Vernon Ollar was born in July 1926 in Moline, Illinois and grew up in nearby Rock Island, Illinois as an only child. His father was a World War 1 [Annotator's Note: World War 1, global war originating in Europe; 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918] veteran. During the Great Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression was a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States], the Ollar family lived in a basement apartment where his father worked in exchange for free rent. He wore cardboard in his shoes and patched-up overalls. They did not have anything. At age 10, Ollar, an only child, took on his father’s work to allow him to find a better paying job. Ollar did maintenance on windows and the boiler. In his free time, he played football at his high school. Ollar was supposed to play college football, but he had an argument with the high school principal which ruined his chances to continue at a collegiate level. When Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941 [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941], Ollar, married with a young daughter at the time, was asleep with his wife when the news came over the radio. [Annotator’s Note: Clock dings in background at 0:07:25.000.] He was very upset about the attack and never understood why the Japanese “signed their own death warrant.” Ollar worked in an ordnance plant at the time and, because of his family, could have been exempt from service, but he decided that he had to do his part and enlisted in the Army in January 1942. He joined because all his buddies had gone ahead of him, and he wanted to do his part. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewer asked to pause video at 0:10:06.000. Video breaks at 0:13:42.000.] His boss was very upset when Ollar told him that he was leaving to join the service.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee speaks slowly and pauses several times throughout segment.] Vernon Ollar was inducted at Fort Dodge, Iowa where he completed physical and medical tests. A group of 10 or 12 men boarded a train for Alabama. He arrived at Camp Sibert, Alabama for basic training. He was selected to be in the chemical corps. Because he had worked in CCC [Annotator's Note: Civilian Conservation Corps] camps in his teenage years, military life was not a shock to him. He was selected for cadre school but was forced to drop out when he returned home to be with his wife who had suffered a miscarriage. In spring of 1943, he was transferred to Camp Polk, Louisiana where he was assigned to Company B, 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewer pauses interview at 0:21:09.000-0:23:39.000.] From Louisiana, the outfit was sent to Camp Gordon Johnston, Florida for amphibious training. He practiced boarding an LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] and moved across the water and stormed a beach. Ollar believed he was training for combat in the South Pacific because of the martial arts and jungle training he underwent. Ollar is one-eighth Choctaw from his father’s side of the family. After four weeks of amphibious training and getting a dark tan, Ollar then attended two weeks of mountain training in West Virginia.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee speaks slowly and pauses several times throughout segment.] Vernon Ollar was assigned to the 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion and volunteered to go to mountain training in West Virginia. He volunteered because he was told he would be given hot meals instead of K rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals]. He was trained by a man from Switzerland who taught Ollar how to climb steep mountains. After mountain training, he was sent to Camp Pickett, Virginia to await deployment overseas via Camp Shanks, New Jersey. He was able to go on leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and visit his family before heading overseas. [Annotator’s Note: Clock dings at 0:35:48.000.] In November 1943, Ollar and the 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion were stationed in Penkridge, England, while training for the coming invasion of Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. For training, he went on a lot of maneuvers and trained on mortars [Annotator's Note: a short smoothbore gun which fires explosive shells at high angles]. He explains the uses of the 4.2 inch mortar on which he trained. The mortar was made of three parts and each part was heavy. [Annotator’s Note: Interviewee pauses interview at 0:38:04.000. Video break at 0:38:09.000.] His job was gunner. He had to position the sight on the muzzle of the barrel and use coordinates and elevations to locate the target. His unit trained all winter and shot their mortars at nearby sand dunes. [Annotator’s Note: Clock dings at 0:43:02.000.] Ollar was a corporal at the time of the initial D-Day invasion, and therefore was not told very much about what was to come.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee speaks slowly and pauses several times throughout segment.] Vernon Ollar was assigned as a gunner in the 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion. On the day of the Normandy invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] he boarded a British landing ship which took him across the English Channel. From his position below deck, Ollar did not feel any fear as he did not know what to expect. The LCVP [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP; also known as the Higgins boat] he boarded was hit by enemy artillery fire as they made their way to Omaha Beach. The men aboard and the mortars were safely transferred to an LCM [Annotator’s Note: landing craft mechanized] and brought ashore at nine thirty in the morning on D-Day. He remarked that “all hell was busting loose.” There were explosions and bursts all around him. The USS Texas (BB-35) was behind him bombarding the pill boxes. The waves were very choppy and were pushing him in. He does not know how he did not get hit because small arms fire was bouncing off everywhere. [Annotator’s Note: Video break at 0:54:46.000.] Landing in an LCVP with his squad and 4.2 mortar with a cart, he earned his unit a presidential citation when something hit the rear of their boat and they had to abandon ship and transfer all their equipment into another landing craft. They had wrapped the 20 or so Mae West life preservers around the mortars so that they would come up from the bottom and partially float to shore. [Annotator’s Note: Clock dings at 0:57.04.000.] When he landed on the beach, he did not think of much besides protecting himself. He made sure his rifle was loaded and ready to fire.