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Surviving the Hell Ships
Anton Cichy somehow survived the Bataan Death March, and then several years of
Japanese prisoner camps before he was loaded on a "hell ship" bound for slave labor in Japan. The ship was hit by an American submarine.
'He was a brave spirit...'
Theodore Stalemo
was killed in action in World War I. A series of letters sheds some light on a life that ended much too quickly. The Fisher Post 242 is named for Stalemo.
One of the Brothers
Herb Suerth never realized when he joined the Army as a young man that he would become
famous when he was in his 80s. Suerth was part of the famous Easy Company of the 506th Airborne.
Flying B-17s young
Bob Polich was a very
young man, the son of a miner from Minnesota's Cuyuna Range, when he flew 29 missions on enemy targets during World War II. On the 29th mission, his B-17 crashed.
Protecting the Convoys
Lt. John Hobot of the Minnesota National
Guard went to Iraq as part of Minnesota's large deployment in 2006. He had known he wanted to be in the military since the attack on the Twin Towers.
From E-2 to Admiral
Paul Norby started his career as a seaman second class at Wold Chamberlain field. He later flew bombers from a carrier
deck in World War II.
Two-Ocean War
Jim Downey was one of the very few U.S. servicemen whose war experience included both the
Atlantic and the Pacific. He served on an LST that helped out at Normandy and later at Okinawa.
Mule Skinner Blues
Alton Knutson grew up on a farm near Ashby, and that background help as he worked his way through mountains and
jungles of Burma leading a pack mule.
Avengers in the Pacific
Leon Frankel grew up in St. Paul dreaming about being a pilot. The Navy and World
War II gave him a chance, and he ended up as a torpedo bomber in the Pacific. Later, he also served in the Israeli Air Force in that nation's fight for independence.
Colvill of Minnesota
William Colvill was a lawyer and newspaper editor at Red Wing when he voluteered for
the First Minnesota Volunteer Regiment in 1861. He was commanding the regiment when it made its famous charge down the hill at Cemetery Ridge on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
He was good with machines
Arthur Hedstrom figured he could fix anything. By the end of World War II, he was
working on a machine to break the Russian code.
K-3-5, the proud and few
Jim Anderson of Cameron, Wisconsin, was part of the Marine unit known as K-3-5 that started the war with 235
men and ended up on occupation duty in China with 19 original members left. Anderson was one of them.
Both sides of the sea
Bud Quam was aboard the USS Yorktown when it
was sunk during World War II. For his next choice of duty, he picked submarines. He spent the rest of the war aboard two submarines seeing the world from the other side of the ocean's surface.
Jumping with the 82nd
Bud Ollum was a meatpacker in South St.
Paul, sometimes standing up to his knees in blood. He said the experience helped him when he went to war. Drafted in 1942, Ollum volunteered for the Airborne. He earned a Silver Star in the hedgerow country of
Normandy.
Freedom Fighter
Khao Insixiengmay fought against the communists in
his native Laos for 13 years, and spent another dozen years in a prisoner of war camp. He was what is now called the "secret war" in Laos, part of the larger war to the east in Vietnam. He is now a United States
citizen, and he lives in the Twin Cities.
He Saw it Coming
Herman Ratelle was one of the few soldiers in
World War II who saw the one that got him. He was peering out the hatch of his Sherman Tank when he saw the shell from the German tank, the "red onion" coming right at him. At the time he was standing on a box of
grenades.
Advance with Audacity
George Leach led a Minnesota artillery
regiment in World War I, and he received the highest honors. Later he became the longtime mayor of Minneapolis.
Black and White
Dick Bergling was a blue water sailor who
volunteered for the brown water Navy in Vietnam, just in time for the Tet Offensive. Bergling kept his war emotions bottled up until one day they spilled over. Counseling and getting together with other veterans
turned his life around, and propelled him to the top of the state's Vietnam Veterans group.
PBM Mariner
If you talk about flying boats from World War
II, most people think of the PBY Catalina. Jack Christopher will tell you that the PBY's big sister, the PBM Mariner, is the real flying boat of that war. He should know; he was there.
Medic!
Mike Clark trooped through the fields and jungles of Vietnam as a medic, running to the call of men who
were wounded by the enemy. He always hoped that the medevac chopper that arrived would never be for him. But one day it was.
One Step Forward
Ken Dahlberg, who has had a business and
military career few can equal, said he learned one of the great lessons in his life from a corporal during boot camp. He learned how to volunteer, to take chances, to venture into unknown territory. He learned to
take one step forward.
Wartime Pilot
Betty Wall joined the Army
Air Force because she loved to fly. All her dreams came true as she became qualified to fly eight different kinds of American planes during World War II. In the end, though, the Army killed the women pilot's
program, and Wall put her memories in a closet. In 1990, a newspaper interviewer opened up that closet, and Elizabeth Strohfus has been telling her marvelous story ever since.
Serving in Baghdad
Jeremy Doesken of
Cloquet took a year out of his life to serve his nation in Iraq. He talks about what it's like for Minnesota Guard and Reserve personnel to leave home to walk in harm's way in a foreign, place -- and what it was
like to come home from that experience.
Two Wings and a Prayer
On his 26th mission, Lt. Ed Dunn brought
his B-26 over the target in Germany only to have the plane rocked by a German shell that killed one crew member instantly and ripped out the aircraft's main support beam. With the tail section held on only by the
skin, and most of his controls gone, Dunn had to bring the plane back to France.
Getting Serious about War
Lt. Stewart Chester spend most of
World War II in the States as a trainer. When he finally got his chance to go overseas, he made the most of it earning a Silver Star and numerous other medals.
Tank Driver
Pecky Smilanich was part of the Hell on Wheels division that drove through France into Germany
during World War II. Along the way, he had three tanks he was driving destroyed by enemy fire.
Nurse at Dachau
Vera Peters volunteered for the Army Nurse Corps after Pearl Harbor. She served in England,
France and Germany, and at war's end in 1945, she was assigned to the German concentration camp at Dachau.
The Survivor
Louis
Ignaszewski had a knack for being in the right or the wrong places during World War II. He was at Corregidor when it surrendered. He was at Nagasaki when it was bombed. And he was on the USS Missouri when the formal
Japanese surrender was signed.
Fighting Stateside
Harold Babineau's eyesight kept him
Stateside for most of his World War II duty, but that didn't prevent him from some adventures including piloting a plane full of sick pilots.
Bomb Disposal Squad
When Patrick Hogan of Gilbert was drafted,
prior to World War II, he decided he wanted to do something different in the military. So he volunteered for a unit that took unexploded bombs apart.
War Really is Hell
Marvin Hackbarth's experiences in World War II taught him that war really was hell and not something that should be glossed over or forgotten. He still has nightmares.
999 Days
Wayne Pickett was on Fox Hill during the Korean War. After his capture, he spent nearly three years as a prisoner of the communists.
Pacific Ace
Claude Schmidt of Hibbing joined the Navy at the start of World War II and ended up as a pilot
on the Pacific. By war's end, he had destroyed six Japanese planes and had earned the title of "ace."
Special Forces
Tim Kirk was trained to lead native South
Vietnamese into battle for the their homeland. On many of his missions, some into foreign nations not at war with the U.S., if he had been caught, the American government would have denied he ever existed.
Two Soldiers
Norb McCrady and Jack Vessey joined the National Guard in Minnesota at nearly the same time. Their
experience of World War II, though, was different to say the least. McCrady emerged as a PFC while Vessey was on his way to becoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Evading the Enemy
Bill Cupp of Northfield spent three months
evading the Nazis after being shot down in Belgium in World War II. He spent the next seven months in a POW camp, and then walked across German to his freedom in 1945.
Exercise Tiger
Few people have heard about America's worst
military training disaster during World War II. Winfred Polzin recalls it quite well. He was there.
The Point Man
Clark Dyrud led patrols in Vietnam. Once, while
setting up a perimeter for his unit, he was struck by an American artillery shell. After the war, he dedicated his life to helping other veterans overcome PTSD and get back to a normal life.
Battleship Aviator
Tom Dougherty of Hibbing became a Navy
pilot in World War II and was assigned to fly off the Battleship Massachusetts. He may have been the first American pilot to be shot down in the invasion of North Africa.
Laying Wire Across Europe
Jack Finnegan grew up in
Minneapolis, and was drafted into the Army during World War II. He laid wire as his unit advanced across France into Germany to provide communications. His regiment was the first to cross the famous Bridge at
Remagen.
From Pusan to Chosin, a Korean vet's story
Kurt Wilhelm was a
Marine who fought in the Pusan Perimeter, the landing at Inchon and at the Chosin Reservoir. He tells about his time in the Marines, even when he got to hang around with movie stars.
First Wave at Omaha Beach
Jim Mildenberger piloted one of the first craft to approach Omaha Beach on D-Day. The communications sent back from his boat provided a critical link between the action on the beach and the
headquarters still located aboard a Navy ship.
First in North Africa
Bob Kosloski was on the first ship to try and land American soldiers in North Africa
during World War II. The troops were hopeful the Free French forces wouldn't fire on them, but they found out for sure when the shells came raining down on the ship.
Silver Star Chaplain
Delbert
Keuhl jumped with the 82nd Airborne and earned a Silver Star without picking up a weapon as the Americans fought to secure a bridge in the ill-fated Operation Market Garden.
Only Two Came Back
Ron Gornick's squad was assigned to silence
a sniper on a nearby hill in Korea. When the mortar and artillery shelling had ended, only two were left alive.
He Was a Soldier Once, and Young...
Galen Bungum of Hayfield,
Minnesota served in the Lost Platoon during the Battle of Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam. The platoon was cut off from the rest of the Airborne forces.
Bridge on the River Kwai
Jim Whittaker was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and joined other British and American prisoners in helping build the Burmese-Siam Railroad.
Medal of Honor
Mike Collalillo grew up a tough kid on the tough streets of Duluth, but his one-man charge in Germany in 1945 earned him the Medal of Honor.
Pearl Harbor -- 60 Years On
Survivors of the Pearl Harbor
attack gathered at the World War II History Round Table to talk over their memories.
Persian Gulf War
10 Years Later
A Minnesota unit played a critical role in using psychological
warfare to convince Iraqi troops to either go home or surrender to the Allied forces. A Forest Lake army veteran was in charge of that unit.
Keep on Truckin'
A Montevideo man was a
squad leader in the great effort to supply the Allies as they raced across Europe in 1944 and 1945. He drove on the Red Ball Express.
Battle for Leyte Gulf
A group of Minnesotans recall the
greatest sea battle in the history of warfare. The battle ended the ability of the Japanese Navy to fight the war.
Fox Hill
Two Minnesotans recall the desperate defense of a road in the mountainous terrain next to the Chosin Reservoir in 1950.
Making a Difference
Jon Hovde from Fertile, Minnesota, survived a landmine explosion in Vietnam. He came home
with three vows to keep.
Korea 50 Years On
A collection of stories from Minnesotans who fought in the Korean War, from the Chosin to
the MLR.
Death March
Phil Brain, a survivor of the Bataan Death March, weighed 85 lbs. at one time as he fought for
survival in prison and labor camps in the Philippines and Japan.
Minnesota POWS
Few people know that over 5,000 prisoners of war, mainly Germans, worked in
Minnesota's farm fields and factories during World War II.
From Keewatin to Manhattan
Catherine Piccolo grew up in a small town in Minnesota, but ended up as a key
player in the Manhattan Project during World War II
A Tale of Two Ships
Frank Kinney had not one but two ships sunk that he was serving on in World War II.
Civil War, 140th Anniversary
A Minnesotan tells of his experiences at Ft. Snelling and the first Battle of
Bull Run through his letters home.
A Kruse Across Europe
Vernon Kruse started in England made it to Odessa in a year's tour of Europe that
included time in a German POW camps during World War II.
A Half Acre of Hell
An Army Nurse at Anzio, Avis Dagit
Schorer recalls what it was like to have only canvas protecting the hospital from German shells and bombs.
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