| Ben Almendinger 120th Regiment 30th Infantry Division |
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Ben Almendinger has lived in Morgan County for most of his 83 years, except for the time he was serving his country in the U.S. Army’s 120th Infantry, 30th Division during World War II. He was 17 years old and drafted right out of M-M High School. He traveled by train to California to see Carol Warne (his girlfriend, later to become his wife), who was living there with her brother and sister-in-law. “Carol was ‘Rosie the Riveter’ putting rivets in the war planes,” Almendinger said. “They took me to South Carolina where I had training at Camp Croft. I left there and they sent me to New Jersey, and there I got on a boat and ended up in England.” He said he traveled on to St. Lo, France, where the water was red from blood. “We only made it three or four miles and they shot us down. We had to get more men in. I was out ahead and the American planes looked like they were dropping bushels of potatoes,” Ben recalled. “I had to go and help carry them (wounded and dead) out. I was on the French side and we couldn’t get over the fence to Germany. However, I have had a lot of lucky breaks.” “I still have shrapnel in my head and back and also in my foot. I stayed in a sheep barn with a dirt floor for four days. They picked me up in a weasel with tracks. There were about 80 of us at the start and there were only two of us left in that whole company,” he remembered. “I was in the hospital, and I told them I hadn’t eaten for three days. They sent me to a ‘nut barn’ in France. When I got out of there, they put me on a Liberty ship which held 50 men,” he said. “When the propeller fell off, I thought I would have to fix that. They finally sent someone to fix it, so the ship could move on.” Ben received two Purple Hearts and has another one on paper, as well as a Bronze Star among his medals from World War II. He recalled that when he was in Germany, he got a bullet in his back, as well as his head wound. “I was scared because my head wound looked bad. I would put a pillow case in my helmet to protect it,” he said. As for the bullet in his back, he said as far as he knows, it is still there. Ben was the only son of the late Grover and Ruth Almendinger of Malta. He had four sisters. His family had a hatchery for several years. He remembers his childhood years of growing up in Malta. “I slopped the pigs on Malta hill all one winter. Dad gave me a bicycle and the girls didn’t get a bike, and they are still mad about that today,” he said with a smile. “We had one incubator in the hatchery that held 16,000 eggs. We had four other incubators. We had several thousand chickens back in the brooders. When the bad times hit, we didn’t have anything to eat but those little chickens and we ate them,” he explained. He did comment that he still likes chicken. “I went to work for Wally Bragg from 11 o’clock at night to eight in the morning. My girlfriend was Carol Warne. I couldn’t get my lessons so she got them for me. That is how I passed,” he said with a smile. When Almendinger was a small boy his dad, Grover, built him a small car with a Briggs & Stratton engine, and a four-speed transmission. He drove it all over Malta and McConnelsville. When he returned home from the service, he leased a Pure Oil Station in Malta from Neff Oil of Crooksville. Ben operated the station (where Family Dollar is now located) for 30 years. He did engine work, as well as washed cars. He remodeled the station. He said when he leased it, it was a two-pump station and he built it up with a car bay on the side. Several young men worked for Ben at the station in Malta, including Jim Drake, David Shaner Sr., Danny Best, Jimmy Drake, Oop Roberts, Ronnie Roberts, the Cosgrave boys, and many others, he recalled. After he left the Pure Oil Station, he said he put a million miles on two trucks hauling trailers (mobile homes) all over the United States. He was helped in this effort by his wife, Carol. He recalled one time in Georgia he was hauling a mobile home and somehow it fell in a septic tank. It took him and Carol two days to jack it above the ground, and Ben said they threw their clothes away. “We finally got the thing out, and took the trailer on to Virginia. We blew nine tires because the heat was terrible,” he said. “It took us two days to get to Virginia. That was one of the worst times we had.” He recalled another episode, “I was coming out of Columbus headed for West Virginia. They had curfews everyplace. I passed all the trucks, and I met a ‘statie,’ but he couldn’t do anything. The truckers said over their radios, ‘that is the first time I ever had a house pass me.’” Almendinger comes from a musical family. His father was a charter member of the Rube Band, and Ben has played in the band for 60 years, playing both the trumpet and E-Flat Alto horn. He played at the Stockport Firemen’s Festival in July 2008. Ben is a 57-year member of the American Legion. He is a charter member of the VFW, where he has been a member for 63 years. He is also a longtime member of the Eagles Lodge, and he was also a member of the M-M Fire Department for 17 years. After moving from his home in Malta, which he built, Almendinger now lives in McConnel Manor, and his medals are displayed on the wall in a shadow box-type frame made by his brothers-in-law, Lee Clawson and Kennard White. Ben’s wife, Carol, has been deceased for several years. They have three grown children, Kim Almendinger of Cleveland, Joel Almendinger of Cincinnati, and Leslie (Almendinger) Swingle of Hanover. He also has seven grandchildren. He is a longtime member of the Malta United Methodist Church, and he enjoys spending time with his lady friend, Dee Gentry of Malta. Of the four sisters, Betty White and Dorothy Norris live in Malta, and Freda Bankes and Geraldine Reed are deceased. Ben has had a very interesting life, and he is very modest about his time spent serving his country. He does have a wonderful sense of humor, which was evident throughout our conversation. Morgan County Herald - McConnelsville,OH,USA |
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 Page last revised
04/02/2022James D. West Host106th@106thInfDivAssn.org www.IndianaMilitary.org |
