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It was expected that everyone would go into the service if they were of age and they accepted that. Ed Tunnicliff did not like basic training, but he did like to be in a tank. He was in a Sherman tank [Annotator's Note: M4 Sherman medium tank]. There were five positions in a Sherman tank. In his training they were called medium-tank crewmen. They were expected to know all five positions. The three guys in the turret were the commander, the gunner, and the loader who loaded the big gun. Once they were overseas, they all did the same thing all the time. Down front there was a driver, and an assistant driver and bow machine gunner. They had a .30 caliber machine gun [Annotator’s Note: Browning M1919 .30 caliber air cooled light machine gun] that was on the right side of the tank. The two guys down front would shift off based on who was driving and for how long. It was just like driving cross country in a car. Tunnicliff liked the bow machine gun. His buddy liked driving fast cars. They switched off occasionally. He had done a lot of hunting in Nebraska, and he liked handling the machine gun. Training was about 14 weeks. When they got to driving they went out in a Sherman with a cavalryman who was experienced. There would be the two of them. One would be driving and the other riding. They were unbuttoned and the hatch was open. Tunnicliff and the commander came out of the woods. Tunnicliff stopped and the commander told him to move on down the hill to a pond. The commander told him to go by the water, and he pulled the tank up to the pond. He put the tracks right at the water and looked at the other guy. The other guy told him to hit it. He drove the tank into the water. The nose went into the water first. The water was coming over the top of the tank. He had his head sticking out. The other guy jumped out of his seat and grabbed the big gun and stood up. The water came in the hatch and went all over him. The other guy was laughing. They had to clean the tank when they got in that night.
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Ed Tunnicliff was born in December 1925 in Ord, Nebraska. The Great Depression [Annotator's Note: Great Depression; a global economic depression that lasted through the 1930s] caused his family to move from Nebraska to Illinois. His dad was in partnership with the Ford agency. The grasshoppers or the heat killed everything. His dad lost the Ford agency and they moved to Illinois where the grass was greener for business. Moving hurt the whole family. They lived in a town of 2,200 people. The school system was very important. Tunnicliff had four older brothers. They were all active in athletic programs. It hurt to move, but it did not take them long to get acclimated. The war started shortly after they moved to Illinois. Tunnicliff was in the eighth grade and went into high school. His brother next to him in age was in high school and they got to play on the same football team. It was a Sunday afternoon, the Chicago Bears were playing the Washington Redskins in the championship NFL [Annotator's Note: National Football League] game. They interrupted the program to say that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 7 December 1941]. The reaction was foolish, they did not think the Japanese could handle one American, let alone all Americans. The Japanese knew what they were doing. The radio and newspapers kept them informed about the war in Europe. Before the war, not so much, but once it got closer to home. Tunnicliff was a sophomore in high school when it happened. He believed he would be in the war, and that it would last that long. One of Tunnicliff's brother’s was killed in an automobile accident before the war. The oldest brother had a roman candle backfire in his eye on the 4th of July so he was not able to go. His brothers Don and Bob were in the Navy. When Tunnicliff went to Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] for his pre-induction physical during his senior year of high school, they asked him what branch he wanted to be in. He said the Navy. A couple months later when he graduated high school he went to Chicago again. He thought he was going to be in the Navy, however, he ended up at Fort Sheridan [Annotator's Note: Fort Sheridan in Lake County, Illinois] in the Army. He was there for four days. Then he was sent on a train to Fort Knox [Annotator's Note: Fort Knox, Kentucky]. He was put in an armored school to be a crewman in a tank.
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Ed Tunnicliff received a two week furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] after training and went home. They then spent some time in New Jersey before going to Camp Shanks, New York. New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] was the embarkation point. They were fed really well at Camp Shanks. They got on a troopship and left New York Harbor on Christmas Day [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1944]. Tunnicliff turned 19 years old five days before that. They headed out for the North Atlantic. He was seasick the first afternoon, and stayed that way for the next 12 days. The last two days he was on the ship he overcame his seasickness. He got a piece of toast in the morning and took it to the fantail of the ship and lay back down. About noon he ate that piece of toast. He was hungry. The last afternoon they were on board they let them buy two Planters peanuts bars. There were so many of them up by the PX [Annotator’s Note: Post Exchange] that he was able to get up there three times and get six of them. He ate two of them and saved the other four because he did not know what was going to happen. They pulled into Southampton, England that afternoon but hey did not get off the ship. They found out later that the convoy ahead of them had been hit pretty hard by U-boats [Annotator's Note: German submarines]. They lost a lot of their people. That night, they took them across the harbor to Cherbourg, France. He still had his four Planters peanuts bars. At midnight he woke up to what sounded like depth charges being set off right below them. He thought he was not going to get cheated out of his candy bars so he sat up and ate them right then. They got over there and got on a train and went across France.
