Robert Gaylord Furrow was born September 1920 in Elwood, Nebraska. His family moved to Maywood [Annotator's Note: Maywood, Nebraska] when Furrow was five years old. His father worked as a grocer. Furrow went to school and church and liked various outdoors activates. It was a small town. His parents were kind, Christian people. Furrow attended junior college for a year but decided to drop out to work with his father. He bought a car and attended a sheet metal school. After graduating, Furrow started working for Boeing [Annotator's Note: The Boeing Company]. A few months later, Furrow received his draft notice. He tried to get deferred, but that did not work. Furrow had his physical done in Denver [Annotator's Note: Denver, Colorado] at Fort Logan. He did his basic training at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri [Annotator's Note: Jefferson Barracks Military Post in Lemay, Missouri]. From there, Furrow was transported to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana [Annotator's Note: in Rapides Parish, Louisiana], where his company [Annotator's Note: Company B, 876th Airborne Engineer Battalion] was formed. That is where Furrow started training as an engineer. His officers interviewed him and decided to make Furrow the company clerk because he could type. He spent most of his time in the Army as a company clerk, which he liked. Furrow was able to decide who did KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police] and guard duty. Furrow was an only child and because his family owned a grocery store, they had food. They ate the old produce. The Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] did not affect his family like it affected others. While driving in his car, Furrow heard about the attack at Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was shocked by the news. Where he lived, life did not change much after the attack. His town conducted programs to save aluminum and sold junk iron for military purposes. Furrow was guaranteed a job in an airplane factory after his sheet metal courses. His first job was in Seattle [Annotator's Note: Seattle, Washington] with Boeing. His first few weeks were spent at a factory building flying boats. Furrow drilled holes into flat iron frames. When that job was done, he helped the paint crew prep aluminum sheets. His parents were not happy he had been drafted. Furrow became engaged to his future wife. The training and military life were very different from civilian life. He did not train like the infantry. His job was mostly repair work on runways. Furrow was trained with equipment. He had a good life in the military. He lived in his own tent and he had his own truck. It was easy to move his gear and his food came from the Air Force, as did the cooks, so he had a bed every night with three meals a day. Furrow trained on the caterpillar tractor with a bulldozer blade attached to it. It could be moved in a glider or C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo plane].

Robert Gaylord Furrow went to England, France, Belgium, and Germany. He trained for a year before the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] in England. Furrow boarded the Queen Mary [Annotator's Note: RMS Queen Mary] in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. It took five days to get to Scotland, where he took a train south of London, England. He remained there for a year training. Furrow did no repair work on English landing strips, he just trained. The reason for airborne engineers was for them to be flown in to repair strips immediately. Furrow was sent over in a boat instead of by glider. Omaha Beach [Annotator's Note: one of the two American landing beaches for Operation Overlord] was a mess when Furrow landed. He knew how the Germans had dug themselves into the land. He saw the gun emplacements and walked up the hill. On the left was a large military cemetery. Furrow was amazed by the amount of crosses he saw so early into the battle. Furrow’s first job was to get his camp set up and get his orders from the Air Corps. There were no maps of his location and he was normally away from a town or city. Furrow's unit maintained strips made of various materials. One had tar paper roads, another had aluminum planking, while another had a mesh wire surface. When it rained, sink holes would open and Furrow would have to fill them. He did not have large building projects. After Belgium, Furrow was sent to Germany. Furrow was never threatened, but he saw destruction. He saw villages totally obliterated by the bombings. He was able to go to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. He thought it was an interesting place. Furrow thinks about the historic things he could have seen, but instead he went to bars. The cooks in his camp were good and he liked his officers. Furrow was about the same age as his officers. He slept in the same tent as the platoon sergeants. The men in his unit [Annotator's Note: Company B, 876th Airborne Engineer Battalion] were from Texas, New York, Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois], and there was one other Nebraskan. The man from Nebraska enjoyed playing poker and would send his winnings home to his wife. He found out his wife had been cheating on him, so they divorced. Furrow was company clerk and he was promoted to First Sergeant. Furrow was given money to buy liquor for the evening. He took another man to a camp that had captured German equipment. Furrow was given a pair of German field glasses [Annotator's Note: binoculars]. When he returned, he was transferred to Headquarters Company [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 876th Airborne Engineer Battalion] and made a corporal. Furrow never found out why. His mother was sent a letter from the chaplain, who told her Furrow did nothing wrong. Furrow does not know how far into Germany he got because he did not have any maps. The destruction was terrible, but the scenery was beautiful. Europe's weather was similar to American weather. Furrow went where he was told and made the best out of the situation. He did not worry about where exactly he was in the various counties he was stationed in.

Robert Gaylord Furrow remembers when he heard about the death of Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States]. He was sad and surprised. Furrow could not think about it too much. He was in camp listening to the news when he heard the war ended. He has happy to hear about V-E Day, but soon rumors spread about being transferred to the Pacific. He was worried because he does not like the heat. After sometime, Furrow was sent home. He was sent home on the Costa Rica Victory [Annotator's Note: SS Costa Rica Victory]. Furrow boarded the Victory ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] in Southern France and docked in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. He was fed like a king. The ship hit one bad storm and the seas were rough for a few days. It took almost two weeks to make it back. A few hours before making it home, Furrow sat on the deck looking for the Statue of Liberty [Annotator's Note: in New York Harbor]. Shortly afterwards, Furrow was discharged at Fort Riley, Kansas [Annotator's Note: near Junction City, Kansas]. He returned home in December 1945 and got married the following February. Furrow started working in the family grocery store as a partner. After 12 years, he started working as an officer manager for the United States Department of Agriculture. He ended up working there for 24 years. Later on, he worked for an insurance company. Furrow has enjoyed his retirement.

Robert Gaylord Furrow felt like his service made him a better man. He thinks every young man should be given military training after high school. The war changed him very little. Furrow grew up during the war. He thinks kids should learn about World War 2 in school. The Maywood school [Annotator's Note: Maywood High School in Maywood, Nebraska] has asked Furrow to speak at the school. He shows the school some of his equipment and tells them stories about his service. The local paper interviewed Furrow about his service. Furrow was given 50 extra dollars a month for riding in a glider once a month. He had never been in an airplane before joining the military. He rode a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo plane] in Connecticut, then started riding in gliders. The C-47 would tow the glider. On one flight, they went through some clouds and the glider pilot could not see the plane anymore, it was an eerie feeling. Furrow rode in a smaller glider with bucket seats. There was also a large freight glider he rode in. The English gliders [Annotator's Note: British Airspeed AS.51 Horsa glider] were made out of plywood and would creak as it flew. Furrow was afraid when he first started riding in those gliders. He could see the wings flopping in the wind. Furrow thinks The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana] is important and great. Furrow believes he lives in a great country and is proud to be an American. He hopes the leaders of the country keep it a great country, but thinks it is slipping in different ways. Furrow takes part in the local Memorial Day services in his town. He reads a prayer and reads the names of the honored dead in the cemetery. He also helps with military funerals. The legion club is not very active in his town.