Veterans History Project

William A. Sikkel joined the Michigan National Guard before World War II and served in the army on active duty between 1940 and 1945 in the 126th Regiment, 32nd "Red Arrow" Division. He attended Officer Candidate School before the division shipped out to the Pacific and served in Australia and New Guinea as a platoon and company commander and as a staff officer. He remained in the National Guard after the war, and also served as mayor of Holland, Michigan.

Virgil Westdale was born Virgil Nishimura in Millersburg, Indiana and served in World War II. He was trained as a pilot but because his father was Japanese he was demoted to an infantryman and placed in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which consisted primarily of Japanese-Americans. He worked in the Fire Direction Center for his unit, and spent time in combat in Europe. His unit also worked in occupied Germany after combat.

William Lalley was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1922. While in college in 1942 he signed up for an Army Air Corps program that was supposed to defer his service until he graduated, but he was pulled out of school early in 1943. He then trained as a B-17 pilot, was sent to England as a replacement, and was shot down on his first mission. With the aid of the Dutch resistance, William was able to evade the Germans for about 4 months before being captured. William was sent to three different prison camps while in Germany before the prisoners were finally liberated and he was sent home.

William Vander Wall was born in Spring Lake, Michigan in 1922. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, he was very anxious about joining the service and was accepted into the Army on April 1, 1942. William trained with a mortar squad in Tennessee and also went through amphibious training in Massachusetts. On October 19th, they left on the USS Harrison towards French Morocco. William proceeded to help in the invasions of Sicily, Salerno, Anzio, and Southern France.

Steve Janicki served in the 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd (Red Arrow) Division, during WW II. His history includes some colorful accounts of his joining the guard and going through basic training (he was 16 at the time, and not even shaving yet). He covers the trip to Australia by ocean liner, additional training in Australia, and the difficulties of fighting in the jungle. Illness took him out of action at Buna in New Guinea, but he rejoined his unit for some of the later battles, and tells of seeing MacArthur on Leyte in the Philippines. His history was featured in the documentary Nightmare in New Guinea.

William A. Sikkel joined the Michigan National Guard before World War II and served in the army on active duty between 1940 and 1945 in the 126th Regiment, 32nd "Red Arrow" Division. He attended Officer Candidate School before the division shipped out to the Pacific and served in Australia and New Guinea as a platoon and company commander and as a staff officer. He remained in the National Guard after the war, and also served as mayor of Holland, Michigan.

William Sleaford, of Saint Clair Shores, Michigan, served with the United States Army Air Corps during WW II. He attended college courses while in the military for flight training. He flew with a bombing group in Europe and participated in dangerous covert air photography missions over the European continent. He also participated in carpet bagging missions, on one such flight, the aircraft faulted and he parachuted to the ground. A Portuguese truck driver found Sleaford and took him back to Portugal picked him up. After his service, he became an engineer with General Electric.

Tanjore Splan was born in St. Ignace, Michigan and grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He served in the Korean War. He joined the Army at age 17, and decided to specialize in filed artillery. He trained at Fort Bragg, NC where he trained for the airborne and was then shipped to Korea, where he served with the 5th Regimental Combat Team in operations against the Chinese and North Koreans throughout the Korean Peninsula from Pusan into North Korea and back in 1950 and 1951.

Stuart Padnos was born in Michigan in 1922. He attended the University of Michigan and enlisted in the Army Reserve after Pearl Harbor. He was called to service a few months later where he took part in the Army Specialized Training Program. Padnos began taking engineering classes, but was later called up for infantry training due to a shortage of recruits. Stewart was later assigned to the 78th Division and sent to fight in the Hurtgen Forest, where he was captured and sent to a German prison camp. He remained there until he was liberated by the Russians, and eventually found his way back to the US.

Toni Palermo was born and grew up in Forest Park, Illinois. When she was ten, her P.E. teacher encouraged her to try out for a professional softball league in Chicago. She played for a farm team until she turned fourteen when she joined the professional team. She was recruited into the All American Girls Professional Baseball League shortly afterward, and played two years with their barnstorming teams, the Chicago Colleens and the Springfield Sallies. Over the next several years she alternated between playing on AAGPBL teams and a Chicago softball team. She played shortstop throughout her career. She went on to become a nun as well as a teacher, and remained active in competitive sports.

Sue Kidd was born in 1933 in Choctaw, Arkansas. She got her interest in baseball from her father and two brothers who she played with regularly as a child. Growing up, Kidd played other sports too like football and basketball but eventually decided on a career in baseball following a meeting with her high school guidance counselor. In the spring of 1949, Kidd, at age 15, was scouted and tried out for a pitcher position in Little Rock, Arkansas. Beginning her professional career in 1950 Kidd played until 1954 when the All American Girls Professional Baseball League ended. At the start of 1950, Kidd played for the Muskegon Lassies, Peoria Redwings, and South Bend Blue Sox. In 1951, she played for the South Bend Blue Sox but then was on loan for a brief time with the Battle Creek Belles. From 1952 to 1954 she stayed with the South Bend Blue Sox. In that time, she pitched and won two double headers in 1953 and won two championships. She played pitcher, first base, and right field during her time with South Bend. When the league shut down in 1954 she went on to play basketball with the South Bend Rockettes until 1959 when she went on to pursue a career in teaching which did for twenty-six years. She wraps up the interview by discussing how baseball impacted her.

Raymond Stafford was born in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan in 1937. He enlisted in the Navy and was assigned to a mine sweep boat, but later moved down to the Panama Canal Zone to be on the security force. After that he went on the SS Iowa, the SS Galveston and the USS Sierra battleships and trained on the east coast. While he was on the USS Sierra he took part in the Cuban Missile Crisis. In 1968 Raymond was sent to Columbus, Ohio and made chief petty officer. He went through the survival, evasion, resistance, and escape program and was sent to Vietnam to be in charge of a patrol boat river unit. Raymond spent 2 years in Vietnam and was sent back to the US.

Robert Pearson served as an artillery liaison pilot with the 4th Armored Division in WW II. He describes his reasons for enlisting prior to the start of the war, his training first in gliders and then in observation planes, and his service in France, Belgium and Germany. His experiences include action in the breakout from Normandy, the relief of Bastogne and the invasion of Germany. He also discusses an encounter with the French Resistance and his spotting of the Ohrdruf death camp in Germany. After the war, he became a physician and a psychiatrist, and helped to found the Holocaust museum in Houston, Texas.

Russel Prince enlisted in the Michigan National Guard in 1940 and served in the anti-tank company of the 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd (Red Arrow) Division until 1944, when he was sent back to the US to help train new recruits in Alabama, finally mustering out in January 1945. He provides a clear and detailed account of his unit's transfers first to the East Coast and then back across the country to ship out to Australia and New Guinea. His company was shipped to Port Moresby, New Guinea, in November, 1942, and spent nearly two months crossing the Owen Stanley Mountains to join in the attack on Buna. His company broke through Japanese lines early on, and then was isolated for three weeks before it was finally relieved. He discusses the difficulties of fighting in a jungle and of the action at Buna. This interview is featured in the documentary "Nightmare in New Guinea" produced by Grand Valley State University.

Robert Bolinder is a World War II who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps with the 423rd Night Fighter Squadron from February 1941 to October 1945. Bolinder describes Robert Bolinder is a World War II who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps with the 423rd Night Fighter Squadron from February 1941 to October 1945. Bolinder describes the specialized training for night fighter pilots, the missions he flew over France, Belgium and Germany. Toward the end of the war, he was removed from night fighting because of vision problems, but could still fly, and wound up serving as the pilot for the commander of an infantry division, a duty that took him to Torgau, Germany, for the first meeting between US and Soviet generals. Personal narrative and pictures appended to outline.