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Ed Tunnicliff rode on a troop train that was just box cars. There was nothing in the box cars so they had nothing to sit on. There was also no heat. They were on the train for four days. When they got off they were at a replacement depot. After a few days, trucks picked them up and took them to their unit. He was in B Company, 3rd Battalion, 10th Armored Division [Annotator's Note: Company B, 3rd Tank Battalion, 10th Armored Division]. They were at Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium] during the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes CounterOffensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. They had hardly any people left. Those who trained together and went overseas together stayed together. He shared a tank with his friend Paul Zimmer, who was from a small town in Iowa. They were both 19 years old. It made them close. Four of the men in the tank went overseas together. The fifth man was a driver at Bastogne and he was 22 years old. That man was their tank commander. They had to draw new tanks and get them ready. They had to go out and test the tanks and zero them in. The tank commander told them what it would be like. He told them if they were ever hit, to try to go out the opposite side of the tank. If the enemy hit the tank once, they were going to hit it again. They knew the range and all they had to do is put another shell in and fire. When they started out to move onto the line, Zimmer and Tunnicliff were cocky at 19 years old. They were going to win the war. Schwartz [Annotator's Note: spelling uncertain], the tank commander, told them to button up because they were coming up on German territory. It only took one day to change their minds. After the first day in combat they were ready to go back to the United States. It taught them to grow up in a hurry.
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Ed Tunnicliff describes his first combat experience. At the front was a German pilot they called Bed Check Charlie. The Germans would fly over and take pictures. They moved up and Tunnicliff was driving that day. They waited until Bed Check Charlie went by. They got to a little village where they stopped and got off the road. At two o'clock in the morning, the Germans would fire an 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] down the main street. They were behind some houses. Since Tunnicliff drove the night before, Zimmer drove the next day and Tunnicliff was on the bow machine gun. They had to pull off the road and go out in a field. They came up in line formation. They were looking over a big hill into a valley where the Germans had been firing at them. They had to change positions because the Germans would come up on them and they were well camouflaged. They went back into the village and went up on the other side. The hill was steep. When they went over the hill, they could not go straight down, they had to go across. There was a wide turn on the bank, and then they would go out in the valley. They used what they called fire and movement. The first section went down the hill halfway while the second section fired everything to cover them. Then they returned the favor and they moved down. When they did that, they came out on a plateau right where the big curve was that went into the valley. They were on the right flank when they pulled up. Suddenly, the ground took hits. There was an explosion and they changed positions. They were buttoned up and they looked through their periscopes. As they sat there, 700 yards away it lit up like a roman candle. A red ball was coming right down Tunnicliff's periscope. Zimmer ended up in his lap because it went by them on the left side. They did not see where the first shot by their gunner landed. He fired the machine gun from that position to try and slow them down. If the Germans moved it a click or two they could have gone straight through the middle with that 88. Instead they came over, but dropped their elevation. They must have been green as well. Their gunner, after two shots, put one right into the Germans. It was a race. Either you won or they did. When it was over, it reminded him of a basketball team. They patted each other on the backs. They were cheering. The problem was they were only halfway down the hill. The tank commanders had a meeting and Tunnicliff's tank was on point. Tunnicliff fired his machine gun into all the bushes as they went along. Their biggest concern was bazooka [Annotator's Note: shoulder fired, 2.36 inch anti-tank rocket] teams. When they got out on the road, all the fire was coming from the right side of the road. Their tank commander turned them into the field on the right. There was a draw along the field with fingers coming off it and woods along the draw. Way down at the end there was a white flag being waved. Their tank commander, Schwartz [Annotator's Note: spelling uncertain], was born in Germany and came to the United States as a baby. The commander got down there and he called for the