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee speaks slowly and pauses several times throughout segment.] Vernon Ollar participated in the amphibious invasion of Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] and was assigned as a gunner in the 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion during World War 2. When he reached Omaha Beach, Ollar made his way to the meeting area to set up his mortar [Annotator's Note: a short smoothbore gun which fires explosive shells at high angles] and offer support fire for the Rangers on Pointe du Hoc. His unit was able to knock out a German machine gun nest. It was difficult to carry up the mortar in the steep and treacherous terrain. When he reached the top of the hill, his unit dug in for the rest of the day. The next day, Ollar and his unit moved through the thick hedgerow [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation] of Normandy and around Saint-Lô [Annotator’s Note: Saint-Lô, France]. A soldier came up with the idea of putting prongs at the end of the tanks which tore up the hedgerow. [Annotator’s Note: Video break at 1:12:03.000.] They had great success at synchronizing mortar power, Howitzer [Annotator's Note: M2A1 105mm howitzer; standard light field howitzer] cannon power, and aerial bombardment from P-47s [Annotator's Note: Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft] for over a week to take Hill 192 at Saint-Lô, which was a vital victory for the Allies to advance into Paris [Annotator’s Note: Paris, France]. He had a close call where a P-47 dropped a bomb near his unit, but it was a dud.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee speaks slowly and pauses several times throughout segment.] Assigned as a gunner in the 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion during World War 2, Vernon Ollar participated in the amphibious invasion of Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] and the advancement on Hill 192 at Saint-Lô [Annotator’s Note: Saint-Lô, France]. There were dead Germans laying everywhere after the Allies defeated them on the hill. Following Saint-Lô, Ollar and the 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion, attached to the 4th Infantry Division at the time, paraded into Paris [Annotator’s Note: Paris, France] as liberators. His unit was chosen to go through the center of the city. The Parisian girls were all over the American G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier]. They were given wine, flowers, and kisses. Some naked women were being chased by other women because they had colluded with the Nazis. Their heads were shaven, and swastikas were drawn on their heads. His unit ran into a pocket of Germans on the other side of city. Ollar set up a mortar [Annotator's Note: a short smoothbore gun which fires explosive shells at high angles] on top of a Kodak factory and defeated the pocket of Germans. They then pushed across France to the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s] in the Hurtgen Forest and endured heavy combat from the Germans dug in in pillboxes. [Annotator’s Note: clock dings at 1:27:30.000.] One of his lieutenants by the name of Weller, crawled over and put phosphorus in the pill boxes. His unit was able to capture German prisoners and sent them to the back of the line.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee speaks slowly and pauses several times throughout segment.] After the combat at the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s], Vernon Ollar and his unit [Annotator’s Note: 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion] traveled along the Saar River into the German town of Dillingen. They captured the town. [Annotator’s Note: The interviewee is interrupted by the interviewer adjusting the camera at 1:31:53.000.] His unit crossed the river in rubber boats. At this point in the war, Ollar carried the radio for the lieutenant and called in the coordinates for the mortar [Annotator's Note: a short smoothbore gun which fires explosive shells at high angles] fire. He remained up there for two weeks as a forward observer and almost got killed twice. When his unit moved out of Dillingen, they moved in toward the end 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]. He crossed the Rhine River at Frankfurt [Annotator’s Note: Frankfurt, Germany] over pontoon bridges. [Annotator’s Note: Clock dings at 1:42:24.000.] The last few German cities he went through all had white sheets hanging out of their windows [Annotator’s Note: to signify surrender]. After the war ended, he heard about a German tailor that adjusted his uniform for oranges and bananas. [Annotator’s Note: Video break at 1:44:59.000.]

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee speaks slowly and pauses several times throughout segment.] Before the Germans officially surrendered, Vernon Ollar’s company [Annotator’s Note: 81st Chemical Mortar Battalion] was transferred to Dinant, Belgium where they took part in a military experiment seeking to track mortar [Annotator's Note: a short smoothbore gun which fires explosive shells at high angles] fire. He cried when he finally heard news of the surrender and felt no shame. He was relieved there would be no more killing. He spent the summer of 1945 attached to a Howitzer [Annotator's Note: M2A1 105mm howitzer; standard light field howitzer] outfit before being sent home via Le Havre [Annotator’s Note: Le Havre, France] in November 1945. When he arrived in the United States, he was sent to Camp Bradford in Norfolk, Virginia for two weeks. He was then sent to Fort Sheridan [Annotator’s Note: Fort Sheridan, Illinois] and was discharged as a corporal. [Annotator’s Note: Clock dings at 1:55:03.000.] His homecoming and seeing his wife, young daughter, parents, and in-laws was very emotional. They all were very happy for him to be home after three years of separation. It took some time for his daughter to adjust to him when he returned home. Ollar had some difficulty adjusting to civilian life, but found a job with the John Deer Company. Back home in Moline [Annotator’s Note: Moline, Illinois], everyone else had taken almost all the available 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] apprenticeships, but he was fortunate to land one with a lumber yard and learned their trade and, most importantly, drafting, estimating, and drawing plans.

Vernon Ollar’s most memorable experience of World War 2 was D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He fought because he joined the Army, and he did not like Germans. He did not like how the Germans treated their civilians. His whole life changed because of World War 2. He was able to run his own business and make a lot of money. His own company, Ollar Hardware Co. Inc. in Moline, Illinois, was supplying commercial building companies with commercial-grade hardware, acoustical tile, hollow metal, and all accessories. If it was not for the G.I. Benefits [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], he would not have had that. He is proud of his service, and he did his duty. He can hold his head up. He believes Americans respect and honor World War 2, but he does not like the Americans who do not respect the flag or national anthem. Ollar believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations, so history does not repeat itself.