Rita Glanz was one of the 10, 000 Jewish children saved before WWII started as a result of the Kinder Transport. Her father, a successful businessman, was driven out of Austria and into Switzerland by the Nazis. Mrs. Glanz was taken in by a couple from Coventry, in Great Britain, and remained with them for the duration of the war. Afterwards, her father wrote letters to Winston Churchill and George VI, and managed to get his daughter out of there. She spent three years with relatives in Birmingham, Alabama. She grew up in New York, graduated from high schoo, and spent two years in college before getting married. Her husband had escaped from Germany to Ireland, eventually coming to the United States.

Phillip Spoelstra was born in Wyoming, Michigan in 1923 and moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1939. He graduated high school in 1941 and joined the Air Corps in 1942. Phillip trained mostly in Oklahoma and became part of a bombers unit. He was deployed to Foggia, Italy and assigned to the 5th wing of the 15th Air Force in the 97th bomb group in September of 1944. It was their job to strategically bomb German supplies and transportation. He was in Foggia until the end of the war and then was sent home.

Martin Bolt served in the 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd (Red Arrow) Division, during WW II. This interview covers his training and army life in both the US and in Australia. He tells of his unit's campaigns through New Guinea, Morotai, and the Philippines. Bolt's main job was to run communication wires from unit headquarters to the front, often close to the front lines or along jungle paths suited for ambushes. He offers detailed observations regarding a variety of aspects of jungle conditions and warfare. This interview was used in the documentary, "Nightmare in New Guinea."

Ralph Baldwin was an astronomy instructor at Northwestern University in 1941 who volunteered for service after Pearl Harbor. He was initially assigned to teach navigation, but lobbied for a more important assignment. He was sent in 1942 to a secret program in Maryland being run by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. Here he helped to develop the proximity fuse, a device that enabled anti-aircraft shells to sense when they were near targets and explode. By the end of the war, the fuse had become highly effective, and aspects of the technology developed for it are still used today.

Mary Sefton is a Vietnam War veteran who served in the U.S. Army from 1968 to April 1972. In her interview transcript she goes into a detailed account of the events surrounding her pre-enlistment, enlistment and training; her tours in Vietnam, and life after the Vietnam War. Besides this, she offers a unique perspective as a nurse of what the fighting meant in the hospitals of Vietnam as well as what the ground fighting was like for U.S. troops. In addition, she shares what U.S. civilians thought of returning veterans and finally her thoughts on her service experience.

Robert Austin was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and grew up on a farm. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in June, 1941 and trained first for the Marine Air Corps and then for the Marine Paratroopers. He eventually was assigned to the 5th Marine Division and was in the first wave of the landing on Iwo Jima. He was wounded soon after the landing and spent the rest of the war in hospitals. He re-enlisted after the war and played on a Marine baseball team prior to being discharged.

Miller Siegel was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1917. He received a Masters Degree in Business Administration and was drafted shortly after. Miller was assigned to the Air Corps and became an officer in Florida. He then graduated from Harvard University's new Statistical Officer School. Miller was assigned to heavy bombers and did flight reports at a few air fields before being sent overseas. His job in England was to write a report after each mission regarding injuries, deaths, fuel consumption, how many planes were lost, and then send the reports to HQ. After the war Miller was moved to Eisenhower's HQ and had to figure out dollar amounts for the lend-lease program with France and Britain.

Mary Pratt was born in 1918 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Throughout her early childhood and on through college she played baseball. Before joining the All American Girls Professional Baseball League, Pratt played hockey for two seasons with the Boston Olympets from 1939 to 1940. She got her start professionally in baseball with the Rockford Peaches in 1943. In 1944, she played for the Rockford Peaches and the Kenosha Comets and then in 1945 played just for the Kenosha Comets. From 1946 to 1947 she played for the Rockford Peaches. Throughout her professional career she played as a pitcher and saw how the rules in softball changed how the game was played. The highlights in her professional career were from her 1944 season when she won 21 games and pitched a no-hitter.

Marv Honderd was born in Byron Center, Michigan and enlisted in the Air Force in 1951 to avoid being drafted into the army. After starting out in radio school, he switched to pilot training and became a fighter pilot. He flew 70 missions over Korea in F-86 fighters in 1953, before he was sent back the US. Afterwards he continued flying more advanced F-86 jets in Dayton Ohio.

Michael Burton was born in Detroit and enlisted in 1966 after finishing one year at Grand Valley State College. He spent 8 months in Hawaii as part of the 127th Marine Infantry Regiment, and for a short while was part of their bases tennis team. He was then sent to Vietnam via Okinawa. He spent time in Dong Ha and Kontum, but eventually found his way to his new location near the DMZ as part of the 3rd Marine Division, Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine regiment. He was able to find a friend from college that was with the same unit, and spent his entire time in the field with him. He never saw the enemy, and the engagements he was involved in were from a distance. He talked about the C-rations they got during their time in Vietnam, and how the cigarettes they received were good for bartering. He also talked about the supplemental weapons the soldiers would carry, and what kind of equipment they would bring with them while on duty. He was in the field for two to three weeks before he was wounded by a mortar round. He had several injuries, as did his friend, and he was sent back to the US. Along the way he was treated at a battalion aid station, a hospital boat, and eventually at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital. He spent the rest of his service at the Hospital, and was reunited with his friends from college. He had been a vocal opponent of the war once he was discharged, and has some opinions about the war in Iraq. He also talks about how soldiers who experience war need to seek professional help when they return to civilian life, and that mob mentality needs to be avoided by all soldiers. Personal narrative appended to interview outline.

Marthajane Kirby was born on November 4, 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri. When her high school sweetheart joined the Marines, she wrote to him regularly until he was killed. His friend, Stanley Kirby, then took up the correspondence, and when he finally returned to the US, the two were married. See other interview record for papers.

Mary Lou Caden (née Studnicka) was born in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. She grew up in the Oak Lawn area and started playing softball with the neighborhood kids and transitioned to playing for local teams. She played as a short-stop in her amateur career and eventually was contacted by Mitch Skupien in 1950 to play for the Grand Rapids Chicks. She played for the Grand Rapids Chicks from 1951 to 1953 when she was traded to Fort Wayne and due to a pay cut decided to quit baseball and return to her job for National City Bank. During her time with them she played positions such as pitcher and second base.

Maybelle Blair was born in 1927 in Longvale, California. Before joining the All American Girl's Baseball League she played baseball with her brothers at the age of nine and then later in 1942 at age twelve began playing organized softball. At about this time she played for a semi-pro league out of Burbank, California and then with the Pasadena Ramblers from 1943 to 1946 who she toured with playing games at army bases for servicemen. Her semi-pro career ended in 1947 when the Chicago Cardinals scouted her and signed her to be a pitcher. In 1948, Max Carey signed her to play on the Peoria Redwings as a pitcher. Due to an injured leg, her career was cut short and she only played a month with the Peoria Redwings. Later, she went on to play 2nd base for the New Orleans Jacks for a month in 1951. Her career ended with them ended when she was forced to choose between playing softball and giving up her job driving VIPs for Northrop Airport; she chose to quit softball. Blair wraps by mentioning how the All American Girls Professional Baseball League changed her perspective on the course of her life.

Loren Brand entered the Marine Corps in 1966, and attended college at Michigan State University and North Texas University. He was trained in aviation and served in the Vietnam War as a helicopter pilot. After the war he became an FBI agent.

Ken Maatman was an Officer in the Army Signal Corps during World War II. He supervised the installation and maintenance of communications lines in the China/Burma/India theater, particularly along the Burma Road in the last two years of the war. Letters and military documents appended to outline.

James Shannon was born in Galveston, Texas in 1928. He enlisted in the Merchant Marines while in his first year of college. He had boot camp in Catalina, California and went to radio school on Hoffman Island in the New York Harbor. He completed his training just as the war ended, and served on merchant ships carrying relief supplies and other cargoes to Europe, Africa, and Asia, alternating voyages with terms in college. During the Korean War, he served on a troop transport ship. He eventually completed his degree in electrical engineering, stopped sailing and worked as an engineer designing anti-submarine warfare systems.

