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Pfc Carl E. Gerking enlisted at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana on 17 April 1944.

Pfc Gerking, who nearly lost his life attacking a German fortified trench after the Ruhr crossing, was killed 18 April. When a press correspondent reported that he was a hero in helping capture a German mortar platoon, Pfc Gerking wrote his family protesting that he "was not a hero" and told of how a "crease in the helmet of the fellow in front" of him had saved his life. "We had just crossed the Ruhr," he wrote, "and had advanced through two or three towns, all well fortified. There wasn't much fight left in the Jerries after our artillery got through with them, except for a few machine guns that kept bothering our flanks. The going was smooth until we hit a German fortified trench."
When the Yanks hit the trench, Pfc Gerking and about 14 other men "advanced about 250 yards with German machine guns and snipers opening up on us while we were walking in a skirmish line" uphill with not a tree of bush within 500 yards. Although the men "coudn't locate a Jerry," they shot at targets and held down their fire. When they returned late that evening one of them had been killed and four wounded.
"I think we took half of the next town without a casualty," he wrote, and got 25 or 35 prisoners. Just after midnight the next morning they "dug in" and it was there enemy artillery hit Pfc Gerkin's rifle, gas mask and tore his ammunition belt up so badley he couldn't use it."
In a later letter he wrote that he was in the first boat to cross the Rhine river and took 57 prisoners back across the Rhine and through mine-infested fields to the American lines. "I aged 10 years" in those five days and night guarding the prisoners, he wrote, adding that he had only one hour of sleep during that time.
Pfc Gerking, a tankman, entered the Army more than a year ago and went overseas in December. He attended Ben Davis High School and was formerly employed by the Allison Division of General Motors Corporation.