Airport dedicates new terminal building Tuesday

Program includes memorial of Wilmer Zeuske, for whom airport is named
By: 
Tim Ryan
Reporter

SHAWANO — The new terminal building at the Shawano City-County Airport will be dedicated during a public ceremony and flag raising Tuesday, but the program will also be a commemoration to the memory of the man for whom the airport is named.

Sgt. Wilmer Zeuske, Shawano native and World War II hero, was a member of the United States Army Air Corps, the Flying Tigers and the First American Volunteer Group (AVG).

Shawano City-County Airport, 248 Airport Road, was founded in 1940. Wilmer H. Zeuske Field was added to the name in 1954. Over the years, the field has grown from what was once an 80-acre plot of land into an airport of more than 340 acres.

Wilmer Zeuske Field caters to many of the area’s businesses and private pilots, and is a general aviation field capable of handling small business jets on down, airport officials said.

According to Airport Manager Clarence Schampers, Zeuske Field is unique as it is a seaplane landing area, basically one of a kind in Wisconsin because of the location of the airport on Shawano Lake.

As of January, Wilmer Zeuske Field was the base for 30 aircraft: 25 single-engine, two multi-engines, a helicopter, and two ultralight planes.

The new terminal replaces a building that was erected in the 1940s.

“It was in need of serious repair and refurbishment,” Airport Commission member Doug Engle said.

The commission was able to secure state and federal funding that paid for 95 percent of the project.

The new terminal includes a few new amenities, including a pilot’s lounge and a room for flight planning and training that also doubles as a conference room.

Engle said one of the things they had heard from the business community was a need for an off-site location for business meetings with visitors who come through the airport.

Engle noted that when the airport had its first grand opening on July 6-7, 1940, it was attended by national aviation dignitaries and a crowd of 5,000 people.

Given its proximity to the Fox Cities and the northwoods, and its unique seaplane landing base, the airport was seen at the time as “having the potential to be one of the finest landing areas in the Upper Midwest,” Engle said.

Engle said the airport commission several years ago drafted a vision for the future of the airport and a strategy for meeting those goals.

It turned out to be the same vision the original airport founders had, with an emphasis as the airport as a gateway to the northwoods.

“It’s exactly the same point they made in 1940,” Engle said.

“It could be a valuable asset that could help in the development of the community recreationally, job-wise and economically,” he said. “It all fits together nicely, and amazingly, that same vision existed in 1940.”

Tuesday’s event starts off with a reception at 4 p.m. The dedication and commemoration program follows at 5 p.m.

The agenda includes comments from the airport commission, city and county officials; raising of the flag and honor guard; a presentation of the airports history; and dedication of the new terminal and presentation of a memorial to the Zeuske family.

The son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Charles Zeuske, Sgt. Wilmer Zeuske, 21, was a gunner on board a B-25C Mitchell, a medium bomber, when it was hit somewhere over Burma on June 3, 1942. While the rest of the crew survived, Zeuske was killed by Japanese Zeros who gave chase following the bombing run. Zeuske was the first Shawano area aviator to die in World War II. The B25C’s were to be the first light bombers sent in support of the Chinese.

Wilmer Zeuske joined the United States Army Air Corps prior to the outbreak of the war and was stationed for several months at McChord Field in Washington State, where he was trained to be a radio technician, gunner and bombardier.

Not long before his death, Zeuske wrote his parents to tell them he was going to be part of a large aerial contingent being sent overseas. He could not tell them where. It ended up being China, and Burma via India.

Zeuske and his Bombing Group of Six B25C’s, would become part of what was called the First American Volunteer Group (AVG), a part of which later became nicknamed the Flying Tigers, were essentially on loan to the Chinese prior to the beginning of, and in the early part of the war, to defend that country from the Imperial Japanese Empire.

The initial AVG was comprised entirely of volunteers and first began assisting the Chinese in 1940. With additional aid from the Army Air Corps (including Zeuske’s Bombing Group) and following Pearl Harbor, the AVG engaged the Japanese only weeks later, and many of the pilots in the Flying Tigers were part of Doolittle’s Raiders who bombed Tokyo in April 1942.

The tragedy of the the bombing group did not end with Zeuske. Of the initial six B25C’s sent to Kunming, only two made it. Three of the six were lost in bad weather only to crash in the mountains; the fourth eventually crashed after running out of fuel.

Zeuske was not the only one from Shawano to become a member of the AVG; Fritz Wolf joined the AVG at its beginning, was a Flying Tiger, and eventually a war ace in a P-40 Warhawk. Wolf was on hand in Kunming awaiting the arrival of his friend from Shawano only to discover him dead on arrival in the bottom gun turret.