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By Al Zdon
It's not everyone that can say they got run over by a tank and walked away from it. Well, crawled away from it anyway.
Bob Erikson is one of those few. It
happened near St. Vith at the Battle of the Bulge.
"We were crossing a field, and I was following the tank. There was about a foot and a half of snow on the ground, and I was walking behind the tank
in the track made by the treads.
"All of a sudden, the Germans opened up with artillery and hit the lead tank. The tank I was behind stopped, and then roared into reverse. I'll never forget that sight
of that great big tank coming at me. I couldn't get out of the way."
The tank rolled over both of Erikson's legs, went another 10 feet or so further, and then got hit by an enemy shell.
"I was
surprised that I could move. It hurt pretty bad. But I was able to crawl away from it, and then they got me some help. I talked with the guys later who saw it, and there were some theories. It had to do
with the depth of the snow, or maybe I was down in a little depression. Plus, our tanks have rubber on the treads."
The only thing for sure was that Erikson knew he was lucky to be alive, even if the
damage to his legs did land him in the hospital for a time.
Erikson, 90, was born in North Dakota and grew up in St. Cloud. His father died when he was a junior in high school at St. Cloud Tech,
and he quit school to help support the family.
"We rented a house for $12 a month. My mother got $8 a month for welfare, and the landlord said, 'Okay, I'll take it.' Those were some tough
times."
Erikson joined the Civilian Conservation Corps doing forest management near Tofte. H was able to earn $30 a month, $5 of which he kept and $25 went home to his mother.
He came back to St.
Cloud and was convinced to go back to high school. He graduated from Tech in 1940 as a 20-year-old.
Erikson and two buddies decided that they wouldn't wait for the draft, but would join the Minnesota
National Guard. "Maybe other guys did, but I wasn't thinking of any war. We just wanted to go into the Guard, do our year, and then get out. We had it all planned."
The first part of the plan worked
like a charm. Erikson joined up on Oct. 16, 1940, and the unit was federalized as A Battery of the 216th Coastal Artillery on Feb. 10, 1941. The battery was sent to Camp Haan in California, not far from
Los Angeles. In November, the unit was sent to San Francisco to provide harbor defense.
"We were part of a searchlight battery, although we called it a flashlight battery. I had worked for Goodyear
before the war, and so they put me in charge of all the tires for the regiment."
The new duty was supposed to bring with it a promotion to staff sergeant. Instead, the son of one of the Guard officers
got a job as Erikson's boss, even though he knew nothing about tires. The nepotism rankled Erikson and his workmates.
"We wanted to get out of that chickenshit outfit and get into the war. We saw a
poster on the bulletin board that they were accepting volunteers to the join the United State Army paratroopers."
Erikson and another volunteer from the coastal battery soon found themselves at Ft.
Benning, Georgia, as part of the 23rd class to go through the four-week jump school. The final week of the school included five jumps from an airplane, after which they got their airborne insignia.
"I
wasn't the greatest athlete in the world, so I had to work hard to make it. I could do those 25 pushups. Basically, I was tall, skinny and clumsy. My body was just maturing. I was 22 when I
graduated."
The airborne had a great sense of esprit de corps, Erikson said. "They told us that we were the equivalent to five regular soldiers. I suppose that's why I got into that fight."
Erikson
had earned a pass into town after graduation, and was having a good time in a bar when he encountered a member of the Second Armored Division, considered the elite tank unit in the army.
"They were
just as cocky as we were. Well, he hit me in the chest, and my big mistake was getting up. He hit me again right between the eyes. He only threw two punches and I had three cracked ribs, a broken nose
and two black eyes. I woke up the next morning in the Phoenix, Georgia, city jail. It was the last fight I ever got into in my life."
Erikson was assigned to B Company of the 504th Parachute Infantry
Regiment. "I had been 17 months in the military, much longer than most of the other guys, and so they made me a squad leader."
In mid-August, 1941, he was sent to the cadre of the 507th PIR in Alabama
as a platoon sergeant. A cadre is a skeleton structure that will eventually grow into a full regiment. The unit was filled out and was eventually sent to Alliance, Nebraska. The rumors were that the
507th would be sent to the Pacific, but it didn't happen.
The next stop for Erikson was back to Ft. Benning where he was again put in a cadre unit, this time for the 515th PIR. He continued his steady
climb up the Army's career ladder, and was now serving as a first sergeant.
"For some reason one weekend they didn't give out any passes, so my buddy and I were sitting at the PX drinking a beer. We
decided, what the hell, we might as well get into this war. They were asking for volunteers because the airborne units were getting chewed up in combat."
In February of 1944, Erikson boarded a liberty
ship bound for Africa. "The thing only went eight knots, and so it took us 19 days to get across the ocean."
