Les Bauer's WWII Soldier's and Sailor's Treasure

 A recent donation from the Bauer family caused quite a stir for us at the Sutton Museum. A single box was the repository of Les Bauer’s significant and lasting contribution to Sutton history.

Les Bauer with Seaman Charles H. Detwiler, Sutton Class 

of 1939. Les only posed for this one photo, 

as far as we’ve determined.

Les Bauer was a leading Sutton businessman with a hardware store on the west side of the north end of downtown. The store was History itself. Les began working for Sam Carney, Jr. in that store when he was a young man; Sam, Jr. had earlier taken over the store from his father Sam, Sr.

Sam Carney, Sr. had his start in that same store when he arrived in Sutton and went to work for Isaac Newton. That hardware store had a continuous role in the Sutton business picture from the earliest days through the memory of many of us.

Les had his own museum in his store where he displayed many items, including an extensive arrowhead collection.

The Les Bauer treasure that has us so excited this summer came from a project from about 1943 through 1947. Les invited Sutton soldiers and sailors to come to his store, in uniform, where he snapped a picture of them. Most were taken on the sidewalk in front of the store with the neighboring Grothe Drug Store serving as the backdrop.

The collection of nearly 200 pictures was only one of three portions of this treasure. Les invited these men and women to write about the places they’d been and the things they’d done all over the world. We have those journals with about 340 entries from July 1, 1943 through April 29, 1947. The early entries contain little more that name, rank and serial number but later writers often filled two or three pages for their story.

The third portion of the treasure is a collection of letters from several Sutton servicemen who corresponded with Les for varying lengths of time.

Our assignment, which we accept gladly, is to examine, analyze, sort and find a way to display and share the Les Bauer WWII Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Treasure.

We have other sources of information about Sutton servicemen. The American Legion Auxiliary sponsored a “Service Record Book of Men and Women of Sutton, Nebraska and Community and there is a second book associated with the American Legion.

Some photos were taken with family
members. This soldier was not identified.
Any ideas?

The late Lawrence Trautman donated a scrapbook to our museum that included newspaper clippings of the stories of Sutton’s dead and missing in the war.

The photos in the collection are a small, 2 ½” X 4” format, most posed in front of the hardware store but a few were taken in other parts of town. The majority are labeled but a few dozen are mysteries, like so many old photos found about town.

The first entry in the journals was by Corporal Marvin Pope on July 1, 1943. He was followed by Yeoman George Krass, Jr and Corporal Robert H. Hunzeker and more than 300 additional Sutton vets.

The name of Henry Francis Lohmeier appears on an early page, likely in Les Bauer’s handwriting. Henry Lohmeier was inducted on February 5^th, 1942 and was reported missing in the South Pacific on July 20, 1943. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Joe D. Lohmeier. A search on his name brings up a book on books.google.com called “The Search That Never Was: The Untold Truth about the 1948-49 Search for World War II American Personnel Missing in Action in the South Pacific” written by J. L. Wright.

Mr. Wright’s uncle Lloyd Moran and Henry Lohmeier were crewmen on a PB4Y-1 plane, tail number 31952 commanded by Lt. j. g. John Haskett of Alhambra, California. Their plane, designated 5V15, was lost on a raid of Bougainville Island.

The PB4Y-1 aircraft was a navy modification of the B-24 workhorse bomber. Sutton’s Henry Lohmeier was an Aviation Ordnanceman Third Class on that flight.

Henry Francis Lohmeier and the crew of the Galloping Ghost PB4Y-1 aircraft.
The crew departed Carney Field on Guadalcanal at 0128 on July 18, 1943 and
were lost near Faisi Island, no chutes, no distress call. 

Google books include a “tease” of their books online and the account of the mission appears in the first few pages of Wright’s book and is available online. Amazon.com has the paperback book at $20 - $30 from various sources.

Much later in the sequence of journal entries is #326 written on January 23, 1946 by a soldier who was discharged a few days earlier on January 10^th at Fort Logan, Colorado after 41 months of service, 21 of which were overseas, Combat Engineer Walt Becker.

I took that journal and other items of the Bauer collection and made my first of multiple visits to the Sutton Community Home. Walt entertained me for some time reading through his war story remembering buddies and commanders and details at each stop through months of training and moving about the South Pacific toward Japan.

It would be unfair not to include the text of Walt Becker’s journal entry in this article. Parenthetical notes are inserted for clarification:

Jan. 23, 1946

T/5 Walt Becker 37452948

Co. C., 233^rd Engrs. Combat Bn.    (Engineering Combat Battalion)

A. P. O. #77 San Francisco, California.

Age 25 – March 27, 1920.

Inducted – August 10, 1942.

Took eight weeks of basic training at Camp Crowder, Mo.

From there, I was sent to Freda, California, and Yuma, Arizona for eight weeks of desert training.

Walt Becker with Les Bauer's journal where Walt recorded his WWII
experiences on January 23, 1946.

On the 4^th of January 1943, we were sent to Camp Pendleton, Virginia for a few weeks where we joined the Eastern Coast Defenses. For further training, we were sent to Fort Story, Virginia.

(Camp Pendleton and Fort Story are near Virginia Beach)

From there, I was stationed at Camp Battle, No. Carolina until August 12, 1943. Then we went to Camp Picket, Virginia and joined the 77^th division on the 15^th of October, we went to Fort Pierce, Florida for six weeks of amphibious training. We returned back to Camp Picket, Virginia for over-seas preparations.

We left Camp Picket, March 7, 1944 for Seattle, Washington. We left the west coast on the Nordam. 

(The Holland America cruise ship “MS Noordam” was built in 1938 and leased to the U. S. during WWII. The name survives on a modern cruise ship.)

We arrived at Hawaii March 28 for further training of three months. On the 24^th of July 1944, we landed on Guam, which was the first combat that we saw. The 1^st of Nov., we boarded the ship for Leyte. The 7^th of December, we landed on Ormoc Bay, where we were located until March 7, 1945. At that time, we loaded the ship for the Riuikiuis Island and landed on I. E. Shima.

(Ormoc Bay is a large bay in the island of Leyte in the Philippines, site of a series of air and sea battles from 11 November-21 December 1944. Ie Shima island and airfield is off the northwest coast of Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands. The Wikipedia entry for “Ie Shima Airfield” describes is seizure by the 77^th Infantry Division in April 1945.)

From there we went to Okinawa.

The 8^th of November we left Okinawa for Japan, and landed at the Kura Naval Base.

(Kure Naval Arsenal was a major Japanese shipyard. It was attacked by American bombers from May-July 1945.)

December 1^st, 1945, I was on my way home on the U.S.S. General Mann, and arrived at Tacoma, Washington, Dec. 27^th. I received my discharge at Fort Logan, Colorado, January 10, 1946.

I was in the service 41 months, of which 21 months was spent over seas.

                                                                        //Walt Becker//

Roger Sheridan, Sutton Class of 1940.
The photo is stamped: "Jul 21 1944"

More than 50 letters from throughout the world to Mr. Leslie Bauer in Sutton make up the third portion of this donation. Les was writing to many soldiers and these are their responses. Most are single letters from a person but a few of the exchanges continued – eight were from Jerry Lilliedoll from all over including Stockton Field in California, Texas, Arizona and the Pacific. W. J. Bender sent a few; Ted Wenzlaff sent stamps from England for Les’ collection, etc.

About a dozen of the letters came to Les via the V-MAIL service, short for Victory Mail. Overseas V-mail letters were censored, photographed and shipped as thumbnail-size images on negative microfilm. Upon arrival in the states, the negatives were printed on pages 60% of the original size (4 ¼ X 5 3/16 inches) and mailed to the recipient.

Thirty-seven mail bags of 150,000 letters weighing 2,575 pounds were condensed by the V-mail system to one 45-pound bag, a great savings when shipping space was precious.

Now that we have this treasure at the Sutton Museum, what are we going to do with it? How can we display it? How can we share these photos, journals, and letters?

Letters from the Bauer collection, these from Musician Rolland Sandberg, Class of 1943
with a Navy band in Hawaii, Tec/5 Victor Kahm, Class of 1931 with the 1st Cavalry
Division in Tokyo in September 1945 and Lt. Col. Ted Wenzlaff, Class of 1921 in
England, Christmas Eve, 1942.

This space-efficient V-Mail (Victory Mail) letter was from Tec/5 Harry Nolde,
Class of 1928 with an anti-tank company of the 21st Infantry Regiment (Gimlet)
Christmas 1943. Regiment records suggest he was in Australia or perhaps on
Goodenough Island in Papua New Guinea.

We’ve mentioned the collection in our newspaper column and in this article. We’ve posted several 
individual items on our blog and Facebook page. We need to do better.

We’re open for suggestions. If you have an idea of how we can share this material – these are the parents, grandparents and great, grandparents of many people living in Sutton today. These photos and writings of our WWII Sutton vets may not have made it into the family stories. They should, but how?

If you agree and would like to help with this project, contact any of us at the Sutton Museum – try 402-773-0222 or jjhnsn@windstream.net for starters. Thanks.

Addendum:
The July 22, 1943 issue of The Sutton News had this item: