Michael John Lally, age 20, from Red Wing, Minnesota, Goodhue county.
Parents: Clarence G. Lally
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Friday, May 8, 1970
Death details: Hostile, South Vietnam
Source: National Archives, Associated Press (1970)
Gordon Marlo Gunhus, age 19, from Kenyon, Minnesota, Goodhue county.
Parents: Edwin L. Gunhus
Service era: Vietnam
Schools: Kenyon High (1968)
Date of death: Sunday, March 29, 1970
Death details: Killed by a booby trap in South Vietnam
Source: National Archives, Minneapolis Star Tribune (1970)
Benjamin Franklin Danielson, age 26, from Kenyon, Minnesota, Goodhue county.
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: December 5, 1969
Death details: The Department of Defense in 2007 announced that the remains of Major Danielson were were identified and returned to his family for burial with full military honors.
On Dec. 5, 1969, Danielson and his co-pilot, 1st Lt. Woodrow J. Bergeron, Jr.,
were on a strike mission over Khammouan Province, Laos, when their F-4C was struck by enemy ground fire. Both ejected from the aircraft with minor injuries, landing safely on opposite sides of the Nam Ngo River.
Both men evaded capture the first night and maintained radio contact with search and rescue personnel. Bergeron was rescued on the third day; however, enemy forces apparently located Danielson soon after light on the second day. Bergeron said that he heard enemy activity, including gun shots, near Danielson’s position and presumed that the enemy located and shot Danielson.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Thomas Edward Reitmann, age 34, from Goodhue County Red Wing, Minnesota .
Service era: Vietnam
Date of death: Wednesday, December 1, 1965
Death details: On May 13, 2011, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC, now DPAA) identified the remains of Major Thomas Edward Reitmann, missing from the Vietnam War. Major Reitmann entered the U.S. Air Force from Minnesota and was a member of the 344th Tactical Fighter Squadron. On December 1, 1965, he piloted an F-105D Thunderchief (tail number unknown) that took off from Takhli Air Base, Thailand on a strike mission to destroy a railroad bridge in Lang Son Province, North Vietnam, northeast of Hanoi. While over the target area, this aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed, killing Maj Reitmann. Intense enemy fire precluded search-and-rescue operations and Maj Reitmann’s remains were not recovered at the time. Post-war search efforts by joint U.S./Vietnamese teams were unable to locate the crash site. However, in 2011, a local villager turned over human remains and an artifact from an American military member’s uniform discovered in his cornfield. Using a combination of forensic and circumstantial evidence, and with the assistance of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, these remains were identified as those of Maj Reitmann. Major Reitmann is memorialized in the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. His name is also inscribed along with all his fallen comrades on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC.
Cemetery: Arlington National
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
Burton B. Smith, age 20, from Goodhue County Red Wing, Minnesota .
Parents: Verl Smith
Service era: Korea
Date of death: Thursday, June 18, 1953
Death details: Killed in the crash of an Air Force C0124 Globemaster near Tokyo.
Source: United Press (1953), Star Tribune (1953)
Gudmund Christopher Jr. Johnson, age 22, from Redwing, Minnesota, Goodhue county.
Service era: Korea
Military history: 35th Infantry Regiment
Date of death: Tuesday, November 28, 1950
Death details: captured by enemy forces near Unsan, North Korea., He reportedly died while a prisoner of war at Camp #5, where he was held by the Chinese People’s Volunteer Forces. Following his death, his remains could not be recovered. Accounted for on August 27, 2019
Cemetery: St. John’s Cemetery, Redwing (2019)
Source: National Archives, 35th Infantry Regiment Association
Henry Jenson from Minnesota, Goodhue county.
Service era: World War II
Date of death: Tuesday, October 17, 1944
Death details: The Battle of the Hürtgen Forest, one of the bloodiest conflicts of World War II, was fought between Allied and German forces from September 1944 to February 1945. As U.S. forces advanced eastward into Germany, the defending Germans manned “Siegfried Line” positions opposite the Belgian border. The battle grew to involve approximately 200,000 troops, with tens of thousands of casualties on both sides. American forces initially entered the area seeking to block German reinforcements from moving north toward the fighting around Aachen, the westernmost city of Germany, near the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands. In the battle’s second phase and as part of the Allied’s larger offense toward the Rhine River, U.S. troops attempted to push through the forest to the banks of Roer River. Aided by bad weather and rough terrain, German forces in the Hürtgen Forest put up unexpectedly strong resistance due to a well-prepared defense. American forces were unable to break through to the Rur before the German Ardennes offensive struck in December 1944, known as the Battle of the Bulge, which halted the eastward Allied advance until February 1945. Private First Class Henry Jenson entered the U.S. Army from Minnesota and was a member of Company L, 3rd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division. In mid-October 1944, his unit was positioned in an area of the Hürtgen Forest south of Raffelsbrand, Germany, known as the Raffelsbrand Forest. On October 17, Company L took part in an attempt to push German forces entrenched in the Raffelsbrand Forest eastward. However, the American soldiers were pushed back and German counterattacks inflicted additional losses. PFC Jenson was reported missing once his unit regrouped following this action. The exact details of PFC Jenson’s loss are unknown. He has not been associated with any remains recovered from the area following the war, and he is still unaccounted-for. Today, Private First Class Jenson is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten.
Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency