Edgar Valderrama was enjoying his days in Mexico when he turned 18 and returned to Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1943 to be drafted. He picked the Army instead of the Navy because they offered a 3 week wait before reporting for duty while the Navy only offered two. ‘I figured I was gaining one week of life but had no idea I’d end up in the middle of the “Bulge” as a replacement.’
Valderrama joined C Company of the 11th regiment, 5th Infantry division as a high class infantry radio man. He joined the division in Luxembourg during the Battle of the Bulge. The picture on top of the page is a picture of Valderrama taken in the Ardennes at the time. He managed to sit through the war and right now resides in his home near Puebla, Mexico.
After the war Valderrama wrote several of his war stories for a local Texas newspaper called the Herald Zeitung. After Edgar got in contact with me, we decided to publish his stories on my blog as well. Click on the links below to read Edgar’s War Memories.
- Lost in the Ardennes
- Crossing the Sauer February ’45
- The Taking of Bitburg
- Crossing the Rhine
- Frankfurt am Main
- Riding a horse in Czechoslovakia!
Edgar, 2nd on the left, on a 40 and 8 French train car (designed to transport 40 soldiers or 8 horses) taking him and his buddies to Le Havre. They were to ship to the States for a month break and then participate in landing on the main Japanese Islands. Valderrama didn’t expect to survive that and so consider myself a “son’ of the atomic bomb(s) which were dropped during my rest period.. One of the others in the train pic was “Pennsylvania Dutch.” He knew enough German to interpret for us. In the solo pic I am proudly drawing my recently “liberated” Luger Pistol.