Interview printed in The Bakersfield Californian 6/6/04

John R. Horlacher

Age: 84

Age at D-Day: 24

Branch of service: U.S. Army

Years of service: Inducted June 16, 1942; discharged Nov. 9, 1945, as a private first class.

John R. Horlacher says a lucky break is the reason he is alive today.

That's not counting the good fortune that got him onto the beach past a lot of Americans killed by German shells, strafing planes and machine gun fire.

As heavy fighting continued in a bloody campaign to cut the Germans off on a peninsula, the odds of survival lengthened.

The closest call was when he felt a whoosh of air as a tank shell flew by his head.

On D-Day plus 40, he said he and a buddy were the only members of their original squad left.

They put in for a transfer to division headquarters. There happened to be two openings. They were accepted. They would spend the rest of the war pulling guard duty behind the front lines, out of reach of all but the heaviest German shells.

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that," Horlacher said.

He returned in 1945 to his wife in Arvin and they raised two sons at Tejon Ranch headquarters, where he worked as a maintenance mechanic. Both sons served in the military, one in Vietnam and the other in West Germany during the Cold War.

His wife died in 1974. Horlacher never remarried.

Reflecting on his time in Europe, he drew a parallel between fighting Hitler and the war in Iraq.

"People say we shouldn't be over there. I think we should," he said. "If we hadn't stopped (Hitler), where would we be now?"

John Horlacher (1920)