Me You Us, sponsored by Consumers Energy, dives deeper into the physical, financial, emotional, social, and professional pillars that make up our overall well-being and contribute to our mental health. Through the sharing of personal experiences and conversations with industry experts, we can collaboratively support one another and increase our consideration for the personal well-being of those around us.
Herb Elfring retired from Consumers Energy in 1985 after a 35-year career in engineering. He is also a Pearl Harbor Survivor, a father, a grandfather, a great grandfather and much, much more. Listen as he tells the story of his 100 years of living life to the fullest. This is a three-part series.
William Krieger
Hello everyone and welcome to Me You Us, a wellbeing podcast. It’s another wellbeing Wednesday here at Consumers Energy. And I’m your host Bill Krieger. Today is the first part in a three-part series with my guest Herb Elfring. He is a retiree from Consumers Energy. He is a father, a grandfather, a great grandfather, and also a survivor of Pearl Harbor as an Army veteran. So, listen in is I have my conversation with Herb Elfring.
William Krieger
For the audience, I had been talking with Carolyn Bloodworth. And she had mentioned that you had worked at Consumers Energy and retired 35 years ago, and that you are a survivor of Pearl Harbor. And I wanted to talk with you and find out a little bit about who you are in what you did, not only at Consumers but what it was like to be at Pearl Harbor on that day. Before we get there, I would like to kind of find out where you started out because from what I understand you are not a Michigan native, but you come from Montana….
Herb Elfring
Actually, born in South Dakota. I was born in South Dakota, okay, Watertown on the farm. In 1922, of course and livelihood on the farm, of course was looking back on it seems like it was more or less day by day because there was no extra. And when the dry years came in their early 30s, it took its toll on my dad. He was not able to raise enough money to pay the interest on the mortgage and we lost the farm. So, we lost that farm in 1932 and it broke up the family. I stayed with my uncle and my sister stayed with some other relatives. And then along comes 1933. And my sister heard about the Fort Peck dam project being authorized in Montana across the Missouri River. And it so happened that we had my mother’s sister’s family that lived nearby and also my grandmother, my mother’s mother. And so, my dad got, through my sister’s influence, got the family together with a with an old Buick, he still had for some reason, and a trailer I guess we had left over from the sale of the farm and headed for Montana.
William Krieger
Well, now that sounds like quite a journey. So, if I understand born in 1922, the stock market crash, the Depression hit. So, this project that you’re talking about, was that part of the what the CCC or the Civilian Conservation Corps?
Herb Elfring
I don’t think it had any direct connection with any of them. It was a project that was probably in the mill all along, say in the early 30s. But finally got authorized in 1933. So, we headed for Montana and got there with our Grapes of Wrath landmark I guess you would say. That was the days when the roads weren’t blacktop, there’s a lot of gravel roads and a lot of time on the road and we finally got there and got to my aunt’s place. And she put us all up for whatever reason, you know. And then the dam was authorized to be built in the fall of 1933. And my father, luckily was one of the first common laborer help hired on the project. And as a result, we move from my aunt’s place to a place closer to the project. And that’s where I lived then until I went to the country school, the eighth grade. My schooling was in a one room schoolhouse for eight years, both in South Dakota and Montana.
William Krieger
Well, that must have been quite an experience. That’s everybody in the same room basically. Right? From Kindergarten all the way up? Oh my gosh.
Herb Elfring
So anyway, I graduated from the country school then. From which we walked to school, a couple miles every day to school and back, you know. And wintertime, didn’t make any difference. So, I started to high school then in Glasgow, Montana, which is about 12 miles from the project. So, I would ride to work with my dad, catch the buses and ride the bus to Glasgow about 12 miles away. And boy that the weather would get pretty severe in the wintertime. I experienced a couple of days of 63 degrees below zero in Montana.
William Krieger
Okay, so I got to stop you there. When you started to say 63, I thought well, that’s warm weather. And then you said below zero I, I can’t even imagine 63 degrees below. So that’s, that’s cold.
Herb Elfring
So yeah, that lasted for a couple of days. That was only for one year that way. But I don’t recall what some of the other cool days were, but they were well in the 40s, you know. So, you learn to live with it. But I would then ride to work with my dad get the bus, go on into Glasgow high school. And I did that for two years, freshman and junior year. I of course, didn’t have time to stay at school and play sports, so did not get involved with sports of any kind. And then, as the project grew, they were able to open up a junior senior class in high school at Fort Peck. So, I finished my two years of high school at Fort Peck Montana. And I graduated in 1939.
William Krieger
So, it sounds to me like education was pretty important in your family because it was very easy for you just to go to work and contribute and not continue your education.
Herb Elfring
Well, it’s certainly something that I guess I had in mind because my brother, older than me, did not go on to high school, you know, he rather finds a job and work someplace you know. So, I graduated in 1939. And my brother, oldest brother was in the Navy, married and lived in San Diego. And he invited me to come to San Diego to go to San Diego State. Well, it just happened that there was a family that was living near the project that we heard about that wanted to go move to Sacramento, California. But they needed somebody to drive a small truck that they had along with them and the car and pulling a trailer you know. So, I wound up, I was 17 years old at the time, driving that truck from Montana to Sacramento, California.
William Krieger
Interesting, interesting coincidence, right? Yeah, just so happens that they’re kind of headed your way and they needed your help. That’s pretty amazing.
