Discovering The Mature Lifestyle
Golden Valley vet spends 33 years giving back Page 5
Veterans
May 15, 2015
May Issue
Busy Farmington VFW commander is Korean War vet BY SUE WEBBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER Ronald Ersfeld remembers building model airplanes and being an active Boy Scout when he was a kid growing up in Farmington, so it wasn’t a surprise that he enlisted in the Air Force in 1951. “I got a lot of schooling there,” said Ersfeld, a lifelong resident of Farmington who has served as commander of Farmington’s VFW for the last 18 years. From 1951-1956 during the Korean War, Ersfeld flew B-29 bombers out of Okinawa, a chain of islands near Japan. Ersfeld flew a total of 22 missions over North Korea. “We were trained well,” he said. “When you’re flying, you’ve got a tight-knit group. You rely on the next person. We were bombing at night, and they’re shooting at you.” He recalls one night when he was flying a B-29 with an 11-man crew when there was a fire in an engine. “We flew many times with three engines,” he said. “We were going back toward Okinawa when the number two engine started on fire. We put that out, but later the number three engine started on fire and the fire wouldn’t go out. The aircraft was filling with smoke. We were flying at 23,000 feet at night, over the mountains of Tokyo. We bailed out in South Japan at 21,000 feet in a solid cloud layer. We knew the terrain. You’ve got to go on a portable oxygen bottle and out the hatch you go.” Ersfeld got out of the mountains that night, but a couple of members of the crew were there for several days, he said. “I landed in a plateau and got to a village
where I met some people,” he said. “They got ahold of the Japanese police and they took me to the nearest police station and then to the Air Force Base. It was quite an experience.” After the war was over, Ersfeld was stationed in Roswell, N.M., with the Air Force and went back overseas on a temporary tour of duty, flying back and forth over the Far East. When he got out of the service in 1956, he spent five years as an Army reservist. His interest in aviation led him to get a private pilot’s license. A lifelong resident of Farmington, Ersfeld had a career in carpentry and worked as a superintendent for a commercial building in Minneapolis. For the past 18 years, he has been commander of the 115-member VFW Post 7662 in Farmington. “We still have a couple of World War II vets, a handful from the Korean War, quite a few from the Vietnam war and some from Iraq and Afghanistan,” Ersfeld said.” The job keeps him busy. “I check in every day,” Ersfeld said. “I’m all over the place. I’m a goer. You’ve got to like it. There’s a lot of paper work, dedications, inspections and reports. There’s a lot to do with the charitable gambling. You’ve got to pay attention. “We do a lot of things in the schools, including flag etiquette for fifth-graders, patriotic programs in the middle schools and the Voice of Democracy contest in the high school.” The VFW also participates in funerals COMMANDER - TO PAGE 4
Ron Ersfeld is pictured standing above his memorial stone at the Farmington War Memorial. (Submitted photo)