Army Depot in Fairview, Pennsylvania] for a couple of days then being shipped to North Carolina. He was assigned to the newly organized 17th Airborne Division. Eshback did all right in basic training, and tried out for various occupations. He wound up in the machine gun section and stayed there until he was discharged at the rank of machine gun corporal. He operated .50 caliber machine guns [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun], and liked the job, but not all of the maneuvers. He spent a couple of weeks of tough training in rainy weather during the Tennessee Maneuvers. Afterward he went to Camp Forrest, Tennessee, and stayed there until he was shipped overseas in September 1944.

Robert Eshback went overseas on the USS Wakefield (AP-21), a troop transport ship that traveled alone, and he was seasick for one day, until he learned to position himself in the middle of the ship. They landed at Liverpool [Annotator's Note: Liverpool, England] then Eshback was sent to Swindon, England to continue training. His battalion [Annotator's Note: 681st Glider Field Artillery Battalion, 17th Airborne Division] was located right outside of town, and he remembers going out to eat fish'n'chips. While he was in Swindon, just two days before Christmas [Annotator's Note: 23 December 1944], his battalion got word that there was a planned prison break at a nearby prisoner of war camp. All the machine gun sections from the whole battalion were set up around the camp, but there was no trouble. The next day they flew over to France, and on to the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Eshback and his fellow soldiers were kept very well informed about what was going on in the war. He read the Stars and Stripes [Annotator's Note: United States military newspaper] newsletters, and there was always news from his buddies and officers. Eshback hoped it would all be over before they needed him. They were in the forest [Annotator's Note: Ardennes Forest in Belgium] area for 46 days. They always moved by jeep or truck, and the thing that amazed Eshback was seeing four big Belgian horses, dead near the road, and realizing that the Germans still had horse drawn artillery. He saw the results of high bursts [Annotator's Note: artillery bursts] over the trees that made them look like they were pruned off 30 or 40 feet above the ground. Eshback realized what war was all about when he went overseas, and felt he had the training that was necessary for him to make it through. Several of the officers who trained them in the United States didn't go overseas with the troops; he believed it was because they were not liked, and "when you're over there on the front, that's the place to get even." The officers that went over with them were really nice. He knew the men he could count on, and has kept up with several of the men with whom he served. When the company broke up in France after the war was over with Germany, there were a lot men who had tears.

Robert Eshback and the three other men of the machine gun section stood guard 24 hours a day, then they switched off. They suffered from frostbite, because they didn't have the right boots. He went 46 days without a real bath. Most of the time they had shelter, and could get a fire going. As they moved further into Germany they would go into a house, chase the residents out, and sleep in their beds. They had delousing powder to sprinkle around. When they went over the Rhine River on 24 March [Annotator's Note: 24 March 1945], the infantry went in by parachute and glider, then the artillery went in. Eshback knew when they were over the Rhine, because when he looked out the window, he could see flak [Annotator's Note: antiaircraft artillery fire]. Luckily enough his glider wasn't hit. A glider can land real fast; when they cut loose from the plane they can land in less than ten seconds. From then on, they were ground troops. Eshback doesn't know why, but he never put the strap of his steel helmet under his chin. On Christmas Eve [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1944] he was traveling in a jeep, and his helmet flew off; he had to get a replacement later. He saw a lot a guys get their faces messed up from their helmets. Landings could be dangerous; he saw a lot of paratroopers hung in trees. They all had maps but the First Sergeant traveled in Eshback's glider and he got them where they needed to be. Some of the gliders had jeeps in them, and four men sat in the jeep. When the glider landed, they could pull away. Their training paid off. They had trained in North Carolina on silhouettes, just the framework of the gliders, and they learned how to load and unload them. His air cooled .50 caliber machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] had a tripod, and it could be used for aircraft or ground troops. He usually traveled and worked closely with a buddy or two. As the Machine Gun Corporal, it was Eshback who loaded the gun. The ammunition came in a 100 round box. The cartridges were loaded into links that fell apart and landed on the ground when spent. He felt pretty good about having the machine gun, but he never used it in battle. It would have given away the battalion's [Annotator's Note: 681st Glider Field Artillery Battalion, 17th Airborne Division] position. Once he dropped over the Rhine and got set up, his job was to protect the fire direction [Annotator's Note: field artillery fire director]. In Germany they would set the fire direction up in a house, because they needed electricity to use their maps. [Annotator's Note: Eshback goes on to describe the function of the artillery forward observer.]

