William H. Larson was born in December 1917 in Fremont, Nebraska. His parents were second-generation Scandinavians. His grandfather homesteaded the prairie in 1875. Larson's father had polio when he was young and then worked in a bank. When Larson was around 12, the banks failed and they moved to Wahoo, Nebraska. Larson graduated high school and went to University of Nebraska [Annotator's Note: University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Lincoln, Nebraska] studying engineering. He dropped out of school and went to work with the Highway Department. He signed up for the draft in 1940 and was called to active duty in October 1941 before Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He went to Fort Leavenworth [Annotator's Note: Fort Leavenworth, Kansas] then took a train to Fort Sill, Oklahoma for basic training. Pearl Harbor occurred and he knew he was going to be in for a long time. After basic, he went to Camp Barkeley, Texas to the 45th Division [Annotator's Note: 45th Infantry Division]. He was in Headquarters Battery of the 45th Division Artillery [Annotator's Note: Headquarters, Headquarters Battery, 45th Infantry Division]. Volunteers were sought for Officer Training School. Larson was accepted in the Spring of 1942 and went to Camp Shelby, Mississippi. He went to a new unit, the Engineer General Service Regiment [Annotator's Note: 42nd Engineer General Service Regiment]. He was training people for five or six months. He went to Camp Livingston, Louisiana to an elite unit, a Topographic Battalion. The 652nd Engineer Topographic Battalion [Annotator's Note: 652nd Engineer Topographical Battalion] was Larson's unit for all of the war.

In early 1944, William Larson got orders overseas. He had gotten married just a few weeks before. He landed in England near Manchester. He was going to 3rd Army and they knew Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] was the commander, who had quite a reputation. Larson went into France in early July 1944. He was in Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] before the break-out [Annotator's Note: Operation Cobra, Saint-Lô, France, 25 to 31 July 1944]. He remembers waves of planes going over to bomb Saint-Lo. The 3rd Army started its advance and traveled fast. There was a great deal of enmity between Patton and Montgomery [Annotator's Note: British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery] and 3rd Army was stopped between Verdun [Annotator's Note: Verdun, France] and Metz [Annotator's Note: Metz, France]. They stayed there over the winter. Larson and his outfit [Annotator's Note: 652nd Engineer Topographical Battalion] made a model of the Metz Forts [Annotator's Note: fortifications of Metz; two fortified belts around Metz, France]. There is a picture of the model with Patton and Marshall [Annotator's Note: United States Chief of Staff and General of the Army George C. Marshall] standing next to it. Larson could hear the Battle of Metz [Annotator's Note: Battle of Metz, 27 September to 13 December 1944] going on. 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. Larson's unit was not in the battle but was close to it. Besides making maps, they had to distribute them. [Annotator's Note: Larson describes how they drew and printed the maps in detail.] He was traveling across central Germany on V-E Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. His tour ended near Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany]. People were sent back based on the point system [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. He went back to the United States and had to look for a job.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks William Larson to talk about the precision involved in map making.] There were grades, or levels, that the maps had to meet. The first order maps were the most precise and made by people from the United States government. Larson's work was second or third order. The unit [Annotator's Note: 652nd Engineer Topographical Battalion] got good at making maps. The 654th Topo Battalion [Annotator's Note: 654th Engineer Topographical Battalion], trained his outfit. He did not do any high-level mapping in Europe. They did what had to be done at the time. Larson did survey work at first at Camp Shelby [Annotator's Note: Camp Shelby, Mississippi]. Things moved too fast for this in Europe. They lost their only man due to enemy action on a survey party. During the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], they were on the MSR [Annotator's Note: Main Supply Route] between Verdun [Annotator's Note: Verdun, France] and Metz [Annotator's Note: Metz, France]. The tanks rumbled by all night long. A German plane strafed them one night. One of the men jumped into a ditch, broke his leg, and got a Purple Heart [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy].

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks William Larson to talk about the instruments used in map making.] William Larson did not get into photo-mapping much. They would use aerial photographs made in stereo pairs to show three-dimensionality. They used stereo magnifiers on the photo prints to see in three dimensions to create contour lines. They also used previous maps to save time. In Europe, things moved too fast and they had good maps from the British. They did some of this mapping in England before the invasion [Annotator's Note: Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. Larson was not cleared to go in where that work was done. He was in England from February to July [Annotator's Note: 1944]. Later on, they had to distribute the maps. They were moving so fast they were running out of maps for the new areas. They had to use captured maps because they did not have time to print new ones. He only did some models of the Metz Forts [Annotator's Note: fortifications of Metz; two fortified belts around Metz, France].

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks William Larson to talk about what an average day was like for him.] His average day was in an office as a battalion adjutant. He did personnel work and administrative duties. They operated the post office and printed orders. Just before he went overseas, the battalion [Annotator's Note: 652nd Engineer Topographical Battalion] was reorganized for operational areas. Larson was the senior lieutenant and that is why he became adjutant. He lost contact with the technical part of the mapping and surveying sections. When the war ended, he was asked to take a captain's job. He could not get promoted and turned it down. Once they were in the occupation area, they had the same administrative work.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks William Larson to talk about the process of returning to the United States.] A system of camps were set up named after cigarettes [Annotator's Note: Cigarette Camps]. They were temporary assembly points. They were loaded on 40 and eights [Annotator's Note: 40 and eight refers to the size of the boxcar which could hold 40 standing men or eight standing horses inside one of them]. Larson was unlucky. The transportation corps had a car that had flat wheels and Larson was assigned to one. There were no food facilities on the trains so they would stop for meals. Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France] was where he went out of France. He was sensitive to getting seasick and he did. The same thing happened when he went to Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953]. About a day out of New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York], they hit a bad storm. He was over being seasick then. He went into New York past the Statue of Liberty. He went to Fort Leavenworth [Annotator's Note: Fort Leavenworth, Kansas] and was discharged. He does not recall the ship he returned on. It was not a Liberty ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] ship, but a Victory ship [Annotator's Note: a class of quickly produced cargo ship] which was faster.

When William Larson got out of the Army [Annotator's Note: 1946], he did not intend on going back to Nebraska. His wife was in Shreveport [Annotator's Note: Shreveport, Louisiana], so he went and looked for work. The Corps of Engineers [Annotator's Note: United States Army Corps of Engineers] was hiring in Vicksburg [Annotator's Note: Vicksburg, Mississippi], so they moved over there. Larson had heard of the Waterways Experiment Station [Annotator's Note: also known as WES-Original Cantonment in Vicksburg, Mississippi] years before. He went there and talked to them. The Flexible Pavement Laboratory was set up there to develop pavements for large airplanes like the B-17 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber]. He started working on that project. He would record how the sections of pavement stood up or failed. The process they developed became standard for highway departments. The B-29 [Annotator's Note: Boeing B-29 Superfortress very heavy bomber] came along and that meant more tests and criteria development. His work on that project was finished in 1948. He worked on pavements for the C-5 [Annotator's Note: Lockheed C-5 Galaxy military transport aircraft]. The FAA [Annotator's Note: Federal Aviation Administration] had to do the same thing with the 747 [Annotator's Note: Boeing 747 airliner and cargo aircraft] so their efforts were combined. They eventually worked on concrete and flexible pavements. He retired not long after that. He has a son who works for the FAA and uses the information. Once he was in San Diego [Annotator's Note: San Diego, California] at the Navy Corps of Engineers and they knew about the work he did.

William Larson went to work for the Flexible Pavement Laboratory in [Annotator's Note: Waterways Experiment Station-Original Cantonment in Vicksburg, Mississippi] February 1946. The Army offered the Reserves. A lot of retired officers went to work in Vicksburg and had Reserve commissions. Larson was still a lieutenant when an engineer construction battalion was organized in the Reserves. Gene Fortson [Annotator's Note: US Army Colonel Eugene P. Fortson, Jr.] was the commander of this provisional unit and started recruiting people for the 434th Engineer Construction Battalion. Larson signed up. About 1949, they were getting active-duty training for two weeks at a military post. A brigade headquarters was formed in Vicksburg under Colonel George Morris. [Annotator's Note: The tape stops and then Larson starts over.] Larson's job was intelligence officer as a captain. His last two week, active-duty period was in 1950 when the Communists overran South Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953]. The 434th was called to active duty within a month. In August 1950, they went to Fort Carson, Colorado for training where they were assigned to the 32nd Engineer Group. At the end of 1950 they went to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and boarded ships to go to Korea but the Chinese intervened so they were diverted en route to Japan. They then went to Pusan [Annotator's Note: Pusan, South Korea]. They were assigned to the MSR [Annotator's Note: Main Supply Route] and railroad in the eastern part of Korea. They were to improve the road system for the MSR. The Japanese had built a good railroad system when they occupied Korea [Annotator's Note: from 1910 to 1945] in anticipation of invading China [Annotator's Note: Second Sino-Japanese War, 7 July 1937 to 9 September 1945]. The system had gotten decrepit under the Koreans. When the Chinese invaded, the retreating Allied forces destroyed a lot of the rail system. Larson and his unit helped repair all of that.

William Larson was serving in Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953] when the Army did away with colored units [Annotator's Note: segregated units made up of African-Americans]. Larson's outfit [Annotator's Note: Larson was a member of the 376th Engineer Construction Battalion which was deactivated and became part of the 434th Engineer Construction Battalion on 19 November 1951 in Pusan, South Korea] was moved back to Pusan in late 1951 or early 1952. In Pusan, they operated a rock-crushing plant. In the summer of 1951, he was located near a tungsten mine. They had to widen the roads to get there. They built a mock-up of a semi-truck trailer that they used to determine where to widen the road. They had casualties caused by falling rock when they blasted it. They ended up abandoning the project. In Pusan they lived in an abandoned factory. They had been living in tents with gas heaters. They spent the winter of 1951 and 1952 there and it was very cold. They had special winter gear to wear. They should have had this gear when they were 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]. In 1941, the Japanese invaded some islands in Alaska. The Army first encountered trench foot [Annotator's Note: immersion foot syndrome] there. In Pusan, they did not get the cold weather gear. The point system [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] was used in Korea for sending people home. In May 1952, Larson went home.

William Larson always got caught doing something en route. After he was inducted at Fort Crook [Annotator's Note: now Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska] in Omaha, he was put in charge of the group on the train headed to Fort Leavenworth [Annotator's Note: Fort Leavenworth, Kansas]. On the ship back from Korea [Annotator's Note: Korean War, 1950 to 1953], he was put in charge of the troops. Larson got seasick. They got into San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California] and he was made train commander. He returned to Vicksburg [Annotator's Note: Vicksburg, Mississippi] and wondered about where to work. He went back to the Experiment Station [Annotator's Note: Waterways Experiment Station , also known as WES-Original Cantonment in Vicksburg, Mississippi]. He was a Major in the Reserves. A school was being activated in the US Army Reserve School system. He got the forms and said he did not qualify for the school. He was accepted into a five-year course at the Army Command and General Staff College [Annotator's Note: in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas]. He made Lieutenant Colonel when he graduated. Larson was made the instructor of that coursework. He made full Colonel there. The 411th Engineer Brigade was upgraded to the 412th Engineer Command. He got a space in that command and served five years. He was mandatorily retired after 33 years August 1974. He then spent another 30 years in a civilian job and retired.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks William Larson what his personal feelings were towards US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] Everybody recognized that he was a good General but was eccentric in a lot of ways. He believed he had existed back in the days of the Carthaginian Wars [Annotator's Note: Punic Wars, 264 to 146 BC]. His staff did a lot of things that made things very hard on the troops. He required everybody in the 3rd Army to wear a helmet and necktie no matter where they were. Anybody caught without a helmet was court-martialed. They were constantly arresting people and trying them. It was terrible for morale. Larson does not know why Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] allowed that to happen. Patton had a lot of common sense and got away with a lot. He was a good commander but a hard individual who caused his bosses a lot of trouble. He was finally kicked out of the Army by Eisenhower. He was killed in a car wreck shortly after that [Annotator's Note: the accident occured on 8 December 1945 and Patton died in 21 December 1945]. Bradley [Annotator's Note: US Army General Omar Nelson Bradley] and Patton were opposites. Bradley was the favorite of the G.I.s [Annotator's Note: government issue; also a slang term for an American soldier] in the Army. He is criticized for not having the drive that Patton did. Larson heard that the 3rd Army intelligence had gotten wind of the Ardennes Campaign [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] and Patton was not able to sell the idea. Larson does not know if that is true or not. Bradley would try and bridge the problems of personality. Ike [Annotator's Note: Eisenhower] was too far up the line so Larson's thinking about Ike was changed over time. He liked him as a commander but not as a President. Even though the British criticized him, they all conceded that what he did was something nobody else could have done.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks William Larson if he thinks future generations should continue to study World War 2.] William Larson thinks that the study of World War 2 will change with time. It has been so many years and they are not teaching history much in schools. Maybe some of the core courses will be brought back like World History. History is always being made. He has read opposing views of the same people who were in the war like Bradley [Annotator's Note: US Army General Omar Nelson Bradley]. Larson wonders how people in the future will know what to believe. Larson had a great distaste for MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] and a book he has read supports his views. [Annotator's Note: Larson discusses the funerals of MacArthur and United States Chief of Staff and General of the Army George C. Marshall.] Who is going to know who MacArthur really was? FDR [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] said that the two greatest demagogues [Annotator's Note: leader of a mob or rabble rouser] he knew were Huey Long [Annotator's Note: Huey Pierce Long, Jr.; 40th Governor of Louisiana] and Douglas MacArthur. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Larson what he thinks of The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.] He thinks it is a wonderful thing and he hopes it succeeds. Time is running short and there are not many people left who were active in World War 2. He wonders if people will still be interested as World War 2 fades into history.

William Larson does not know what will be remembered about his military service. It is far behind him now that he cannot guess if there is any interest in what he did. He has two sons and neither one of them have the space to keep Larson's related things. He has a grandson and great grandson, and Larson cannot project that far in the future. He cannot imagine him having an interest when he is grown. Larson feels he is like a lot of military people who fell into things. He did not volunteer except to go to OCS [Annotator's Note: Officer Candidate School]. Everything else just developed and he did what he had to do and struggled through it. He did not struggle as much as a lot who went into combat. It was just luck that Larson did not wind up in that. [Annotator's Note: The tape cuts and then restarts with Larson showing a photograph.] He shows a photograph of the models of the Metz forts [Annotator's Note: fortifications of Metz; two fortified belts around Metz, France] that his unit [Annotator's Note: 652nd Engineer Topographical Battalion] made for the 3rd Army in the summer of 1944. Pictured are General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.], General Walker [Annotator's Note: US Army General Walton Harris Walker] 20th Corps. The XX Corps was given the job of capturing the forts. Larson does not know what happened to the forts. General Marshall [Annotator's Note: US Chief of Staff and General of the Army George C. Marshall] is in the picture as well. It could only have been better if the President [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] had been in the picture.