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 5th, 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 10th 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., 233rd 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 4th 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 77th division on the 15th 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 24th of July 1944, we landed on
Guam, which was the first combat that we saw. The 1st of Nov., we
boarded the ship for Leyte. The 7th 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 77th
Infantry Division in April 1945.)
From there we went to Okinawa.
The 8th 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 1st, 1945, I was on my
way home on the U.S.S. General Mann, and arrived at Tacoma, Washington, Dec. 27th.
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:
