Theodore Noel Carder was born in Glendale, California in September 1924. His family experience hard times during the Depression [Annotator's Note: the Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States]. Performing multiple jobs, there were times when Carder's father could not provide food for the family. They lived in town, but jobs were sparse. The WPA [Annotator's Note: the Works Progress Administration was a federally sponsored program that put unemployed Americans to work during the Great Depression] work was tough since the elder Carder was a groundskeeper at the school that his son attended. Attending vocational classes in machine shop work, young Carder found work to help the family. After high school graduation, Carder worked for a year in a small machine shop prior to being drafted. After his service and recovery [Annotator's Note: he was captured during the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], he went to work for another company and stayed with them for 27 years. Before this, Carder traveled to an induction center and entered the Navy. Following discovery that Carder was colored blind, he was sent to the Army and combat engineer training. After basic training as a combat engineer, Carder applied for Officer Candidate Training but flunked the test. It was determined at that point that he would be a truck mechanic. He was sent to San Antonio, Texas for further training in repairing Army vehicles. With a diminished need for truck mechanics, his whole class was sent to Sacramento, California and prepared for deployment to the Pacific. Three days later, their khaki uniforms were exchanged for wool, and they were sent to Europe. After spending time in England, he was ordered to France. It was 19 days after D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] and he was still in a replacement pool. He joined the 7th Armored Division in September 1944.

Theodore Noel Carder and his outfit [Annotator's Note: 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division] was assigned to go north into Holland to work with the British. They campaigned in the Peel swamp area [Annotator's Note: de Groote Peel in North Brabant and Limburg, Netherlands]. He remained there and in western Germany from September until December [Annotator's Note: 1944]. On 17 December [Annotator's Note: 17 December 1944], the battalion moved from Germany to the area of the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. The fight in Holland had been rough [Annotator's Note: concurrent with Operation Market Garden, Netherlands, 17 to 25 September 1944]. As the British moved east, the 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion moved to Setterich, Germany. Carder served as a runner for his platoon. He had been a radio operator after the previous operator accidentally shot himself. The battalion was in bivouac [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary campsite] when the word came to shift south. Everyone boarded the half-tracks [Annotator's Note: a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks]. The lieutenant was on Carder's vehicle and told him to get on the radio and find out what was happening, without knowing that radio silence had been imposed by the Americans. Carder was severely chastised for this. Proceeding to Rodt, Belgium, the 23rd Armored Infantry ran into the 106th Division [Annotator's Note: 106th Infantry Division] going the opposite way. It was a terrible situation after the that. The 106th was green and simply wanted to retreat from the area. It created a terrible traffic jam. Vehicles of all types were crossing paths and jamming together without any order. The 23rd forced its way through the melee and got into position in the Saint-Vith area [Annotator's Note: Saint-Vith, Belgium] on top of a hill the same day. The German advance was close, and the enemy fired airbursts into the treetops. Shrapnel and tree parts came down on the troops. Small trees were used to cover the foxholes the Americans dug. The explosions overhead were frightening. The 9th Armored [Annotator's Note: 9th Armored Division] was in the same area but withdrew through the 7th Armor positions. There were numerous other outfits close by. Carder's squad supported an anti-tank gun. A small German scout car approached and was blown away. After that the whole German army seemed to come at Carder and his platoon. The nearby assembled American forces consisted of two platoons with about 80 men. The fighting was intense. Casualties approached 80 percent. The roof on the hole saved Carder. Eventually, a lieutenant colonel contacted the Germans and returned to his command to tell them they could try to escape or otherwise they were to become POWs [Annotator's Note: prisoners of war]. Those that tried to get away were eventually captured. The Americans were surrounded and overrun. The weather was cold. The Americans tried to stay alive. The only food was what they brought up the hill with them from the half-track. As Carder was taken away from the hill, he saw a large hole in the side of their half-track. As the platoon runner, he continued to carry messages and run telephone wires between neighboring platoons prior to surrendering. Carder was trying to survive, but he was too young to realize the trouble he was in. The whole division suffered 80 percent casualties. The Panzergrenadiers [Annotator's Note: German mechanized infantry] attacked through Carder's particular area.

Theodore Noel Carder and his platoon [Annotator's Note: in the 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division] surrendered [Annotator's Note: during the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They walked about 35 miles to a transit POW [Annotator's Note: prisoner of war] camp in Gerolstein, Germany. He spent about 21 days there. He was forced to work for the Germans, but he did not want to help the enemy. The American planes bombed the railyards nearby and the POWs had to fill the craters. Carder's frostbite got worse, and his hands were in bad shape when he was forced onto a train and taken to Limburg, Germany and Stammlager XII-A [Annotator's Note: Stalag XII-A in Limburg, Germany]. Conditions there were a bit better though the medical facilities were minimal. There were some POW medical officers, but they had nothing to work with. In transit to the Stammlager, fighter bombers strafed nearby railcars. The POWs hoped the pilots aimed well [Annotator's Note: Carder laughs]. There was little food in transit to the camp. Food improved a little with Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization] packages at the camp. No mail was allowed. The compound next to Carder's contained British troops captured in North Africa in 1942. Those guys were survivors. They had food and were willing to trade the Yanks [Annotator's Note: slang for all Americans] for it. The inside of the British POW coats were lined with watches they had obtained in trade. The inmates had to avoid the ten-foot dead zone between compounds for fear of being shot. Carder had nothing to trade at that point. He could not walk so he was not able to work. His fingers smelled [Annotator's Note: from gangrene, tissue death caused by a lack of blood supply]. Those that could walk were taken out of the camp on their own power. Carder had little to treat his frostbitten fingers with. When gangrene set in, little bones protruded from the end of his fingers like a spear [Annotator's Note: he laughs]. As the Americans progressed into Germany, the POWs were loaded aboard trains and moved further into Germany. They traveled at night and hid during the day. Finally, the engine crew abandoned the train in a tunnel. It was discovered by a reconnaissance unit. A medical unit picked up the POWs and moved them to treatment areas. Carder's first airplane ride crashed on the ground preparing for takeoff. He was on the fifth of five C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft] hospital planes with air cover. The first four took off with no issues but his was delayed after the landing gear dropped into a shell hole. After getting the plane fixed, Carder was flown to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] for a layover for delousing and clean-up on his way to England and recovery. Since he was not ambulatory, he was put in a surgical ward. The others were placed on a special diet group. Carder could eat anything he wanted, but he could not eat much at the time. He had gone from 150 to 100 pounds during his captivity. At liberation, Carder was glad to see people in clean clothes who knew what they were doing. The prisoner triage resulted in him having a gangrene card affixed to him. The liberators offered candy, booze or anything the former captives wanted. The freed individuals' stomachs could not handle that, and some became very sick. Carder went through surgery and recovered enough to be semi-ambulatory. He was sent on a hospital ship back to Charleston, South Carolina. He rode on a hospital train all the way across America. He felt like royalty in his bunk with a view. He reached Van Nuys, California at the end of his journey.

Theodore Noel Carder stayed there [Annotator's Note: in a hospital in Van Nuys, California after returning to the United States. He had been liberated from a German prisoner of war camp.] until he was fully ambulatory and able to be discharged. Because of his need to go to work, he did not use the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment]. Even though Carder was still not fully recovered, he did work with his former instructor, Mr. Nash [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling], to further his machine shop knowledge while his physical conditions improved. The instructor was instrumental in Carder obtaining a job as an apprentice gunsmith. He worked in that position and then for an aerospace company where he remained for 27 years. The company did research work for Bell Helicopter Company [Annotator's Note: now Bell Textron Incorporated]. He did a good job during his career working into a junior executive position. World War 2 was something that had to be done unlike today. The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana] is doing a wonderful job performing its mission. D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] and Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] were not the only events of the war. The museum shows the scale of the conflict. People do not know of Saint-Vith [Annotator's Note: Saint-Vith, Belgium] where Carder participated in the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945].