Robert Wolf was born in New York City, [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] in August 1925. His mother was from Atlanta [Annotator's Note: Atlanta, Georgia] and his father was from The Netherlands. He joined the military in 1943. He was in his first semester of college and was told he could finish if he would enlist in the Army Reserve, so he did. He reported for duty to Fort Devens [Annotator's Note: in Ayer and Shirley, Massachusetts], Massachusetts on 5 November 1943. Everyone he knew was in the Army, everyone from his class in high school. There were no school deferments [Annotator's Note: postponement of military service] in those days. The Army Specialized Training Program [Annotator's Note: generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers] was in place but you had to go through basic training first. He went through 13 weeks of basic training but then the Army Specialized Training Program was disbanded. They needed infantry more than college boys. He went to the 86th Division [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 383rd Infantry Regiment, 86th Infantry Division; in 24 January 1944] at Camp Livingston in Alexandria, Louisiana. After the war he returned to college at Yale [Annotator's Note: Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut]. The 86th Division had been cleaned out for infantry replacements and was filling up with ASTP people, Air Cadet trainees, Coast Artillery, and more.

Robert Wolf trained in Louisiana in the summer of 1944. He then went to California to do amphibious training for the invasion of Okinawa [Annotator's Note: Okinawa, Japan]. He was eventually in the battalion intelligence section [Annotator's Note: Wolf was a member of Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 383rd Infantry Regiment, 86th Infantry Division], so he trained in amphibious reconnaissance. In the fall of 1944, the coast of California was experiencing 15 to 20 foot waves. They were in California when the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] started. They were turned around and put aboard ships [Annotator's Note: on 19 February 1945] to Le Havre, France [Annotator's Note: 1 March 1945]. They went to Camp Old Gold [Annotator's Note: one of the transit and rehabilitation camps in France named after popular cigarette brands; Old Gold was near Ourville-en-Caux, France] and then got on 40 and eight rail cars [Annotator's Note: 40 and eight refers European railroad boxcars which could accomodate 40 standing men or eight standing horses] to Cologne, Germany [Annotator's Note: Koln, Germany] in March 1945. They then went to the Ruhr Pocket [Annotator's Note: battle of encirclement in April 1945, Ruhr Valley, Germany]. They had a week to ten days of real combat against a weakened enemy. His scary times were being fired at by 88s [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. The Germans were running low on ammunition, so it was not too often. In "Saving Private Ryan" [Annotator's Note: 1998 American war film set during the Invasion of Normandy], every time they raised their rifles, they seemed to hit somebody. That was not the way it was in Wolf's outfit. There was a lot of sound and fury but very little hitting. They then spent time rounding up prisoners. In the course of a few months, they were in the 1st, 3rd, 7th and 15th Armies. They stayed in Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] 3rd Army a while and crossed the Danube [Annotator's Note: Danube River] heading towards Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany]. A more experienced unit took over and took Munich. He then went to Austria.

Robert Wolf went into Cologne [Annotator's Note: Cologne, or Koln, Germany]. It was a desert. There was a lot that was undamaged. He stayed in a fine, large house. It was springtime. They were there about a week. The devastation started as they went into the Ruhr [Annotator's Note: Ruhr Pocket, battle of encirclement in April 1945, Ruhr Valley, Germany]. Wolf was in the infantry in the battalion intelligence section [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 383rd Infantry Regiment, 86th Infantry Division], which were the battalion scouts. He had trained at Camp Pendleton [Annotator's Note: Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California] in rubber boats off the coast of California in the Channel Islands. Wolf was in the last division to go to Europe and the first to come home on 17 June 1944. He had 30 days leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] then reported to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma to ready for the invasion of Japan. The bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] dropped and they thought it was over. They went to the Philippines to Marikina for six months. General MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] had decided to hold war crimes trials [Annotator's Note: Philippines War Crimes Commission, 1945]. Wolf attended but thought they should be taken out and shot. A Captain Greer [Annotator's Note: US Army Captain John J. Greer] had been a civilian lawyer and was defense counsel for a Japanese major being tried. His troops did some bad things. He was not being tried for having ordered it, he was being tried for failing to prevent it. Wolf's commanding officer told Wolf that if that man was being tried, he should be tried for what some of his men did in Germany. Wolf went to the trials of Generals Homma [Annotator's Note: Imperial Japanese Army Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma] and Yamashita [Annotator's Note: Imperial Japanese Army General Tomoyuki Yamashita; known as The Tiger of Malaya].

