Achterhoff Built Runways in England
James Achterhoff was drafted in the United States Army when he was just barely 20 years old. His parents farmed near Hardwick and he had graduated two years earlier from Luverne High School. He had three sisters and no one from his immediate family had served in any war.
Jim was engaged to a young woman from Edgerton at the time. Her name was Minnie Gale Schuld. She graduated from Edgerton High School in May 1953 and only a few days later Jim left for basic training. He left for Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri on June 10, 1953.
“You got so you hated to get up in the morning,” he said. “I knew what was coming.”
Being a farm kid from the Midwest, Jim was easy to get along with. He met some interesting people. Most of them were good guys. “But there was always a few that when they were turned loose they were not so good,” he said.
After the first eight weeks, Jim stayed at Ft. Leonard Wood, where he had additional training in heavy equipment school. There he learned to run a bulldozer.
While his training was intense, Jim did not have to see any combat time. His orders were to go over to England. In fact, by the time he was done with training, a peace treaty with Korea had been signed.
After a brief trip home when he was finished with his advanced training, Jim next reported to Ft. Dix, New Jersey, where he had quite a surprise. While walking through the chow line one evening, someone said, “Hi, Jim!” It was Dan Schnyders, from Edgerton. Dan was serving in the air force at the time and he and his wife invited Jim over for breakfast the next morning. Unfortunately, Jim wasn’t able to go to breakfast with them, but he did enjoy having a conversation with a friendly face from back home.
The trip to England was probably Jim’s worst memory of his two years in the service. “I fed a lot of fish on the way over,” he recalls with a laugh.
It was early November and Jim was told that was the worst time to travel the North Atlantic. “The first day you are afraid you are going to die and the second day, you are afraid you won’t,” he said. The ship would slam into the water with each draw and rise up with every wave.
He talked with a Sergeant First Class on the ship who sat in a corner with a bucket most of the trip across the ocean. This was his fourth or fifth time across the ocean and he got sick every time. The officers would tell those who were sick to try to eat something to keep their strength up.
They slept in compartments with bunks that were four or five beds high. They were not really beds – just canvas bunks that had been slept in by hundreds of soldiers in the past. The canvas sagged, which meant when you rolled over, you nudged the guy above you.
The trip took about seven days. They sailed from the New York Harbor to Bremerhaven, Germany, which is on the north of Germany by the English Channel. From there they went to South Hampton, England.
When they got off the ship, they took a bus to the Molesworth Air Force Base. However, it was extremely foggy – as is typical in England. Jim explained that the bus driver got lost because it was so foggy you literally could not see your hand in front of your face.
England was still suffering the effects of World War II, with many areas still rebuilding. Jim ended up working on a crane on the air force runways. The first thing they did was tear up a runway that was made incorrectly. Then they had to tear out some other old runways and make new runways.
For breaking up runways, he would run a crane with a wrecking ball that he would raise up and drop to break up the concrete pavement. For building roads, his crane had a clamshell bucket and he had to mix concrete and sand for the runways.
Jim found the work to be quite boring. Guard duty was less boring. There were motor pools around the edge of the airfield. They would walk through there and they had two-way radios that they communicated with. They were always in contact with the Sergeant of the Guard. In the wintertime this work was cold and damp.