The new troops were assigned to a replacement depot in Oran. From there, they traveled on
a British troop ship to Naples, Italy. He was assigned to the First Allied Airborne Army, a group that controlled all the American and British airborne units for the rest of the war.
Erikson was
assigned as a first sergeant to a pathfinder unit. The units were designed to go into a drop zone first and guide and control the rest of the drop.
"It was good duty. We didn't have much to do. I was
there six weeks. I got a chance to make two practice landings on American gliders, and one on a British glider."
In mid-August, the Americans planned a drop into southern France to aid the war effort
after the landing at Normandy in June. Erikson's unit had nothing to do with the drop, but the lieutenant in charge of the unit had wrangled his way aboard a plane.
"He asked me if I wanted to come
along, and I said I sure did. I got a tommy gun and some ammunition and the rest of my gear. We left the buck sergeant in charge of the unit."
The drop did not go as planned, and Erikson and the
others parachuted in about 30 miles from the target. "I was laying there in a marsh and I looked up and saw about 50 trucks with German soldiers in them go by. I decided not to bother them."
Erikson
was three days behind enemy lines, working with British airborne and with the French resistance. "We were going to ambush a German patrol and we were laying in wait. All of a sudden three Germans jumped
out of a hole in front of me. I raised up my Tommy gun and I was ready to give them the full burst. I hit the trigger, and one bullet came out. Somehow I had knocked it onto the single fire
setting."
The Germans dove back in their hole, and Erikson remembered the grenades he was carrying. "I pulled the pin and counted off the seconds and threw it. It went off, and I heard a
scream."
The grenade wounded one man. The other two stood up to surrender, and one of them was quickly shot down by a soldier behind Erikson. "He shouldn't have done that, but that's what war is
like." The third German did surrender.
By the time the little battle was over, the airborne soldiers had captured an entire German division headquarters including 19 officers. They also captured a
large stack of French money, and Erikson personally captured a German Luger.
"I hid the money and the Luger under a step in a house. When I came back, someone had stolen the Luger, but they left the
money alone. It was a large amount of French francs. I turned the money in."
When the action was over, a lieutenant learned that Erikson didn't actually have orders to be there in the first place, and
was ready to court martial him. "I told him that the first lieutenant had invited me. What could they do?"
Erikson was assigned to Company B of the 509th PIR. "They needed a First Sergeant because
they had lost their entire leadership team when a plane crashed into the ocean. It was a legendary unit. During the war, they had over 600 percent replacements."
The problem was, the new company
commander didn't want a first sergeant who had such limited battle experience. "He wouldn't accept me, and why should he? The problem was that he didn't know what the hell to do with me, and so he put me
in charge of the guard house. I was kind of a pariah. It was a proud outfit."
Erikson ended up one night in town, escorting one of his own prisoners. It's a long story, but it didn't have a happy
ending. This time he woke up in his own guardhouse.
"I went to bed as a drunken first sergeant. I woke up as a sober private."
The reduction in rank actually helped Erikson fit in with his new
mates, and he became an ammunition bearer for a light machine gun. "As my old Irish mother used to say, 'It's an ill wind that doesn't blow somebody some good.'"
The unit spent 93 days in the field,
and then worked its way north to Nice and then Paris. Erikson was on a pass to Paris one day.
"I had brought $40 with me, and I had spent it all. You've heard of Pigalle? You could always borrow a
couple of bucks from the other guys. We all trusted each other. After all, if you're going to trust a man with your life, you'll probably trust him for a couple of bucks."
As the day wore on, Erikson
and two companions were walking down the street, a little worse for wear, when a Jeep pulled up beside them and the driver asked what outfit they were in. They told him the 509th.
"They said the
Germans had broken through in the Ardennes, and that all passes were canceled. They told us to get back. We went to the Red Cross and slept for maybe an hour when they woke us up. We got dressed, and
they took us back to camp."
Back with the rest of the 509th, Erikson grabbed what gear he could, including three bandoliers of ammunition, and joined the rest of the 82nd Airborne as they headed
north to the breakthrough. "They had told us we'd be home by Christmas. That was a fine Christmas we had."
They went through Liege, Belgium, and then he recalls that the truck drivers would take them
no further.
"We could hear the machine gun fire, both ours and theirs. I don't remember everything from that night. It was late on December 17th. In fact, it all kind of blends together. There was a
lot of skirmishing and attacking."
The 509th fought a major engagement at Sadzot ("We called it 'Sad Sack'") and then began advancing on the Germans as the battle shifted after Christmas, 1944.
On the 18th of January, they were sent to Spa, Belgium, for a short rest.
"I hadn't had my clothes off for over a month. I never had a more wonderful bath in my life. We even got hot food."
The
509th was assigned to the 7th Armored Division and followed or rode on top of the tanks as the Allies advanced. "We had lost a lot of guys by that time, but it wasn't just from the battles. Guys were
getting frozen feet and pneumonia, or they just collapsed from exposure."
