Series: Minnesota in World War I

September 1918 – Bennie Auckland and Henry Evje from Nielsville, Minnesota, arrived in Ypres. Here the battle was against the Germans and the near constant rain and flooding trenches.  Here’s Britt Aamodt.

August 1914, as soon at John Bowe, father of four and mayor of Canby, Minnesota, heard that Germany had invaded neutral Luxemburg and Belgium, he knew what he had to do. He signed up with the French Foreign Legion to fight—three years before America entered the war.  Here’s Britt Aamodt.

1921 – Adelbert Gruman had been a radioman in World War I. Now, in the post-war years, he worked at Minneapolis’ Winkley Artificial Limb Co., part of a booming business providing prosthetics to war vets. Here’s Britt Aamodt.

November 24, 1918 – The war was over and Private George “Judge” Knott and the other men in the 90th Division strapped on their packs and marched east. They were among the American forces that would occupy a defeated Germany. Here’s Britt Aamodt.

Fall 1918 – Dewitt Wallace used his time recuperating from shrapnel wounds at a Paris military hospital copying articles by hand and condensing them. In 1922, Wallace’s work would pay off with the publication of his periodical Reader’s Digest. Here’s Britt Aamodt.

March 28, 1918 – Lieutenant Bernard Gallagher, a recent med school grad from Waseca, Minnesota, had 20 wounded men in his care. He stayed put when the infantry troops retreated. He would spend the rest of the war in a German POW camp. Here’s Britt Aamodt.

October 8, 1918 – Charles Beaupre, 29, father and husband from the White Earth Reservation, ducked into his British-made Marv V tank. The 301st Heavy Tank Battalion men were new to battle but ready to prove themselves. Here’s Britt Aamodt.

October 8, 1918 – Glenn Donaldson and Warren Gammel rattled down a bomb-cratered road in France with artillery popping all around. They were drivers with Hamline University’s ambulance corps. Here’s Britt Aamodt.

October 2, 1918 – George Mauritz Benthagen tracked through the autumn trees in France’s Argonne Forest rifles at the ready. He and the other members of his unit would be called the Lost Battalion, after being surrounded and picked off by the Germans for five days. Here’s Britt Aamodt.

On September 12, 1918, 5 a.m., Antoine J. Deperry, a lumberman living in Cloquet, Minnesota, and a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Wisconsin, went over the top. He and his unit were part of the first US-led assault in the war at Saint-Mihiel. Here’s Britt Aamodt.