Letters to home

Jeffrey Jackson
Posted: Saturday, November 7, 2009 9:31 pm

By JEFFREY JACKSON

jjackson@owatonna.com

OWATONNA — When Darlene Bolinger was a senior in Owatonna back in May 1944, she skipped school one day, but with good reason.

Her older brother, Galen Bolinger, was on furlough from the Army — the last furlough he would have before being deployed to fight with the allied forces in Europe during World War II — and Darlene wanted to say goodbye to him. So along her father and two sisters, Darlene Bolinger, now Darlene Munson, went to the old Owatonna train depot to see him off.

“I know it was said,” said Darlene. “It was really horrible for my father. Dad broke down and cried and cried and cried. I wondered, ‘What’s wrong with him.’ I found later.”

During his relatively short time in the Army — a time that would take him from Fort Snelling, Minnesota, to Camp Hood and Camp Maxey, both in Texas, to Fort George G. Meade in Maryland, to England, and finally to France as part of the allied European Theater of Operations — Galen Bollinger would write home to his father and sisters many times. Sixty-five years later, Munson still holds on to those letters as a cherished memory of her brother.

“Got a telegraphic money order from home today,” Galen Bollinger wrote from Fort Meade in September 1944. “I wired home for it. I just wanted a little money to go to town with this weekend and have a good time. I figure I might as well have fun while I can ’cause in days to come, I’ll be somewhere where fun can’t be had. I hope Dad don’t mind if I have to send home for money.”

By October 1944, Galen Bollinger would be in England, a little worse for wear, his letters confessing that he had become a bit seasick on the way over and how he was missing “the good ol’ U.S.A.”

“We have U.S.O. shows about every day and are very good. Between laughs and music, there’s very little time to be blue, but I think about home an awful lot,” he wrote on Oct. 10, 1944.

He was deployed to France in late October, where he would become part of what is now known as the Drive to the Siegfried Line — a period that stretched from the D-Day invasion in June 1944 through the Battle of the Bulge to the Allies preparing to cross the Rhine River in early 1945. He had been a part of the tank destroyer division, but once he went to France, he was transferred to the infantry.

“We just got a couple of letters from him during that time,” Munson said.

One, dated Nov. 17, 1944, came from “Somewhere in France.”

“Have a few short moments to write and let you know that I’m alright,” he wrote. “Have been safe as can be so far and hope for the best … The mail still hasn’t caught up with me but should shortly. I hope and pray for this awful thing to end soon so I can come home to stay. Eat a big Thanksgiving dinner for me and pray for me. I’ll write soon again. Bye now. All my love, Galen.”

Galen Bolinger would never write again. Four days later, he was killed — perhaps shot by a sniper. To this day, his family does not know exactly what happened to him.

“I wasn’t there when they delivered the news,” Munson said, adding that she never found out how the family received the notice of her brother’s death. “My father was so emotional, he couldn’t bring up the subject.”

And the mail from home that Galen Bolinger longed to read never did catch up with him. The letters were returned to his family with two simple stamps on them: “Return to sender” and “Deceased.”

“My God, I cried for two days,” said Jim Anthony of Waseca about when he heard the news of Galen Bollinger’s death. “He was a super young man.”

Anthony and Bolinger had gone to school together in Janesville, where Bolinger was a standout in both basketball and music, and then the two young men roomed together in Waseca when they worked the late shift at E.F. Johnson in Waseca. Both men would join the war effort in 1943 — Bolinger in the regular Army, Anthony as part of the Army Air Corps. Anthony, now 86, would never leave the United States during the war.

Even today, 65 years later, Anthony remembers the last telephone conversation he had with his friend. Anthony was stationed at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri while Bolinger was “out east,” most likely at Fort Meade. Bolinger told Anthony that he was “ready to go overseas.”

“He said, ‘I’ll go over there, and I’ll come back, too,’” Anthony said.

For years, even after Bolinger’s death, Anthony would dream of his friend. And, like Darlene Munson, Anthony has held on to Bolinger’s letters. He hopes some day to give those letters to Munson so she can include them with her collection.

At one point, Munson had hoped to write a book about her brother and include much of the correspondence that took place during the war — letters that, once she had them, she spent an entire winter pouring through.

“I sat in the house all alone. The letters were so long and fun to read,” she said. “As I read the letters, I saw him mature, grow up.”

Munson’s desire to write about her brother and keep his memory alive came, she said, because of a gnawing feeling that he had been “lost in the cracks.” Even though he was the first soldier from Janesville killed during WWII, not many knew what had happened to him. Most of his family lived in Owatonna, where his father ran the Merton store, when the news came of Galen Bolinger’s death. Few people in Owatonna knew who he was.

“I never saw his name anywhere,” Munson said.

Galen Omer Bolinger is buried in the Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial just outside of Saint-Avold, Moselle, France — a 113.5-acre cemetery that contains more than 10,000 graves, the largest number of graves of any American World War II cemetery in Europe. Most who are buried there, like Bolinger, died in the autumn of 1944.

A letter in Munson’s collection, dated Jan. 5, 1945, is written to Munson’s father.

“My dear Mr. Bolinger,” it reads. “At the request of the President, I write you to inform you that the Purple Heart has been awarded posthumously to your son, Sergeant Galen O. Bolinger, Infantry, who sacrificed his life in defense of his country. Little that we can do or say will console you for the death of your loved one. We profoundly appreciate the greatness of your loss, for in a very real sense the loss suffered by any of us in this battle for our country is a loss suffered by all of us. When the medal, which you will shortly receive, reaches you, I want you to know that with it goes my sincerest sympathy, and the hope that time and the victory of our cause will finally lighten the burden of your grief.”

It is signed “Henry L. Stimson,” then Secretary of War.

Munson has never seen her brother’s grave. The closest she came was when she was on a bus tour in France. As the bus drove near, the tour guide pointed to the large memorial at the cemetery that could be seen in the distance.

“(My sister) Vi sent along a bouquet,” Munson said. “I threw it out the window as we passed.”

Jeffrey Jackson can be reached at 444-2371.