Headshot of Allen Peck

Japanese POW: Allen Peck

The United States Military Academy Class of 1936 is noted for the number of graduates who went on to make significant contributions to the war effort in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Colonel Allen Leeds Peck (1910-1997) served in World War II and in the Korean War. He served

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Headshot of older white man with glasses.

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

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WWII era headshot of young man and woman in uniform.

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.

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Headshot photograph of Chester L. Krause

Chester Krause on the Liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp

Chester L. "Chet" Krause served with the 565th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion in World War II. In honor of the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp during World War II, the Wisconsin Veterans Museum presents the story of veteran Chester L. “Chet” Krause, one of the

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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

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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,

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“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.”                                   

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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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In Recognition of Aviation Month – The Story of Robert Balliet

By Jeff Javid, Wisconsin Veterans Museum Archives Assistant Robert Balliet of Appleton, Wisconsin served with the 776th Squadron, 464th Bomb Group, Fifteenth Air Force, United States Army Air Force in the European theatre during World War II. An employee of Wisconsin Bell Telephone Company, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in

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Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day

“I am very happy about hering [sic] that you are back from the war, and others. Things have changed as you were gone. Things like football”. Matt Cain, 2nd grade, Elvehjem Elementary, February 22, 1973. On May 15, 1967, Madison native Major Donald L. Heiliger was hit by anti-aircraft fire

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