Erikson was carrying his M-1 rifle that day along with two canisters of ammo for his machine gun. "We were doing what they
called 'marching fire.' We were throwing everything we had into the far woods. Only the United States could afford to spend ammo that way. The barrel on my M-1 got so hot that it charred the
stock."
And then the tank rolled over him.
He was taken back to the 28th General Hospital at Liege where he spent three weeks recovering from the contusions and damage to his legs. "In just a
couple of days, I could limp around."
By the time, Erikson was ready to rejoin his unit, the unit was gone. Of the 500 men who had gone into battle on Dec. 16, by Jan. 22nd, only 47 men were left. The
regiment was disbanded. "All those guys went into the 101st or the 82nd Airborne."
Erikson was assigned to the 505th PIR in Company G. They were assigned to the Hurtgen Forest. "That was a miserable
deal too."
Slowly, in the early months of 1945, the Allied forces pushed into Germany. Erikson remembers the massive destruction of Cologne. The 505th reached the Elbe, and on the 29th of April, the
1st and 2nd Battalions crossed over. The 3rd Battalion, where Erikson was assigned, was held in reserve for a time.
"The Germans moved their guns back, and then really let us have it. We were crossing
the river in boats with 22-horsepower Johnsons. They had us zeroed in pretty well. They were shelling troops that were landing and they were shelling the river. I remember the geysers of water coming up.
It was just like a John Wayne movie."
Just as Erikson was getting out of the boat, a German shell landed two feet from him. "It just plopped into the mud. I just looked at it, but it didn't do
anything. It just plopped."
As they made their way toward the enemy, Erikson saw Gen. James Gavin, the commander of the 82nd Airborne, go by with his aide. "He was right there in the battle, and he
was carrying his M-1. Right after that, we went on the attack."
When he joined the 505th, Erikson was assigned as a rifleman. He had crawled under a barbed wire fence, and was holding the fence
for a comrade to crawl under when he was hit.
The bullet tore through his ribs, missed his heart by a quarter on an inch, took out part of a lung, and then ricocheted off a rib in his back as it
exited.
"It felt like a hot, burning rod going through me. It didn't even knock me down, it just blew right through me. I fell down all by myself. I was bleeding from my mouth, and so they put my
musette bag under my head so I wouldn't drown in my own blood. There were bubbles coming out whenever I tried to talk. I was sure I was going to die."
His companion hollered for a medic, and he soon
arrived. The medic put a compress on Erikson's chest.
"I watched him as he pulled a morphine syrette out and got it ready. He said to me, 'This is going to hurt.' I said, 'Are you kidding?'"
The
morphine worked well, and Erikson was in little pain as they took him to an aid station. An ambulance came to take him back to the field hospital along with others.
"That's when I made my biggest
mistake. The doc asked me if I wanted more morphine, and I said I was doing just fine. But as we went down the road, the morphine wore off. Now I'm in real pain. I'd pass out, come to, and then pass out
again."
When he woke up, he was on a table in a field hospital. "The doctor came up to me and said, "You're name is Erikson. Are you from Minnesota?' I told him I was. He said, 'Well, I'm Doctor
Johnson from the Mayo Clinic.'"
Erikson asked the doctor if he was going to make it, and the doctor assured him that he was, but that the war was over for him. In that war he had earned two Purple
Hearts and a Bronze Star.
Erikson was shot on the 8th of May, and that day as he lay in the field hospital, the German troops that had surrendered were marching by. "They were in columns of fours, and
they marched by all day long."
A C-47 transport flew Erikson to England, and from there he was sent by ship to a hospital in New York. "By that time I could stand around a little bit. They fed us a
t-bone steak and gave us a quart of milk. They served broccoli with cheddar cheese on it. I didn't know what broccoli was, but I've loved it ever since."
His last Army stop was at Fitzsimmons General
Hospital in Denver. He was discharged on Sept. 10 after spending five months total in the hospitals. Erikson's left lung is partially collapsed from scar tissue.
"I will say this. I was smoking two
packs a day when I was hit, and I've never smoked since. Maybe it saved my life."
Erikson's life after the war including a job with Goodyear, then as a manufacturer's rep for a cabinet maker. That job
put him in touch with future U.S. Senator Rudy Boschwitz who at that time was getting his retail empire going.
The two became good friends, and Erikson worked as a fund raiser for Boschwitz. "I've
shaken hands with six presidents. It was a lot of fun."
Erikson had six children, four of whom are still alive. He has 12 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren – and one on the way.
He
lives in Minnetonka, and enjoys getting together with other Airborne veterans. For 16 years, he was the secretary-treasurer of the Viking Chapter of the 82nd Airborne Division Association.
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