thedrifter
05-24-09, 08:25 AM
Who was Cpl. Irwin Blackhawk? Remembering a soldier who fought in the Forgotten War
By Chris Hubbuch / chubbuch@lacrossetribune.com
Who remembers Irwin Blackhawk?
It’s been nearly 59 years since the 22-year-old corporal from Black River Falls died. His parents are long gone, as are his brothers and sisters. He had no wife or kids when he went off to Korea, and he never came home.
Unlike Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., the Ho-Chunk soldier who died the same month holding off an enemy attack, Blackhawk didn’t receive a Congressional Medal of Honor. His name doesn’t appear in history books, and there’s nothing named after him.
He is one of the thousands of fallen veterans killed in what often is called the Forgotten War.
I wanted to know who he was.
The search began with an e-mail from Harold Davis, a 78-year-old Korean War veteran from North Carolina who has spent the past four years looking for family members of missing servicemen.
More than 8,000 U.S. troops were unaccounted for when the Korean War ended in 1953. Many of their bodies were returned, but it wasn’t always possible to identify them. Modern DNA testing has made that easier but requires samples from family members for comparison. After more than half a century, those family members are hard to find.
That’s where Davis and a handful of other volunteers come in. Davis says he’s found relatives of more than 300 servicemen. When he does, he puts them in touch with the Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.
Davis sent a letter to the Tribune outlining his search for Blackhawk’s family.
I called to find out more.
Blackhawk is on a list of 173 Wisconsin soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines still unidentified. The list includes his name, misspelled, his serial number, rank and unit. Home town: La Crosse. Status: KIA. Date of incident: 11/26/1950.
That was as much as Davis knew.
“At the present time, our government has no family contact whatsoever for him,” he said.
A search of 1930 Census records turned up no Blackhawks in La Crosse, but a family was in Jackson County. John and Rebecca Blackhawk, full-blooded Winnebago Indians, lived near Hwy. 54. He was a trapper while she stayed at home. They had a 2-year-old son named Irwin.
A book of Jackson County veterans included a notice from the Black River Falls Banner Journal: “Mr. and Mrs. John Blackhawk, who live near the mission north of Black River Falls, have received the sad news that their son, Corporal Arthur Irwin Blackhawk, was killed in action Nov. 26, 1950.”
Blackhawk, it said, was born in 1928, attended the mission school and enlisted in the Army in 1948. Survivors included his parents and four siblings.
The last one died in 2004. Their obituaries listed surviving children, but every phone number I found was disconnected. Letters to their last known addresses came back undeliverable.
I called the Ho-Chunk Nation and explained I was trying to research a member of the tribe killed in Korea.
“Mitchell Red Cloud?” the woman asked.
The nation sent a five-page application for academic research. I filled it out as best I could but never heard back.
At the Jackson County Historical Society museum in Black River Falls, a display on Ho-Chunk culture features a shrine to Mitchell Red Cloud. There was nothing in the files about Irwin Blackhawk.
I had an address for one of Blackhawk’s nieces. The red brick housing complex had no directory. The woman at the front office had never heard of her.
“If she’s here, she’s not supposed to be,” she said.
Blackhawk was a member of the 35th Infantry Regiment’s L Company. After posting a notice on the regiment association’s Web site, I heard from the association president, who was eager to help. He e-mailed back the next day with a name: David Williams, a 77-year-old vet from Stockton, Calif.
Williams was in a different platoon and didn’t know Blackhawk well, but he remembered the night of Nov. 26, 1950.
“That night was pure hell,” he said.
It was the day after Thanksgiving, and the company was in a mountain pass deep in North Korea, guarding a road about 10 miles from the Yalu River. Williams was in a foxhole on the front lines when Chinese troops swarmed them.
“It was just an overwhelming attack,” he said. “They just came across by the hundreds.”
Blackhawk was in the rear. The next morning, Williams and some other soldiers pulled his body from his sleeping bag.
Williams doesn’t know why Blackhawk’s remains weren’t returned, but the L Company was hit again the next night and scattered as they withdrew.
The Andrew Blackhawk American Legion post near Black River Falls has a plaque honoring fallen Ho-Chunk warriors. Three names are listed under the Korean War. None are Irwin Blackhawk.