Germans to come out. The Germans came out and one officer came out and he had a Luger [Annotator's Note: German P08 Luger 9mm semi-automatic pistol] on him. Schwartz called the officer to come over to the tank. The Germans held back. Schwartz got off the tank and went over to the officer and took the Luger. Schwartz came back, and Tony, Zimmer, and Tribeter [Annotator's Note: unsure of spelling] stood cover over the Germans with their machine guns. Tunnicliff sat buttoned up with his gun aimed across the draw and into the woods. He thought they should not be there. Schwartz got up on the back of the tank and just then the first shell hit ten feet in front of them. Schwartz took a dive down into the turret. The second one hit them right on the gun shield. Schwartz yelled at them to get out. The other guys dropped right down the tank and got out. Tunnicliff was all buttoned up and he fired the machine gun so he had empty belts around him. He threw the belts, released his seat, and jumped up. His pants got caught on the machine gun and he ended up hanging out the front of the tank. He kicked and he came out and landed on his head. He got up and started around the right side of the tank and he fell down. Tunnicliff did not know if he was scared. Then they got hit again and it was high explosive with shrapnel and went right over him because he had fallen on the ground. Tunnicliff got up and ran. He saw the others go into the draw, and it was 50 to 100 yards away. He was so anxious to get there and he was leaning so far forward that he fell down. He got up and he got within ten feet of the draw and just took off. Then they got back over and up the hill and back into the village. Schwartz received some powder burns. They all went into an aid station. They were talking about it. There was a light tanker in the aid station, and a gunner. The light tanks were so small, the tank commander and the gunner could not button up. That man caught a slug in his shoulder. They worked on him while they were all sitting there talking about it. The gunner asked Tunnicliff if that was him running across there. The gunner asked him how he made it. He told the gunner he was just running. The gunner said the ground was kicking up all around his feet. When he fell, the gunner thought he was hit. The gunner told him the second time he fell, he knew they got him. Tunnicliff never heard a thing because he was so scared. Right then was when he changed his mind and he was ready to leave. There were eight other tanks at the right rear. When his tank was fired on, those eight tanks backed up and fired everything they had across the draw into the woods. The Germans shot at Tunnicliff and he never heard a thing. That kind of thing changed his attitude from cocky real quick.
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Ed Tunnicliff was assigned to another tank. A couple days later, after they got knocked out, he thought he was the only one that got put in another tank. He thought the other guys were safe. A week later they came out of the woods in a column along a railroad bed. It was late afternoon. The first two tanks went under the viaduct along the road. Their goal was Salem, Germany. The first tank got hit six times with an 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. Then the other one also got hit. They both burned. Everyone else backed back through. They spent the night on the other side of the high railroad bed. The Germans kept trying to put the 88 in there. It was too low in the bank of the railroad bed, and up a notch would have gone into the woods. The next morning they were on the point. Tunnicliff pulled up to the railroad bed and saw Zimmer [Annotator's Note: Paul Zimmer was Tunnicliff's friend from basic training] sitting on the curb. He asked Zimmer what he was doing there and Zimmer told him he was in the first tank that was hit six times. Tunnicliff thought he was not in combat and he had not been worried about him. He thought when they went through there, the Germans would knock them out. They made it through, and about a quarter of a mile down, the Germans had a roadblock set up. The engineers cleared the roadblock. Tunnicliff thought the Germans were zeroed in on the road block. Nothing happened at first but when the third tank was going through, a red ball of fire swept across the top of the tank, taking off the .50 caliber machine gun [Annotator's Note: Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun] and the hatches and it swept the searchlight and the radio antenna. The 88s were so fast, they were not explosive. They just turned everything white hot if they went through it. They made it to the village. They looked toward Salem and saw a Tiger tank [Annotator's Note: German Mark VI main battle tank; known as the Tiger] sitting out there. They had to wait for reinforcements. Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] brought in all kinds of reserves. They took out a lot of Germans by then. Tunnicliff felt lucky since he was not there as long as the other guys.
