One Step Forward

From a Wisconsin dairy farm to the battlefields of World War II, from starting a small post-war business to running an international company, Ken Dahlberg's life follows the arc of the Greatest Generation. He milked cows and shot squirrels as a kid, joined the Army Air Corps at 24, flew cover for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and shot down 15 German planes to become one of America's few triple aces. He also was shot down three times, escaped twice and ended the war in a POW camp in Moosburg, Germany. The French couple whose estate he parachuted into the first time he was shot down called him a charming American aviator. They feted him in liberated Paris and went on to become life-long friends. The tank driver who rescued him the second time reappeared in his life in most unusual circumstances during the Watergate years. Ken Dalberg returned from the war to start a career in the electronics industry that would lead to the founding of the Miracle Ear hearing aid company.