Lester A. Erickson

Lester Allen Erickson was born in St. Maries, Idaho March 5th, 1925, the second child of Mary and Albert Erickson, my mother, Marjorie Emma, being the first. Albert was working as a logger in Idaho,, his preferred work since he began at an early age to support his widowed mother. When Albert and Mary were back in Minot to visit Mary's sister Annie and her husband Merrit Warner, Lester fell from a fence and fractured his femur. This fracture was treated with a long spica cast and it meant that his parents could not return to Idaho. Albert began plumbing and later did farm work, neither of which he liked as much as logging. The family lived on a farm they rented at Des Lacs, North Dakota, a rural community.
There are not many stories about Lester in childhood. Living on the farm during the Depression must have made for a modest hard working life. He hunted, mostly ducks as that area is dotted with many shallow ponds that are right in the flyway for the migratory birds. He graduated from Minot High School and like his sister, lived in town as it was too far to commute from the farm. Also like his sister he did enough work to pay for his room and board. Following high school he attended college at the State School of Science at Wahpeton to learn how to repair farm equipment as gas driven equipment continued to improve farm productivity.
One can only imagine the thoughts in his head in 1939 as he attended school on a farm deferment from the Selective Service Draft. He could have renewed his deferment and continued to help Albert on the farm. For what ever reason, Lester dropped his deferment and joined the Army in 1939. He went to basic at Camp Walters in Texas.
My son Adam has told me the two times soldiers are most vulnerable are in the first and last months of combat; the first month because they are inexperienced and the last month because they become too confident and careless. Lester was killed at Mindanao, Cebu, Phillipines after only 10 days. The account from the Minot Daily News:
"Men and officers associated with Private Erickson recognized his bravery and courage his captain wrote. After only 10 days in the company he had been selected as one of the 10 best men of the group for placement in the regimental intelligence and reconnaissance platoon.
On June 24 he had been sent on a patrol consisting of 10 Americans and one Filipino to reconnoiter and investigate several Japanese huts to the right of the advancing troops. They ran into a large concentration of Japanese who let them pass, killing only the last man.
The platoon fought its way out of the ambush without further casualties. They worked their way to the regimental commander who was with the leading company.
As they reached him the Japanese laid a mortar barrage on the position killing Pvt. Erickson and two officers. He was hit by shrapnel in the chest and died immediately."
The Western Union wire was sent three weeks after his death on 24 June, 1945.
Lester was buried in the Philippines, as was standard at the time. He was reinterned at the Soldier's Plot of the Rosehill Cemetery in Minot in Sept 1948, three years after his death.