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Ed Tunnicliff had to get into a third tank. He learned all five positions [Annotator’s Note: the M4 Sherman medium tanks had five crew positions]. He had to replace a loader who had gotten sick. The breach on the 76mm gun opened at a 90 degree angle. The gunner had two triggers, one for the hand and one for the foot. When loading this gun, you had the shell with the casing and projectile, and you had to shove it in and follow through. If the gunner had either trigger pressed when the shell went in, it tripped the block and went off. There were only nine inches between when the gun went off and recoiled. Tunnicliff had not loaded a big gun in six months. He was in Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] 3rd Army. Patton wanted everyone to keep moving. The first two tanks fought and the back tanks could have been drinking mint juleps [Annotator's Note: an alcoholic beverage]. Tunnicliff was toward the back of the column going through a village which had a vacant building space. That was where the column stopped. The Germans opened up on them from up on a hill with an 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. The gunner brought the turret around. Tunnicliff slammed an HE [Annotator's Note: high explosive shell] in because it was not a tank firing at them. The gunner brought the gun up and Tunnicliff looked through his periscope and he got another high explosive shell. Tunnicliff turned away and the gunner got their gun up there. Tunnicliff lost the first knuckle on his right ring finger. He had another shell and he knew something was wrong. He looked down and the shell was busted in half. Then he saw his hand and his finger was hanging off. He showed the tank commander who then told the driver to pull up. The tank commander told Tunnicliff to get out and go down the column to the aid station. The aid station gave him a shot of morphine, bandaged it and put sulfur powder on it. He got in the next ambulance that showed up and went to a field hospital. It took a while for the doctors to get to him because there were men in there that were far worse off than Tunnicliff. A surgeon worked on his finger and there was a nice, blonde, American nurse. The nurse shaved his face. He had not shaved in over a month. He was glad to see her. The joint in his finger was okay. He was sent to a military school that was being used as a hospital in Verdun, France. He was there for about a month. The war ended while he was there. Looking out the window, there was a building next door from World War 1 that had been blasted apart. There was no roof on the second floor. There was so much dirt on the second floor, trees were growing out of it. Across the road there was a trench from World War 1 and they were warned to stay out of it. Tunnicliff could not tell his folks about his injury. They received a telegram saying he was wounded, but he could not tell them anything. When he got to Verdun, they had a photo booth. He went inside the photo booth and took a picture of his hand and sent the picture to his parents.
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Ed Tunnicliff was put on a hospital ship and sent home. It was nice with white sheets. When he returned to the United States, he was put on a train to Oklahoma, to a hospital. It was an Army base hospital. There were men there who needed more help than he did. There was a guy there that had been hit 50 times with a burp gun [Annotator's Note: German MP-40, or Maschinenpistole 40, 9mm submachine gun]. Tunnicliff got tired of waiting and thought "forget this". He saw them work on some guys and not doing a good job. He could move his finger and it was not giving him problems. He was sent to a rehabilitation hospital in Battlecreek, Michigan. He took motorcycle training and they would go through the woods. In the afternoons, they played basketball; this was 1945. In January 1946, he was sent to Camp Hood [Annotator's Note: now Fort Hood near Killeen, Texas], Texas, and back to active duty. He was discharged in July 1946. They reorganized the 2nd Armored Division. With his company, they were going to have a baseball team. They built a baseball mound. A Major in headquarters was their coach. Tunnicliff and some other guys had a First Sergeant who was after them. The First Sergeant would put them on KP [Annotator's Note: kitchen patrol or kitchen police] or guard duty. Tunnicliff was then sent to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, for the highlight of his career. He was made PFC [Annaotator's Note: Private First Class]. He went there to get discharged from the service. The last day he was in the service, he was made a PFC from a Private. The reason for the promotion was when Tunnicliff joined the 10th Armored Division, their company commander should have been a captain, but he was a First Lieutenant. Their company commander was a First Lieutenant because they did not have anyone left. They just put people in. If you were a tank driver you should be a corporal. Just like in the airplanes, there should be ranks. They should have had ranks, but they were all Privates. They did not promote anyone until the officers got their ranks. Tunnicliff had gone to Camp McCoy, and Congress passed a law that if you had been in for so long and had not been promoted, then you would automatically get promoted to the next rank. He was on stage getting discharged when he got promoted to PFC, otherwise he would have entered as a Private and come out a Private. Tunnicliff joked he was promoted by an Act of Congress. He did not want to stay in the military. He just wanted to get home and move on with his life.
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After Ed Tunnicliff was discharged, he was recruited by several university football teams. Tunnicliff thought he was going to go to the University of Illinois [Annotator's Note: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign and Urbana, Illinois], but he was contacted by several other teams. He was set on Northwestern University [Annotator's Note: Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois] or the University of Illinois. He met a girl during Christmas vacation his freshman year in high school. He walked her home from the skate rink. It did not take him long to know he was going to marry her. While he was in the Army, she was in the Cadet Nursing Corps [Annotator's Note: US Cadet Nurse Corps]. He decided on Northwestern University. He had two years of 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]. The last two years after the G.I. Bill, Northwestern offered him a scholarship. He started at Northwestern University in the fall of 1946. His wife, Kay, graduated from nursing school in January 1946. They were married in June 1946. Tunnicliff went to the Rose Bowl [Annotator's Note: College football playoff game] in 1949, while playing football at Northwestern. They were behind 13 to 14. As the game was ending, they had a trick play that was unusual and unexpected. With two minutes to go it was called, the ball went to Tunnicliff and he scored a 43 yard touchdown. They won the game 20 to 14. Everybody did a great job. They all worked together to get the win. It was something out of a storybook, the Rose Bowl, and he was the last son his father had. His father was one of those people who made things happen. What he liked the most was what the win did for his father in their hometown.
