Wisconsin Veterans Museum

In honor of the 251st birthday of the United States Army Chaplain Corps, we are highlighting a stole from the collection of Albin L. Fortney, a Lutheran minister from Wheeler, Wisconsin who served as a U.S. Army chaplain during World War II.

Fortney entered military service in 1939 and graduated from the Army Chaplain School at Harvard in 1941. His first overseas assignment was to Fort Shafter in Honolulu, Hawaii later that year. Just two months after his arrival, while preparing his Sunday sermon in his hotel room, Chaplain Fortney witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. In the immediate aftermath, he assisted with identifying the dead at Fort Shafter and wrote letters to the families of the service members who had been killed.

Toward the end of World War II, Fortney served in Europe with the Third Army. During this period, Fortney—a fluent speaker of Norwegian—was named Chief of Chaplains of the Liberation Army of Norway then further honored with the Norwegian Medal of Honor. The unusual ribbon on the lower right of his ribbon bar on his stole is for the Norwegian Haakon VII Freedom Cross. After the war, Fortney was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington, Schweinfurt, Germany, and Vienna, Austria, and remained in service until 1949. Reverend Fortney continued to serve as civilian minister until his retirement in 1959.

Today is Buffalo Soldiers Day, commemorating the formation of the first all-black regiments in the U.S. Army after the service and success of black soldiers during the Civil War.

In 1948, all U.S. Army regiments were desegregated, marking the end of Buffalo Regiments. Robert Dixon, the last surviving Buffalo Soldier, Robert Dixon, passed away, marking the end of the living history of that era of the U.S. Army.

Luckily, their histories remain through a variety of other mediums. For example, the Wisconsin Veterans Museum holds an oral history from 1999 with Robert Wallace—one of the last living Buffalo Soldiers at the time. You can view it here: https://wisvetsmuseum.com/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=OH_00390.xml

In this interview, Wallace tells of the history of the Buffalo Soldiers:
"The Indians started to call the Black soldiers 'buffaloes.' 'Buffaloes' came from their hair. Kinky hair and it's just like the hair on the mange of a buffalo."

Wallace also speaks at length about his entire experience joining the military out of high school, discrimination, various leaders he served under, his service in the Korean War, and the family he built after retirement.

The Wisconsin Veterans Museum is proud to preserve the history and experiences of Robert Wallace and the Buffalo Soldiers.

Photos are courtesy of the U.S. Army, showing various Buffalo Soldiers through the years.

Today is Korean War Veterans Armistice Day, commemorating the day that ended active hostilities of the Korean War.

We are highlighting a handful of many quotes from our oral history collection which share veterans' experiences finding out about the armistice in 1953. The entirety of these oral histories are available on our website.

https://wisvetsmuseum.com/learning-research/oral-history/

The U.S. Army Medical Corps traces its roots all the way back to the 2nd Continental Congress back in 1775, reflecting the very first physicians recruited into the U.S. Army.

While the U.S. turned 250 this year, the U.S. Army Medical Corps therefore turns 251. Today, July 27th is celebrated as it's "birthday," commemorating the day that the very first U.S. Army Hospital was established.

Today, this corps represents all specialties of civilian medicine, serving from fixed medical facilities, combat units, or reasearch.

Happy 251st to these soldiers and all that came before them.

Military service is more than just moments of action, and are often not visible at all.

For many Wisconsin veterans, military service resulted in physical injuries, chronic illnesses, or mental health struggles that followed them into civilian life.

These disabilities may appear immediately or years later. Some are visible, some unseen. As we transition to the stories of Wisconsin veterans, we see that disability is a continuous journey of adaptation, advocacy, and resilience.

Our latest blog post explores these disabilities as a continuous journey of adaptation, advocacy, and resilience. It uses excerpts from oral histories in our collections, from veterans all across the spectrum.

Read it here:

Lasting Impact of Military Service When people think of military service, they often imagine moments of action: a battlefield, a deployment overseas, or the completion of a difficult mission. Less visible are the experiences that…

Today is World Drowning Prevention Day

Drowning is one of the leading causes of accidental death for off-duty service members. In his oral history with the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, Army veteran Roman Wehrle described how a cooling swim in North Africa turned into a tragic multi-casualty event.

See his full oral history here: https://wisvetsmuseum.com/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=OH_00232.xml

New to the collection, this Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) towel belonged to Carol M. Krabbe, a Walworth County, Wisconsin native and later Milton and Janesville resident.

Established in 1942, WAVES was the women’s branch of the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II created to fill vital shore-bound roles and free up male sailors for combat.

While the program ended around 1946, the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in 1948, leading to the term “WAVES” to continue to be used informally for women in the U.S. Navy into the 1970s.

Krabbe served in the U.S. military for a total of 20 years, first as an aerographer’s mate in the U.S. Navy from 1949-1953, then as part of the U.S. Air Force’s Women’s Air Force (WAF) program in the Air Force Special Investigations Group until her retirement as a master sergeant in September 1970.

165 years ago today occurred the 1st Battle of Bull Run, near Manassas, Virginia. It was the largest battle in American military history up to that point, greeted by both sides with high hopes. However, both armies were half-trained and without standard equipment, including some Confederate troops wearing blue uniforms and Union troops in gray.

A Union flanking movement met some success, but bogged down in the afternoon around Henry House Hill. Fighting swirled over artillery positions on the hill, as waves of Union troops met a resolute Confederate defense. Late in the afternoon Confederate reinforcements arrived and drove the Federal troops back in rout.

The 2nd Wisconsin, outfitted in the gray uniforms of Wisconsin militia, was in the middle of the fighting on Henry House Hill. The Waukesha Freeman carried an account of Private John Hinton of Company F: “Finally we were ordered forward, and for nearly three miles we marched double quick time. This brought us directly in front of their batteries, which were splendidly posted, very numerous, and excellently managed,” he wrote. “No sooner had we come opposite than they opened upon us with a most terrific fire. To this, Sherman’s battery, which had just come up behind us, responded. We were ordered to lie-down, and for about fifteen minutes the cannon of both sides played over our heads. It was a terrible time for us, as the enemy’s balls passed but about two feet above our heads, and their shot and shell burst all around us, and some of their shot striking just in front of us, rolled right into our lines.” (One of the gray uniforms, belonging to Lucius Fairchild, is displayed at WVM.)

(Map from U.S. Army; image of New York units advancing to support the Wisconsinites on Henry House Hill from Library of Congress; image of Lucius Fairchild who was there from WVM)

Today we’re highlighting Eleanore M. Juckem and her work helping women find roles in the U.S. Army during World War II.

Juckem was born on August 13, 1918 in Madison, Wisconsin. She was a graduate of Madison West High School, attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and worked as a clerk.

On March 8, 1943, she enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, which became the Women’s Army Corps later that year. After training in Daytona Beach, Florida, Juckem served as a recruiter. In May 1943, she returned to Madison on a recruiting visit, where she provided prospective recruits with information about opportunities for women in military service. She was discharged on August 11, 1943.

Following her service, Juckem settled in Washington, D.C. and worked as an underwriter for People’s Life Insurance Company. She passed away on October 12, 1998.

Juckem’s story is proudly represented in our collections through service papers, newspaper articles, and photographs documenting her service, including the image of her shown here working at a recruiting information desk.