Katie Horstman was born on April 14, 1935 in Minster, Ohio. Before joining the All American Girls Professional Baseball League she played baseball with her brother John. She started playing softball with the Catholic Youth Organization (CYI). At 15, Horstman started her professional career when Max Carey signed her to play for the Fort Wayne Daisies. In her first season of 1951 she played for the Kenosha Comets and the Fort Wayne Daisies as a pitcher and outfielder. Under Coach Jimmy Foxx in 1952, During her second season, in 1952 she played under Jimmy Foxx who switched her to play as a utility infielder. In 1953, she played for the Fort Wayne Daisies and the All Star Team as a third baseman and pitched part of an all-star game. Her biggest highlight was finishing her final season with a batting average of three twenty eight just as the All American Girls Professional League was ending. Afterwards, Horstman went on to become a Physical Education teacher.

Lois Youngen was born in a small town in Ohio in 1933. She grew up playing baseball with boys from her town, and played on a boys' team for several years before switching to a girls' softball team while in high school. She learned about the All American League while visiting a relative in Fort Wayne in 1950. She joined the league the next year and played for Fort Wayne, Kenosha and South Bend as a catcher and outfielder until the league folded in 1954. She used the money she earned as a player to go to college, and eventually earned a doctorate in Physical Education and taught at the University of Oregon.

Bud Masinick was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Detroit, MI during his childhood. After graduating high school, he was drafted into the Navy in 1943. He attended basic training at Great Lakes Naval Station, and attended submarine school in New London, CT. He was then assigned to the USS Icefish, and patrolled the Pacific until the end of the war. After the war, he played professional baseball, making it to the AAA level.

Jacqueline Baumgart (nee Mattson) was born in Waukegan, Illinois. She grew up in Waukegan area and played with the neighborhood boys. She played outfield positions as a kid. In 1942, her family moved to Milwaukee, WI where she played with as a catcher for a few local softball teams. Eventually, she was scouted for the All American Girls Baseball League. At the start of her first spring training she had not been assigned to a team yet. She was eventually assigned to the Springfield Sallies in 1950. She played the 1950 season with them and was then traded to the Kenosha Comets and played the 1951 season with them. One of her main career highlights was having the opportunity to play as a professional in Yankee Stadium.

John Erickson is a Korean War veteran who served with the U.S. Army from November 1949 to 1953. Erickson discusses his training and service in Washington and Alaska before he was sent to Korea. He joined the 2nd Division on its advance from Pusan to the Yalu River, and was taken prisoner during a counterattack by the Chinese Red Army, and spent the remainder of the war different Chinese POW camps, and provides detailed descriptions of his experiences as a POW.

Jack Hill joined the Michigan National Guard before World War II and served in the 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Division, throughout the war. He fought in every major action that his unit was involved in on New Guinea, Morotai and Leyte, and provides detailed descriptions of combat and army life at the time.

Justin Pelham was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on February 23, 1983. After high school he was not really sure as to what he wanted to do with his life, so he decided to join the Army National Guard in February of 2005. Justin was allowed to return home after training, but called up to serve in Iraq in May 2006. In Iraq, Justin drove Heavy Equipment Transporters, but was injured by a road side bomb. After his injury Justin went through a few different hospitals in Iraq and eventually ended up at Walter Reed.

James Jefferson was born in New Jersey on July 13, 1924 and grew up in an integrated community. After high school James joined the Merchant Marines and was trained on Hoffman Island in New York Harbor. He enjoyed the training and did not feel discriminated against there, despite being the only black man in his class. When he signed aboard his first ship, however, he had to deal with a racist chief engineer who tried and failed to keep him off the ship. He describes some of his experiences in sailing around the world during and after World War II.

Harold Folkema is a World War II veteran who served in the U.S. Army from 1943 to 1945. In this account, Folkema discusses his pre-enlistment, enlistment and training in the U.S. and England. Assigned to the 1st Infantry Division as a replacement in May 1944, he participated in the D-Day landing at Omaha Beach, and fought through Normandy, northern France, Belgium and into Germany, where he was wounded by a mine.