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Ed Tunnicliff adjusted quickly back into civilian life. The Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] situation was unfortunate because of the way they got treated. Some of those guys brought that on themselves because they did everything they could to get out of it. During the Second World War that was not it. Everybody expected themselves to go. Some guys made careers out of it, but most guys just wanted to get in, get out, and get on with their lives. That was their responsibility. Just like the school systems now, kids today were like kids then. Something would happen like an automobile accident and someone might get killed, but they did not need counselors. People are not responsible for themselves these days. Tunnicliff was a high school football coach for a while. Kids started changing back then, but it is nothing like today. Kids tried to embarrass teachers back then, but they had good relationships. Tunnicliff's 60 year old daughter was a teacher for 20 years. She quit because she could not stand the politics and the faculty not getting support from the administration anymore. Tunnicliff did have dreams about combat. Once, he dove out of his bed. You get to know the sound of incoming and outgoing artillery. You learned in a hurry because you were not always in the tank. They were held up one time at the Moselle River [Annotator's Note: the Moselle River runs along France, Luxembourg, and Germany] because they were building a pontoon bridge. The Germans kept coming out and knocking it out with an 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. Every once in a while the Germans would send a barrage. Another time, they came out of the woods to cross a field to save some time and they got bogged down. They could not move the tank.They waited for a tank retriever to come pull them out. A half-track [Annotator's Note: M3 half-track; a vehicle with front wheels and rear tracks] of armored infantry went by and they got a direct hit, 11 guys. Tunnicliff did not have dreams in the beginning. The dreams did not start until four or five years ago [Annotator's Note: four or five years prior to the date of this interview]. He was hearing incoming artillery and was diving out of his bed. He has not had any dreams for about six months because the VA [Annotator's Note: United States Department of Veterans Affairs; also referred to as the Veterans Administration] put him on something. He dove out of bed, and one time he slammed into the bedside table. He was glad he was dreaming. Sometimes you skin things up by hitting things. Sometimes he had hostile dreams and he had to fight. The dreams were him seeing things like the half-track getting hit.
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Paul Zimmer [Annotator's Note: Zimmer is one of Ed Tunnicliff's friends from basic training] moved to Northern California. Tunnicliff and his wife Kay went and visited one time. Zimmer went to Texas to visit Tunnicliff and his family. They would call each other up and talk. Tunnicliff tried to find Schwartz [Annotator's Note: spelling uncertain] in Saint Louis [Annotator's Note: Saint Louis, Missouri], but he could not find him. He did not know where Tony [Annotator's Note: unable to identify] or Trivett [Annotator’s Note: spelling uncertain; unable to identify] were at. He connected with some other guys later and stayed in touch with them. When Tunnicliff and Zimmer talked, they would discuss what they had been through in the war. Tunicliff says, "When you see that big red ball and you think you are going to get riddled, that is not something you want to be involved with." He was glad he got in and got out. Tunnicliff served because our country was attacked. Back then, there was more respect for the people who were in charge, much more respect for people in local and national governments. He does not think the Second World War changed his life. You were expected to support and be loyal to your school, university, community, state, and country. That is just the way it was back then. He does not think he was different. He was the same as most of the other guys. He was proud to be a part of the Second World War. His brother Bob's daughter got them involved with the Honor Flights [Annotaotr's Note: The Honor Flight Network is a national network of independent Hubs working together to honor United States veterans with an all-expenses paid trip to the memorials in Washington, D.C.]. It was one of the most wonderful days of his life. It was a shock. Little kids and people out there in Washington, D.C. were thanking them for their service. When they got off the plane in Chicago [Annotator's Note: Chicago, Illinois] they slowed them down getting off the plane. Then they took them one at a time and put them in a wheelchair. They had a person in uniform wheeling them around. Every turn there was a half a dozen people in uniform saluting them. He was tired of saluting them back and was glad when they finally got outside. When they got outside, there were 3,000 people cheering them and thanking them. It made them feel good. Tunnicliff thinks it is important to have institutions like The National World War II Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana]. They are fantastic, like the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. It is important because we have gotten away from having pride in our town and our country. We need to get back to that. He does not think you should specifically teach the Second World War, but should give credit to Vietnam [Annotator's Note: Vietnam War, or Second Indochina War, 1 November 1955 to 30 April 1975] and the desert wars. Tunnicliff thinks we need people in power to have the right attitude and people in general to have the right attitudes behind them.
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