Tank gunner Ralph “Rudy” DeLateur (right) stands in front of his Sherman tank during a break in combat in Europe during World War II. / Submitted by Ralph DeLateur
RALPH ‘RUDY' DELATEUR
Age: 86
Born: July 12, 1923
Hometown: Hoquiam, Wash.
Residence: Rancho Mirage
Military branch: U.S. Army; 3rd Army; 13th Armored Division; 45th Tank Battalion
Years served: 1943-46; Oregon State College, Advanced ROTC (1948) — was commissioned a second lieutenant
Rank: Corporal (World War II)
Family: Wife Patricia; three children, Steven DeLateur of Indian Wells, Suzanne Jackson of Atherton and Ric DeLateur of Rancho Mirage; three grandchildren.
About this series
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II through the end of 2010 — the 65th anniversary of the end of the war. Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via e-mail at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
Coming tomorrow
U.S. Army veteran Seymour Bilowit of Palm Springs.
LEARN MORE: Read about other Coachella Valley residents who served in World War II at mydesert.com/wwii.
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Ralph “Rudy” DeLateur was traveling by train from Fort Lewis, Wash., to Fresno when his plans to become an Army Air Corps meteorologist were derailed.
“On the train trip one of the soldiers came down with spinal meningitis, and they quarantined us for three weeks,” he said. “When we got out, all the meteorology classes were filled, so they gave me the option of going to any of the Army Air Corps schools or go ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program), which I chose.”
In the summer of 1943, DeLateur was sent to the University of Arizona to study mechanical engineering. While there, DeLateur served as a drill instructor at an Army Air Corps basic training center, where he taught new recruits how to march and other basic military maneuvers.
When the recruits began receiving mail, some of his young charges confided in DeLateur. A handful of kids who'd had little education were unable to read or write. They asked DeLateur for his help.
“I felt kind of privileged,” he said. “I read letters and wrote home for them.”
“In late February or early March (of 1944) with D-Day approaching, they decided, ‘Enough education,' and shipped us all to the 13th Armored Division at Camp Bowie, Texas,” he said. “The 13th had shipped out all of their privates and private first classes to England as replacements for the anticipated casualties from the invasion.”
“Those poor guys really got cut to ribbons,” DeLateur said.
After about three weeks of armored basic training, he was sent to C Company of the 45th Tank Battalion. After a few weeks, he was made a gunner and given corporal stripes. He shipped out in early 1945 to France.
Landing in Le Havre, France, DeLateur saw that war had taken a toll on the port city.
“That place was really blown to bits,” he said.
DeLateur said the U.S. Sherman tanks were no match for the bigger, more powerful German Tiger and Panzer tanks. The 75 mm cannons on the U.S. tanks did far less damage than the 88 mm guns mounted on the German tanks.
“That thing would penetrate the Sherman tanks,” he said. “Our 75 mm shells would bounce off their tanks.”
Once the U.S. upgraded to 76 mm guns — even though there was only one millimeter difference — the propellant behind the larger projectile packed a more powerful punch.
“We held our own with the 76s,” he said.
Near the end of the war, the U.S. designed and delivered tanks with 90 mm guns.
“Those really took the Tigers and Panzers apart,” he said.
As the battalion made its way through France and into Germany, the tanks primarily engaged the enemy in “indirect firing” — firing high-explosive shells at an unseen target.
“They were supposed to kill German infantry,” he said. “The shells would explode on contact.”
Although the tank men weren't exposed like the foot soldiers, they never felt safe.
“You're scared as hell,” he said. “Sitting in the gunner's seat, you don't know what you're doing or where you're going.”
DeLateur was focused on his tank commander's instructions — and hitting his objective. The tank commander would spot a target, tell the gunner where to aim, how far to shoot and then give the order to fire.
When one of the tank commanders from DeLateur's battalion was killed — “he opened the hatch and a German sniper shot him in the back of the head,” — DeLateur took over as that tank's commander.
It was April 1945, less than a month before the end of the war in Europe, when the tank commander was shot in a German town laden with white flags of surrender.
When Gen. George Patton got wind of the incident, he called all of his officers together.
Patton told the men that whenever they went into a German town where white flags are flying and an enemy opens fire, “‘You take every man over 12 years of age and line them up against the wall and shoot them,'” DeLateur said.
Word traveled fast through the German Army and villages and the sniper attacks immediately stopped, he said.
After the war, DeLateur returned to what was then known as Oregon State College, where he'd been studying engineering before joining the military.
During a bull session at the fraternity, DeLateur was lamenting the fact that he never got to become a meteorologist.
“One of my brothers said, ‘I wouldn't feel too badly about that,'” DeLateur recalled.
The fraternity brother was a pilot who flew The Hump — the deadly route over the Himalayas flown by pilots in the China-Burma-India campaign.
“He said how bad the weather was and that they would parachute a meteorologist with his equipment and a radio and when they quit getting weather reports they would parachute another,” he said. “I was very fortunate the way things worked out for me.”