Herm Jongsma was born in 1931, during the Depression. As a result he moved around a lot as a child, but ended up going to Calvin College for a brief time. He was drafted to the Army in 1952 to serve in the Korean War. He was a light mechanic, but served as a liaison with the Greek battalion on the front line north of Seoul.

Helen "Gig" Smith was born on January 5, 1922 in Richmond, Virginia. She began playing softball at the age of 13. She joined the Women's Army Corps after Pearl Harbor and later was attached on special assignment to the Pentagon to decrypt Japanese codes. In 1947, she joined the AAGPBL's Kenosha Comets and then in 1948 played for the Grand Rapids Chicks. During her time in the league she played the infield. In 1948, she left the league to pursue teaching art in Virginia.

Harry "Bud" Baxter graduated high school near the beginning of WW II. He went to college at the University of Michigan for a year, but feeling that he would soon be drafted, he enlisted in the Army. During WW II he traveled with other men where they built bridges and repaired roads so that the United States Army could move around through the area. Harry continued to remain in the reserves when his time was up and eventually served for a short time in the Korean War.

Harold Hanselman served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II. He was stationed on Attu Island in the Aleutian chain in the northern Pacific ocean. He was a radio operator in a B-25 bomber that would fly bombing missions in the Kurile Islands north of Japan. He discusses both the living conditions on Attu and the experience of flying missions in that area, where the Soviets and the weather added to the problems caused by the Japanese.

Isabel Alvarez was born in Havana, Cuba in 1933. She grew up in Havana and played baseball with the neighborhood kids and was also involved with other sports. In 1947, she pitched her first exhibition game in American baseball and was picked by the All American League and sponsored to come to the United States with three other Cubans to play baseball in 1949. She played pitcher for the Chicago Colleens from 1949 through the 1950 season. When the Chicago Colleens folded, she went on to play for the Fort Wayne Daisies during the 1951 and 1954 seasons. Upon getting her citizenship in 1953 she stayed in the United States permanently. During her six-year baseball career she also played utility outfielder and also played briefly with the Battle Creek Belles (1951); Kalamazoo Lassies (1953); and the Grand Rapids Chicks (1954).

Francisco Vega was born in San Antonio, Texas. He tried to enlist in the military immediately after Pearl Harbor, but was initially rejected because of his Mexican ancestry. He eventually did enlist in the Army Air Corps, and began a long process in which he used his talents and persuasive skills to find increasingly interesting assignments, eventually training as a teletype operator with a signals unit that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day and was eventually part of Eisenhower's headquarters.

George Robinson was born in Allegan, Michigan in 1922 and enlisted in the Army shortly after graduating from high school. George went through basic training in Missouri, radio code training in Kansas City, and amphibious training in Virginia. He then went to England to prepare for the Normandy invasion, and landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. After the invasion George was sent to Hawaii to train for the invasion of Japan. The war ended before George was shipped across the Pacific and he was discharged shortly after.

Francis Poll grew up in Michigan and was drafted into the Army in August 1941. He trained as an infantryman in Texas, and his unit was sent to Northern Ireland for additional training, and went to North Africa in early 1943. He participated in fighting in Tunisia and Italy, including the battles at Salerno and Cassino, before being transferred home in 1944, where he served in a training command for the rest of the war.

Francisco Vega was born in San Antonio, Texas. He tried to enlist in the military immediately after Pearl Harbor, but was initially rejected because of his Mexican ancestry. He eventually did enlist in the Army Air Corps, and began a long process in which he used his talents and persuasive skills to find increasingly interesting assignments, eventually training as a teletype operator with a signals unit that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day and was eventually part of Eisenhower's headquarters.

Edmond Kaminski served with the 760th Tank Battalion in Italy during World War II. His account includes discussions of armored training and combat in a series of battles in Italy, including Cassino.