In March [Annotator's Note: March 1945], Robert Eshback was in the Ruhr Pocket; in April his battalion [Annotator's Note: 681st Glider Field Artillery Battalion, 17th Airborne Division] had to secure a bridgehead prior to the attack on Essen [Annotator's Note: Essen, Germany]. They were in the area for around 20 days, and it wasn't long after that, it [Annotator's Note: the war in Europe] was over. Up to that point, he had lost a couple of good friends. He also had a scary experience when they first landed and got their machine gun set up. He had lost his watch, and thought he might get one off a dead "Heine" [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Germans]. There were several soldiers on the ground near their position. He took a watch from the first dead German he saw, then thought he might get a better one, and tried the next guy. He still has the watch he took from the second man. Then he saw an American on the ground, and thought he might be able to help him, so he rolled him over. The soldier had a big hole in him, and it was a guy he knew well. It shook him up so he went back to his machine gun and stayed there. Eshback thinks more about those events now than he did at the time. Most of his buddies are going now, and they don't have reunions any more. He had gotten pretty close to the men he served with, having lived with them for 24 hours a day for 31 months. There were times that he felt really alone, too.

When the division [Annotator's Note: 17th Airborne Division] broke up, Robert Eshback was sent to the 101st [Annotator's Note: 101st Airborne Division], some of whom were picked out to be replacements in the South Pacific. As one of the last ones in, he was one of the first chosen and shipped to Southern France. There, he got shots to go overseas. While he waited to leave, the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] were dropped, and the Japanese surrendered. Instead of going to the South Pacific, he went to Camp Myles Standish [Annotator's Note: in Taunton, Massachusetts] in Massachusetts. From there he went to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he stayed until his discharge. He reached the required number of 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] because of a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is an award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy]. Eshback was wounded after his unit [Annotator's Note: 681st Glider Field Artillery Battalion, 17th Airborne Division] had pulled back from the front in Germany. While walking back from chow, he and two buddies were hit by a German bus. He was injured in one knee, and after going to the hospital, he doctored it up himself. Later, when he found out about the point system, he asked if he was eligible for the Purple Heart, and learned he was. That gave him the five extra points he needed for discharge. Eshback doesn't tell anybody about getting the award, he just wanted to get out. The people on the bus, weren't Germans, they were DPs [Annotator's Note: displaced persons]. At the end of the war, officers would just walk through the hospital, and throw Purple Hearts on the soldiers' beds. They were handing them out. When he looks back at his service, the thing he is most proud of was getting away with his life. On 24 March [Annotator's Note: 24 March 1945], his plane was headed for a high-tension wire, but he landed safe. The second time was when he was going to a rendezvous area, and he was pinned down by machine gun fire. While he was laying there, he heard a thud, and when he looked over, there lay a mortar dud. It would have nailed him. It was his luckiest day.

Robert Eshback believes that the war was a good experience for a lot of men; for him, it wasn't good. It took a lot of years from him. He did make a lot of friends, though, including some nice Germans. When the war in Europe ended, the German girls were nice to the soldiers, even if they couldn't fraternize. Eshback thinks it would be hard for many people to believe, but German civilians were so short on food, they were eating out of the American soldiers' garbage cans. During the war, he didn't think much about it, but now he believes they are decent people. While he was up in the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], he became friendly with a German interpreter who accompanied the battalion [Annotator's Note: 681st Glider Field Artillery Battalion, 17th Airborne Division]. He was a nice man, who marveled at the young age considered acceptable for an American to marry. The man told Eshback that European men were usually around 28 when they got married.