Minnesota in World War II
Stories from Minnesota’s World War II Veterans
Episodes
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Minnesota in World War II:
A Lieutenant on Iwo Jima
February 19, 1945: Lieutenant Gene Bierhaus had been a star player on his high school football team in Brainerd, Minnesota. But there were no cheering crowds when he and his fellow Marines waded ashore on Iwo Jima. There was only black volcanic sand and five weeks of hell ahead of them. Here’s Britt Aamodt.
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Minnesota in World War II:
A Monuments Man
January 1945: Captain Walter “Hutch” Huchthausen, formerly a design professor at the University of Minnesota, was a Monuments Man with the Army. Right now, his job was to make sure the Germans—not to mention the advancing Americans—didn’t destroy the 1200-year-old Aachen Cathedral in Germany. Here’s Britt Aamodt.
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Minnesota in World War II:
Halsey’s Typhoon and the Best Friends from Norcross
December 17, 1944: Lloyd Lundgren and Warren Hakenson were best friends from Norcross, Minnesota. Enlisted in the Navy, they were aboard the destroyer USS Spence when it encountered an enemy worse than the Japanese or Germans: a typhoon.
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Minnesota in World War II:
WASP at War
1944: Virginia Mae “Ginny” Hope was living her dream. The 23-year-old from Winnebago, Minnesota, had transferred her civilian pilot’s license into war work, ferrying warplanes from factories to bases, as a WASP (Women’s Air Force Service Pilot). Here’s Britt Aamodt.
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Minnesota in World War II:
Lex Porter, Code Talker
Lex Porter, a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, served in World War II. When family asked, he said he’d been a radio operator. They only found out after his death he’d been a code talker.
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Minnesota in World War II:
Jack Rainey and the Buffalo Soldiers in Italy
Summer 1944: Jack Rainey of Minneapolis and the 92nd, an all-black infantry division, also known as the Buffalo Division, landed in Italy. They were told the Germans were on the run. All they had to do was mop them up. But the 92nd would encounter a far-from-defeated Germany. Here’s Britt Aamodt.