Veterans Day 2014 is a significant point in time to honor survivors of the Second World War who are still with us. Though I was in kindergarten on Dec. 7, 1941, I remember vividly the profound impact that horrific global conflict had on a small town in northeastern Wisconsin.
Most graduates of the Oconto Falls High School classes of 1940 and 1941 either volunteered or were drafted into military service within months of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Adolf Hitler declared war on the United States Dec. 10, inspiring an energetic crop of young Oconto County men, still too young to enjoy legal cocktails, to quit their jobs, leave their college studies and enter service in the Army, Navy, Coast Guard or Marines. In 1941 our current Air Force was under the command of the U.S. Army.
Ten of these recent high school graduates failed to return home, all killed in action between 1942 and 1945. Killed in action: George Sankey and Orville Depner 1942; Quirin Hostak, Royal Miller, Clarence Spice, Bernard McKeever and Marvin Benson, 1943; Orville Kehlman and Frederick Mork, 1945. Pilot of a B-17 Flying Fortress, Francis Smedley died when his bomber, “Sunrise Serenade,” named for his mother’s favorite song, was shot down over Belgium. Francis was my oldest brother’s best high school friend. News of his death in May 1944 stunned everyone.
My brother, Robert Shellman, now 91, still lives in Oconto Falls. He enlisted after one semester on the University of Wisconsin campus. Before departing for Camp Hood, Texas, he helped my mother, Nell, operate the family-owned Oconto Falls Herald, in absence of my father, “E.J.,” a captain in the Army Reserve who was called to active duty within a week of Pearl Harbor.
The flag in our front window bore two blue stars. E.J. was promoted to major, commanding basic training battalions at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts, and Ft. Lewis, Washington. The Army was still segregated in 1944. The son of Swedish immigrants from small-town Wisconsin introduced more than 800 African American soldiers from urban ghettos to small southern towns to their first rigors of military life. Bob served the duration of the war in Gen. George Patton’s Third Army as an ordinance technician, sighting in and repairing overused artillery like the “Big Berthas.” He reached the Buchenwald concentration camp about the time he turned 21.
All of my brother’s friends joined the national response to Pearl Harbor and Hitler’s declaration, and after the war most returned home to their businesses or earned college degrees and created the town’s vibrant professional class. Eugene Behling, a Marine aviator, flew a Helldiver torpedo bomber in the South Pacific. The Lemorande twins, Ralph and Lenny, met the Axis as combat regiments. While working for Beam Chemical, Ralph was elected mayor of Oconto Falls during the 1970s.
George Magnin, a naval officer, became a physician and at one time was CEO of the Marshfield Clinic. His brother, Orrie “Chubby,” served in the Army and came home to run the family hardware store. Bill Krahn received a commission as a Marine officer and settled in Green Bay as an executive of a food processing company.
Bernard Matravers flew C-46 cargo planes over the “Hump” in Southeast Asia, supplying the idle Chinese Nationalists. Wayne Hammond, a crewman on a B-17, was shot down over Europe, captured and spent time in a German POW camp. He taught high school in his hometown before moving to Hartford.
Parson Greene, pastor of our church, was called to active duty with Wisconsin National Guard’s “Red Arrow” 32nd Division. He returned to his pulpit after witnessing Gen. Douglas MacArthur wade ashore several times for news cameras in the Philippines.
Victor Bast was a pilot in the Army Air Corps and returned home to be an elementary school principal. Merdon “Buddy” Drews operated a trucking company after serving in the Army. Greg Martens returned to own and operate a grocery store. Bob Mortell ran a photography studio. Henry “Doc” Reidinger was a chiropractor.
Donald Loberger and Carl Lemorande returned to lead active lives. Rueben Vandenbusch became the Oconto Falls postmaster, and his brother Jack VandenBush also returned to the Falls. Sterling Bauman served in the Coast Guard, and his brother, Joe, also served and returned to work in the family clothing store. They were sons of Harry and Milly Bauman. Miss Ruth Burnette was my first-grade teacher, and in second grade she was Mrs. Bauman, having married Joe over the summer.
Kenneth Coopman and Earl Jones served their country. A. Robert Kardoskee was in the Army Air Corps at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked by the Japanese. He went on to have a military career and returned to Oconto Falls with his family after retiring. Ohio native Clyde Seifert went to medical school on the GI Bill, arrived in Oconto Falls in 1954 and delivered three generations of babies.
Oconto Falls celebrated VE-Day and VJ-Day in its small city park, but my most vivid memory is witnessing a joyful gathering in Johnson’s Sweet Shop before I entered fourth grade. Freshly back from their respective combat zones, a group of newly minted veterans filled the booths and traded stories about surviving the Battle of the Bulge or landings on Pacific islands.
Sixty-nine years later, the impact of the global conflict is still reverberating. It took a heavy toll on small town America, even Oconto Falls.
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