Robert Mann, veterans services officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation, suggested I talk to George Stacy, another Korean veteran about the same age as Blackhawk.
Stacy remembered the family.
“They kind of stayed alone,” he said. “They hardly chummed around with anyone.”
He said Eugene Thundercloud might know something.
“I can’t tell you a hell of a lot about him,” Thundercloud said. “He was a quiet guy. Kept pretty much to himself.”
Thundercloud, 79, joined the Army in 1949, the year after Blackhawk. That’s what Ho-Chunk boys did.
“We’re the warrior type,” he said. “We think it’s our duty.”
After a short conversation, Thundercloud asked why I was interested. I explained again that I was trying to write a story about a forgotten veteran.
“That’s good,” he said. “You’re doing something to remember him.”
Government program works to identify fallen troops
The U.S. government spends about $105 million a year in its quest to recover and identify the remains of about 80,000 missing service members from World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War.
About 8,100 Americans were unaccounted for when the Korean War ended in 1953. The U.S. government has recovered many remains in the decades since, but about 1,000 are unidentified, said Larry Greer, who is among about
600 workers in the Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.
While a handful of volunteers assist, the office often relies on professional genealogists to track down long-lost family members for DNA samples needed to identify remains. Many searches are fruitless, and some have taken as long as 10 years, Greer said. When they are successful, family members often are surprised.
“In many cases � it’s something out of the blue,” Greer said. “Something they haven’t thought about in 60 years.”
To learn more about the program and to see lists of missing personnel, go online to www.dtic.mil/dpmo.
Veteran seeks information on fallen Wisconsin soldiers
Wisconsin lost more than 824 service members in the Korean War. The American Battle Monuments Commission lists names and basic information on its Web site, www.abmc.gov, but some entries contain errors — often about the service member’s hometown — and many lack photos.
Gordon Faust, a 76-year-old Air Force veteran from Waunakee, Wis., is working to make sure all information is correct and every fallen Korean War veteran has a photo. Contact him at agfaust58@tds.net or (608) 849-8786 for more information.
Ellie
By Chris Hubbuch / chubbuch@lacrossetribune.com
Who remembers Irwin Blackhawk?
It’s been nearly 59 years since the 22-year-old corporal from Black River Falls died. His parents are long gone, as are his brothers and sisters. He had no wife or kids when he went off to Korea, and he never came home.
Unlike Mitchell Red Cloud Jr., the Ho-Chunk soldier who died the same month holding off an enemy attack, Blackhawk didn’t receive a Congressional Medal of Honor. His name doesn’t appear in history books, and there’s nothing named after him.
He is one of the thousands of fallen veterans killed in what often is called the Forgotten War.
I wanted to know who he was.
The search began with an e-mail from Harold Davis, a 78-year-old Korean War veteran from North Carolina who has spent the past four years looking for family members of missing servicemen.
More than 8,000 U.S. troops were unaccounted for when the Korean War ended in 1953. Many of their bodies were returned, but it wasn’t always possible to identify them. Modern DNA testing has made that easier but requires samples from family members for comparison. After more than half a century, those family members are hard to find.
That’s where Davis and a handful of other volunteers come in. Davis says he’s found relatives of more than 300 servicemen. When he does, he puts them in touch with the Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.
Davis sent a letter to the Tribune outlining his search for Blackhawk’s family.
I called to find out more.
Blackhawk is on a list of 173 Wisconsin soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines still unidentified. The list includes his name, misspelled, his serial number, rank and unit. Home town: La Crosse. Status: KIA. Date of incident: 11/26/1950.
That was as much as Davis knew.
“At the present time, our government has no family contact whatsoever for him,” he said.
A search of 1930 Census records turned up no Blackhawks in La Crosse, but a family was in Jackson County. John and Rebecca Blackhawk, full-blooded Winnebago Indians, lived near Hwy. 54. He was a trapper while she stayed at home. They had a 2-year-old son named Irwin.
A book of Jackson County veterans included a notice from the Black River Falls Banner Journal: “Mr. and Mrs. John Blackhawk, who live near the mission north of Black River Falls, have received the sad news that their son, Corporal Arthur Irwin Blackhawk, was killed in action Nov. 26, 1950.”
