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Erickson was responsible for putting oxygen into ball cylinders, where they were packed up and taken to airfields, then put into smaller containers.
A big balloon would be filled with oxygen, which was then pumped into cylinders.
"It was condensed," Erickson says. "We had to liquify oxygen through a series of compressors and dryers. When you compress it, it expands and gets cold. As the temperature went down, the other gases burned off. You had to make sure it was 99.9 percent pure oxygen."
To do this, Erickson would have to test it using copper coils in a solution. The oxygen would oxidize on the coils and be absorbed.
Erickson was outside of Foggia, Italy, near large airfields where B-17 and fighter planes landed.
Erickson rises out of his chair to show his model B-17, a gift from his grandson.
"It was a great aircraft," he says.
"In Italy, we were close enough to the Rome-Arno Campaign. I got a battle star for that," he said. "American forces landed at Anzio on the west coast. It was a real bloody battle.
"We weren't in actual combat," he says. "Our biggest danger was the air raids."
Erickson's contribution was preparing the oxygen.
He learned to do so in Illinois, where he attended the Bertram School of Gases.
"It was run by an old army sergeant," Erickson says. "They showed us how to take oxygen for pilots."
Erickson learned technical background, with theory followed by actual operation.
It was April 2, 1944 and Erickson was 21.
"The orders came through," he says. "I went to Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia. We got our shots and equipment to go overseas."
Erickson left to cross the Atlantic in one of the largest convoys of the war, about 102 ships.
They were called liberty ships, and were built in three months and used to transport troops. Many of these types of ships were built in Chester.
"They were very lightly constructed," Erickson says. "They held about 500 men plus a small crew and merchant marines to man guns."
Erickson recalls his close quarters as being "like a big hole.
"We were stacked five-high in bunks," Erickson says.
Men would wake up and hardly have room to move their heads because of the bunk above.
"Fortunately, I was in the top one," Erickson says.
Luckily, Erickson did not get seasick. This surprised him because he recalls a leisurely sailboat ride that made him very ill.
"I was afraid I'd get seasick. One poor guy was sick everyday. When you're out there, the waves are as high as this room. There were swells. You were up at the top and then down the other. All you could see were ships. Destroyers, light cruisers, liberty ships."
Erickson's ship had to zigzag to avoid German submarines, which extended the uncomfortable ride. It took 28 days to get from Virginia to Italy. The shipmates amused themselves with reading and dice games.
"You had to stand up to eat. There was a little rail to keep (food) from sliding off. We took saltwater showers with a special soap that didn't work," he says. "We had the bare necessities."
In the Mediterranean, they stopped at Casablanca, where they picked up a submarine escort.
"At night we put up barrage balloons," he says. "They looked like small airships. There were cables coming down attached to the ship. They were to keep aircraft from flying over."
They went from Casablanca to Sicily, where they dropped more troops off and went back to the Eastern Coast of Italy.
One evening between Casablanca and Sicily, it was getting dark, and Erickson retired for the night.
"We left, and had to go down in our hole. The ship went way over to the side. We thought it would turn over. We found out the ship in front of us was hit by a torpedo."
The torpedo had "come out of the sun," as the soldiers would say, because five airplanes had come in from a western sunset.
"The gunners on deck tried to shoot it down, but it was hard to see," Erickson says.
The aircraft carried a torpedo, got close, dropped it and launched it. It happened on Hitler's birthday, Erickson recalls.
"Fortunately for us, it didn't hit us, it hit the other ship. It could have been our ship," said Erickson. "If you got hit, your ship will go down in 30 seconds. They lost all 500 and some men."
They finally landed in Brindisi and took a boxcar Italian train to the oxygen plant in Bari.
"It was a big trailer, 30 feet long and as wide as this room," Erickson says.
"A big engine drove five air compressors and one oxygen compressor," says Erickson.
On the look out for air raids, the men lived in tents. There were about five trailers, with a four-man crew on each.
The oxygen compressors would be lubricated with soapy water. "You couldn't use oil because of fires," Erickson says.
They also had to keep a record of purity.
"We would shut down to overhaul the engine compressors, and were back in business again," he says. "It was quite an operation."
They slept eight men in a tent on army cots, which were mattress covers filled with straw.
The war started when Erickson was living in Ventnor, N.J. Born in Williamsport, Erickson graduated from Atlantic City High School.
In 1942, he began working for his uncle at a Ford ordinance plant in Upper Darby. The company built jeeps, and Erickson worked as an export, sending shipments overseas.
He registered for the draft.
"In January 1943, I got notice for induction," Erickson says. "I wanted to go but I didn't want to volunteer."
Erickson found himself in New Cumberland, Pa., near Harrisburg, for induction. He went to Clearwater, Fla. shortly afterward, for basic training.
"It was drilling, getting used to army life," Erickson recalls.
This included calisthenics and guard duty, to name a few.
Erickson was assigned to the Air Force, called the Army Air Corps at the time. "They needed people for operating special purpose vehicles."
Erickson learned at the air base at Chanute Field, Ill. where he learned to operate big tow trucks, flat bed trailers and other big equipment.
After this, he was sent out to training at Santa Maria, Calif. to prepare for overseas and then additional training at Pendleton Field in Oregon.
Erickson is amused about his train ride to Santa Maria, which members of the Women's Army Corps (WACS) shared. It was similar to the Harvey Girls, he says.
"There was baggage between our sections so we couldn't get to them," Erickson laughs. "Every stop, the women got off first. We had to eat separately for our meals. It took us five days to get out there.
"We were awaiting shipment over to the Pacific," he says. "We got orders while we were there to send some back to Springfield, Ill."
Erickson was one of them.
After training, he was sent to Italy.
A year and a half after the war, Erickson still awaited assignment to come home. In the meantime, troops began to dismantle aircraft. Erickson was stationed at an airbase, supervising German prisoners and packing things to send back to the states. He operated a Cletrack, a machine with tracks instead of wheels. They took care of airplane crashes and moved aircraft equipment. "Things were different. We didn't have modern equipment.
"In January 1946, I finally had enough points," he says.
Erickson went to Naples and then back to the states. It took him 10 days to get back in comparison to the 28 it had taken to get to Italy during the war.
Women were on the lower deck, men on the upper deck. Once again, they were separated with guards on watch.
Erickson saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time.
"The Statue of Liberty was a welcome sight," he says.
He married his sweetheart, Eleanora, in 1947.
"We decided to wait, we didn't know what would happen," he says of his wife, whom he had grown up with.
He went to refrigeration school and worked for Sun Rock making water coolers. He and Eleanora have lived in their Parkside home since 1954.
They have two boys, Edward and Thomas, five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Some of his fond memories of the war was a trip to Switzerland and Pompeii, and getting to shake the Pope's hand.
Erickson is now Quartermaster of the Brookhaven VFW. "The biggest thing we do is the Poppy drive in the spring, the first weekend in May," he says. "We have a small post, about 50 members, but we sell about 3,500 poppies. Because of the generosity of neighbors, we're able to raise enough money to donate $600 to each of four hospitals."
Erickson says he's very grateful for the donations.
Erickson also takes part in the Brookhaven Community Service Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