Robert Wolf carried an M1 rifle [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. He did not use it often. [Annotator's Note: One interviewer asks if he remembers the first time he came under fire in Europe.] It was the first day he was in the Ruhr Pocket campaign [Annotator's Note: Ruhr Pocket, battle of encirclement April 1945, Ruhr Valley, Germany]. They were shelled and it was scary. He spoke German so he stayed mostly in the battalion headquarters. He was in an exposed position and had 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88-millimeter, multi-purpose artillery] fire coming in. That was the closest he came to getting hurt. He had learned German growing up. His grandmother was a first-generation immigrant. They were Jewish and the family that had stayed in Germany wanted to get out when Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] came to power. His parents helped them come. Wolf had an over-privileged childhood. He had a butler who did not speak much English, so they had a German-speaking household for a number of years. A battalion intelligence section are scouts or messengers or guards. Because he spoke German, he basically would scout locations by telling the local Germans to get out of their houses so they could take them over. [Annotator's Note: Interviewer asks how he felt about the Germans being the enemy.] Among the civilians, they never met a Nazi because nobody had ever heard of a Nazi. They were all scared to death. Prisoners are prisoners and are not very dangerous. He did not have any great hatred. There are always guys with not much sense that have guns. He came across a bunch of men having German soldiers digging graves and pretending they were going to shoot them.

[Annotator's Note: Robert Wolf was gearing up to go to Japan after returning from combat in Europe.] All he knew was there was going to be an invasion of Japan and he was likely going to be in it. The atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945] being dropped was a great relief. The problems with the Soviets had already started and was heating up. He thought they would be in the Army for another couple of years. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if he had ever traveled before entering the service and what going overseas had been like.] They left France to go to Germany and passed through the Netherlands where his father had been born. A lot of his relatives had lived in Germany. He had an unintended code in his mail that let his family know where he was. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if he was disappointed that he had to serve.] He was happy to serve his country. He was 18 years old and was a kid. It was a great adventure until he got shot at. He did pick up some souvenirs that he traded away. On VE-Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945], a couple of them got a jeep and went to Berchtesgaden [Annotator's Note: Berchtesgaden, Germany]. They got to go into Hitler's [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] house. The area had been taken by the 3rd Division [Annotator's Note: 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division] two days earlier [Annotator's Note: 4 May 1945] and the 101st [Annotator's Note: 101st Airborne Division] was there. The hillside was honeycombed with bunkers, barracks, wine cellars and more. There was nothing left in the wine cellars.

Robert Wolf returned to the United States from the Philippines and went back to school. He graduated in 1949. He utilized the G.I. Bill. He does not know how it works today. He would have gone to college anyhow, but it permitted a lot of people to go. Wolf worked as a Municipal Bond dealer and a bureaucrat in the Securities and Exchange Commission. He moved to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana] and stayed 62 years. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks how he heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941.] He was working in a workshop when he heard. He thinks it is terribly important for kids to learn history. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if he thinks it is important to have The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.] They have been successful and valuable. His message to future generations is that the Greatest Generation [Annotator's Note: the World War 2 generation was referred to as the Greatest Generation in the 1998 book by the same name by journalist Tom Brokaw] was a myth that helped Tom Brokaw sell books. But it was an unusual generation. It was a time when everybody was involved in this national effort. He hopes it never happens again, but history tends to repeat itself. Perhaps another generation will rise to the challenge.