Blackhawk, it said, was born in 1928, attended the mission school and enlisted in the Army in 1948. Survivors included his parents and four siblings.
The last one died in 2004. Their obituaries listed surviving children, but every phone number I found was disconnected. Letters to their last known addresses came back undeliverable.
I called the Ho-Chunk Nation and explained I was trying to research a member of the tribe killed in Korea.
“Mitchell Red Cloud?” the woman asked.
The nation sent a five-page application for academic research. I filled it out as best I could but never heard back.
At the Jackson County Historical Society museum in Black River Falls, a display on Ho-Chunk culture features a shrine to Mitchell Red Cloud. There was nothing in the files about Irwin Blackhawk.
I had an address for one of Blackhawk’s nieces. The red brick housing complex had no directory. The woman at the front office had never heard of her.
“If she’s here, she’s not supposed to be,” she said.
Blackhawk was a member of the 35th Infantry Regiment’s L Company. After posting a notice on the regiment association’s Web site, I heard from the association president, who was eager to help. He e-mailed back the next day with a name: David Williams, a 77-year-old vet from Stockton, Calif.
Williams was in a different platoon and didn’t know Blackhawk well, but he remembered the night of Nov. 26, 1950.
“That night was pure hell,” he said.
It was the day after Thanksgiving, and the company was in a mountain pass deep in North Korea, guarding a road about 10 miles from the Yalu River. Williams was in a foxhole on the front lines when Chinese troops swarmed them.
“It was just an overwhelming attack,” he said. “They just came across by the hundreds.”
Blackhawk was in the rear. The next morning, Williams and some other soldiers pulled his body from his sleeping bag.
Williams doesn’t know why Blackhawk’s remains weren’t returned, but the L Company was hit again the next night and scattered as they withdrew.
The Andrew Blackhawk American Legion post near Black River Falls has a plaque honoring fallen Ho-Chunk warriors. Three names are listed under the Korean War. None are Irwin Blackhawk.
Robert Mann, veterans services officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation, suggested I talk to George Stacy, another Korean veteran about the same age as Blackhawk.
Stacy remembered the family.
“They kind of stayed alone,” he said. “They hardly chummed around with anyone.”
He said Eugene Thundercloud might know something.
“I can’t tell you a hell of a lot about him,” Thundercloud said. “He was a quiet guy. Kept pretty much to himself.”
Thundercloud, 79, joined the Army in 1949, the year after Blackhawk. That’s what Ho-Chunk boys did.
“We’re the warrior type,” he said. “We think it’s our duty.”
After a short conversation, Thundercloud asked why I was interested. I explained again that I was trying to write a story about a forgotten veteran.
“That’s good,” he said. “You’re doing something to remember him.”
Government program works to identify fallen troops
The U.S. government spends about $105 million a year in its quest to recover and identify the remains of about 80,000 missing service members from World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War.
About 8,100 Americans were unaccounted for when the Korean War ended in 1953. The U.S. government has recovered many remains in the decades since, but about 1,000 are unidentified, said Larry Greer, who is among about
600 workers in the Department of Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office.
While a handful of volunteers assist, the office often relies on professional genealogists to track down long-lost family members for DNA samples needed to identify remains. Many searches are fruitless, and some have taken as long as 10 years, Greer said. When they are successful, family members often are surprised.
“In many cases � it’s something out of the blue,” Greer said. “Something they haven’t thought about in 60 years.”
To learn more about the program and to see lists of missing personnel, go online to www.dtic.mil/dpmo.
Veteran seeks information on fallen Wisconsin soldiers
Wisconsin lost more than 824 service members in the Korean War. The American Battle Monuments Commission lists names and basic information on its Web site, www.abmc.gov, but some entries contain errors — often about the service member’s hometown — and many lack photos.
Gordon Faust, a 76-year-old Air Force veteran from Waunakee, Wis., is working to make sure all information is correct and every fallen Korean War veteran has a photo. Contact him at agfaust58@tds.net or (608) 849-8786 for more information.
Ellie