WWII veteran maintained motorcycles, military equipment in Africa, Italy

In reflection, the early years of the late Edwin Otto Jungmeyer were likely built on the promise of better times ahead. Graduating from Centertown High School in rural Cole County in the mid-1930s, he briefly paused to work on his father's farm during the height of the Great Depression, toiling to survive during a period in which many farms were lost to a bank through foreclosure.

A short while later, he sought to continue his education by attending La Salle University in Pennsylvania in addition to participating in a business and farm management correspondence course through a school in Chicago.

Returning to Lohman to work on the family farm in the early 1940s, he began dating a young woman, Norma June Weaver, to whom he was soon engaged. Their marriage, however, would have to wait since he unexpectedly embarked upon the most influential segment of his career when joining tens of thousands of young men registering for the military draft on Oct. 16, 1940.

"His records show that he was drafted into the U.S. Army on Jan. 22, 1941, and completed his basic training at Jefferson Barracks (St. Louis)," said Kevin Jungmeyer, the youngest of the veteran's sons.

While on leave from his training, he returned home and married his fiancée July 15, 1941, in California, Missouri. Days later, he returned to the 3488th Ordnance Medium Automotive Maintenance Company to continue his training for overseas service.

In the spring of 1942, Jungmeyer was temporarily assigned to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he spent several weeks learning how to properly maintain and repair motorcycles at the factory service school for the Indian Motorcycle Company.

"From 1940 until 1945, Indian Motorcycle focused its efforts on contributing to the Allied cause in WWII, at first (by) building motorcycles for the French government and, starting in 1941, producing the Model 841 for the U.S. Army," noted an article on the Indian Motorcycle Company's website. "Very few bikes were built for consumers during this time."

The Indian 841 motorcycle was initially designed for desert warfare, to provide greater mobility for U.S. troops. Although not adopted for widespread use by the U.S. Army, the motorcycle's intended end use, in a sense, foretold the location of Jungmeyer's upcoming duty assignment in a desert environment.

The maintenance course ended Jan. 30, 1942; however, five months later, his company boarded troop ships on the East Coast. Arriving in England on July 12, 1942, they conducted additional training for the next several weeks before joining the Fifth Army in mid-November 1942, for the Tunisian Campaign.

Days later, on Nov. 29, 1942, the wife of the 28-year-old soldier gave birth to their first daughter, Nathalia.

While the Fifth Army made hard-fought gains against Italian and German forces in the deserts of North Africa, Jungmeyer and the men of the 3488th performed the necessary automotive work to keep all types of vehicles running for critical missions such as road patrols - a burdensome responsibility requiring creative measures in the face of supply shortages.

"Captain Joseph M. Montgomery of the 3488th reported that the authority to salvage vehicles and reclaim the parts had been the deciding factor in keeping the trucks rolling; 75 percent of the jobs completed by his company were made possible by cannibalization," Lisa Mayo wrote in "The Ordnance Department: On Beachhead and Battlefront."

In an article appearing it the April 4, 1943, edition of the Des Moines Register, Capt. Montgomery said of the soldiers under his command: "They take apparently wrecked trucks and create a breathing monster of transportation to take food, and clothing and ammunition, and gasoline and fighting men to the front lines."

The commander went on to explain that mechanics such as Jungmeyer did not accomplish such tasks in a "well-equipped garage;" instead, they performed their critical work where "the sky is their roof, the ground their floor and the horizon the walls."

Jungmeyer and the soldiers of the 3488th later supported the Fifth Army during the Allied Invasion of Italy, admirably performing the strenuous work of repairing inoperable vehicles. He remained in Italy until about a month following Germany's capitulation, returning to the United States in June 1945.

"I can remember our father telling us that they had been working on Indian motorcycles overseas and were riding them on the sand dunes," said Steve Jungmeyer, another of the veteran's sons. "Apparently, the kickstand came open on the bike he was riding and it stuck in his calf." Grinning, he added, "That was his war injury."

Receiving his discharge on June 26, 1945, Jungmeyer reunited with his wife and 2-year-old daughter. In the years that followed, the couple welcomed three sons, Dennis, Steve and Kevin, into their family. Leveraging the automotive and maintenance experience acquired in the Army, he went on to retire from the former McKay Buick in Jefferson City as service manager after 32 years of employment.

His second oldest son, Steve, explained that his father, who spent more than four years living and working under stressful situations with the soldiers of the 3488th Ordnance Company, developed strong friendships that endured throughout the decades.

"I can remember there were many years when friends from his days in the service would come to our house to visit, and other times he and Mom would take trips to other towns on visits of their own," Steve said.

Kevin added, "But our dad never really spoke to us about his service; he didn't like to talk about it, so we never got much out of him. I don't know if it was the experiences he went through - if it was traumatic - but he didn't open up about it."

Pausing, he concluded, "To be honest with you, we probably didn't ask him enough about it."

The 84-year-old veteran passed away June 3, 1999, and is interred in the cemetery of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in his hometown of Lohman.

Jeremy P. mick writes on behalf of the Silver Star Families of America.