Herb Elfring
So fortunately, we got there in one piece. And then I caught a bus on to San Diego, California, from Sacramento and wound up starting to San Diego State as planned. And well as it turned out it was in the second term, because I was short of math projects to qualify to start as a freshman at San Diego State. So, I worked for a bricklayer then as a hod carrier and took night classes in math in order to qualify to start San Diego state in January 1940. That all worked out, okay. But while I was at San Diego State, I got acquainted with a student that was in the National Guard, California National Guard. This would be 1940. And of course, at that time, dollars were hard to find and, and we could go to drill on the weekend and earn extra buck. And I actually had joined the National Guard in Montana when I was 16.
William Krieger
Really, so what’s that all about?
Herb Elfring
Which was a common practice for young guys to do that just to earn a little extra money. And they needed the recruits anyway, so it all worked out. Anyway, I went on to school then and spring of 1940 at San Diego state and also did drills in the California National Guard on the weekend. And the regiment did their summer two weeks at Tacoma, which happen to be up in Washington. So, we went on to an area of Fort Lewis Washington conducted our two weeks of drill up there, came back to San Diego would be probably in June of 1940. Then, along comes September 16, 1940 and the California National Guard was activated full time. So now I’m in the army. That wasn’t expected at all. So, the whole regiment pulled into camp outside of Ventura, California. And in November 1940 the whole regiment was deployed to Hawaii, out of Oahu, where Honolulu is.
William Krieger
So again, probably not what you were expecting.
Herb Elfring
No, not at all. Well, fortunately, it was Hawaii and not the Philippines. Because had the regiment gone to the Philippines, we probably would have wound up on that Bataan Death March. So, we were in Hawaii a whole year before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. But that’s probably a kind of a misnomer in a way because the Japanese hit every other military installation on the island which included our Camp Kalicoa, which was done down the shoreline from Pearl Harbor a few miles, I don’t know exactly how many.
William Krieger
So, what were you doing in Hawaii? You know, I know things were heating up around the world with the war that was going on, but why did they activate you and why Hawaii of all places?
Herb Elfring
I don’t really… you know, I was a buck private at the time. And totally new to the Army you might say. And that, that theory never got down to my level. At that level I guess we weren’t too inquisitive either at the time.
William Krieger
Right so what did you do while you were there?
Herb Elfring
The regiment was made up of batteries. And San Diego was battery A and was a search type battery like Long Beach I think they had automatic weapons battery and then San Francisco probably might have had the anti-aircraft guns, the big guns. And so, it was it was called the 251st Coast Artillery, Anti-aircraft. So, we had those different weapons for anti-aircraft use. I think our intend use was, was to defend airfields for the most part. So, Japanese hit Pearl Harbor and of course the term Pearl Harbor survivor doesn’t apply to just the Navy.
William Krieger
Right? Which is interesting, because when we think about Pearl Harbor, we think about the USS Arizona, and we think about the Navy. So I was a little surprised to find out that you were in the army.
Herb Elfring
Yeah. But the Japanese knew where every military installation was on the island. And they hit all of them, you know, Army, Navy, Marines. And the whole gamut, you know, and Wheeler Field in the center of the island and Schofield Barracks, they, they hit those. So, you did not have to be a sailor to be qualified as a Pearl Harbor Survivor, in other words.
William Krieger
And that’s, that’s some education for me, I didn’t realize that. You know, interestingly enough, my son probably 10 years ago who was in the army, just like his dad was stationed at Schofield Barracks. And I’m not sure a whole lot has changed. And all that time, although it might have got a little bit better. It was, from all accounts, it was a pretty it was a nice place to be, but it was a pretty tough place to be as well.
Herb Elfring
It’s a huge installation, I know, that. They take up a lot of territory and there is an aircraft landing field there, too.
William Krieger
Okay. So, you were in Hawaii, and you’re doing your job, you’re doing what you do there. And so, what, what happened kind of leading up to the attack, and then what happened during the attack.
Herb Elfring
Well as time went on, radar was just coming into existence at that time. And we, battery A, obtained a radar, at that time. And antennas, you know. And it was used to pick up airplanes. But the, but the, the capability of it was limited to I think 40…40,000 yards, which is not very far away. So anyway, after we got to Hawaii in 1940, November 1940. We started out in pup tents or not army tents at Schofield Barracks. And then we go to Camp Alacoa, which is down the shoreline from Pearl Harbor, and build our own, our own camp out of lumber, rough lumber. And so that was called Camp Melacoa. And we would, we would work building the camp in the morning and maybe doing some Army exercises of some kind in the afternoon, you know? And that went along just fine until Japanese hit December 7, 1941.
William Krieger
Thank you to the audience for listening in today. If you want to hear the rest of this story. Be sure and tune in next week as we continue our conversation with Herb Elfring. This is only part one of a three-part series. The Me You Us podcast is proudly sponsored by Consumers Energy leaving Michigan better than we found it. Remember, you can find the Me You Us podcast on all major podcasting platforms. So be sure to go out find us and subscribe. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. That’s 1-800-273-8255 If you are a veteran or know a Veteran who is in crisis, you can call 1-800-273-8255 in press one for the Veterans Crisis Line, and remember to tune in every Wednesday, as we talk about the things that impact your personal world.
