Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
4:10 | Why did that jeep driver have his lights on at night? Herbert Tollefson wondered why blackout rules were being ignored and the next day, he learned the happy answer.
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When Herbert Tollefson heard about Pearl Harbor, he figured he'd have to leave the farm and go to war, and he was right. Drafted, at first, into the infantry, he was reassigned to the Combat Engineers and shipped out for North Africa.
The biggest event of the war for Combat Engineer Herbert Tollefson was the time he blew up a bridge in North Africa. The demolition specialist was tasked with destroying the bridge with an advancing German column making the crossing. What he did haunts him until this day.
Herbert Tollefson felt lucky that, across North Africa and Italy, he was always advancing and never retreating. That felt good, but did nothing to help when there was no clean water.
