By: Rebecca Hudson
Murray County News Staffwriter
According to the National archives, of the 326,000 Minnesotans served in the Armed Forces during World War II while more than 6,000 lost their lives. Historians Jill A. and Deane L. Johnson have discovered that 165 of those men who died in battle were from Minnesota’s smallest towns with populations of 100 or fewer. “In some cases that reduced the town’s population by as much as ten percent,” Johnson says.
With that impact in mind, Johnson and husband Deane strove to delve into the stories behind the men from the state’s smallest towns, and have chronicled the accounts of 140 fallen heroes in their book, Little Minnesota in World War II.
“When we started research for their book, Johnson admits that they were astounded at all the men who’d died in World War II from Minnesota’s tiny towns. Johnson notes that there were several women from Little Minnesota who served in the military but none had died in battle.
Small town farm boys were recruited for service in the military, Johnson says, because of their ethics and physical strengths. “They were healthy, could fix anything, knew how to shoot and were comfortable in the woods. And they served in every capacity of the war including the Army, Navy, Marines, Army Air Force and Merchant Marines.”
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