Herbert Hanneman: Prisoner of War in the Pacific
Herbert Hanneman National Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Recognition Day is observed on the third Friday in September, established in 1979. Herbert H. Hanneman from Madison, Wisconsin, was a prisoner of war during World War II. He served in the United States Army from 1941 to 1945. Since Hanneman had
Valdor W. John, Sr on the Battle of Taejon (75th Anniversary)
Seventy-five years ago, the North Korean military invaded South Korea. Here is the story from veteran Valdor W. John, Sr., who fought at the Battle of Taejon and witnessed first-hand the Allied effort to delay the North Korean advance. John became a prisoner of war and then survived the Tiger
The Story of Millie and Clarence
Separated by war, their loving commitment endured after Clarence was taken prisoner by German troops. Twenty-one-year-old Clarence Beltmann of Milwaukee enlisted in the U.S. Army in January 1942, one of the tens of thousands of young men caught in the swell of patriotism that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The Malmedy Massacre: the Survivor Story of Sergeant Henry “Roy” Zach
The Malmedy Massacre was a German war crime committed by soldiers of the Waffen-SS on 17 December 1944 at the Baugnez crossroads near the city of Malmedy, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945). Soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper shot and killed 84 unarmed
Marcia Gates: Angel of Bataan in the Lost Battalion
The fall of the Philippines in 1942 left a deep scar on the lives of many Wisconsinites. In honor of International Nurses Day, we remember the nurses from our state who became prisoners of war following the 1942 fall of Bataan and capture of Corregidor. One especially tenacious servicemember who
Wisconsin and the Bombing of Hiroshima
On August 6, 1945, Hiroshima became the first victim of an atomic attack. For the first time, nuclear weapons had been used in war. Wisconsin was there. Twelve days before, on July 25, the War Department instructed General Carl Spaatz, commander of Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, to use
A Lesson in Resiliency From the Bataan Death March
At the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States. A Philippine insurrection against the United States began almost immediately and ended in 1902 with the United States controlling the territory until the Japanese invasion in December of 1941. Choosing deployment to the
Month of the Military Child: Augustus Patchin and Family
By Russell Horton, Reference & Outreach Archivist The Wisconsin Veterans Museum focuses on preserving the stories of men and women who serve in the US military. But very often, in the letters, photographs, and objects from those veterans, we can learn much of the families and children who remained home,
“These Numbers All Mean Something”
By Russell Horton, Reference & Outreach Archivist “I’ve got documents that I brought out of Korea… just pieces of paper with numbers on them. They are very old. These numbers all mean something.”
Poetry and Proverbs
By Russell Horton, Reference Archivist “If I die a prisoner of war, I would like to have this diary sent to my Father, A. Ingersoll, Waupun, Wis.” -Frank J. Ingersoll, Diary Entry, ca. September 1864 In the first two years of the Civil War, soldiers from either side of the
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