Big Pigeon - Pottawattamie County, Iowa
  • Pigeon Home
    • Usage Hints
    • Acknowledgments
    • Resources >
      • Free Sites
      • Pay Sites
      • Print Resources
      • Search Engines
      • Land Records
      • Resources - Denmark >
        • Finding Danish Ancestors
    • Project Mgt - Public >
      • Website Overview
      • Website Log
      • Project Overview
      • Mac Computer Use
      • Weebly Use
      • Reunion Use
      • Project History
      • Image Provenance
    • Project Mgt - Private >
      • Site Management
      • Site Plan
      • Contact List
      • Backup Info & Log
      • System Info & Log
      • Image Storage
      • E-Mail Log
      • Asset Organization
      • History Index
      • Binders & Photos
      • Upon My Death
      • Donations & Dispersal
  • Family
    • Photos - Recent
    • Christiansen
    • Rasmussen
    • Christiansen/Rasmussen News
    • Larsen/Larson
    • Hansen
    • Larsen/Hansen News
    • Allied Families
    • Wall of Honor
  • St. Paul's
    • Early Families >
      • Early Families Help
      • Early Families More Lists
    • St. Paul's Roots
    • St. Paul's Timeline
    • St. Paul's Resources
  • PottCo
    • Early History >
      • Missouri River
      • Native Americans
      • Colonial Period
    • Pott. Co. History
    • Big Pigeon Area >
      • Area Towns >
        • Beebeetown
        • Crescent
        • Honey Creeek
        • Loveland
        • Neola
        • Persia
        • Underwood
        • Weston
        • Lost Locales
      • Danes from Dronninglund
      • Maps & Plats
      • Big Pigeon Galleries >
        • Gallery 1 - Area Historic Structures
        • Gallery 2 - Grange Sunday School
    • Avoca >
      • Gold Star Avoca
      • Cuppy's Grove
    • Pott. Co. Addendum
    • LDS History >
      • LDS Links
      • Gallery 1 - Mormon Maps
    • A House Divided >
      • Endnotes
      • Niels Peder Pedersen
      • Ane Katrine Pedersen
      • Kirsten Pedersen
      • Kirsten's Story >
        • Kirsten's LDS Daughters
        • Kirsten's Daughter, Karen Bondo
        • Kirsten's Son, Anders Johnson
        • Kirsten's Niece, Christine Mortensen
        • Kirsten's Niece, Anne Marie Larsen
    • More History >
      • Iowa History
      • American History
  • WWII Home
    • Big Pigeon and WWII
  • WWII Roster
    • Roster Records >
      • Roster-A
      • Roster-B
      • Roster-C
      • Roster-D
      • Roster-EF
      • Roster-G
      • Roster-H
      • Roster-IJ
      • Roster-K
      • Roster-L
      • Roster-M
      • Roster-NO
      • Roster-P
      • Roster-QR
      • Roster-S
      • Roster-TUV
      • Roster-WXYZ
    • Roster Appendices >
      • Other In-Service Deaths
      • Post-Separation Deaths
    • Roster Residences >
      • Council Bluffs
      • Rural Pott. Co.
      • Cass Co.
      • Harrison Co.
      • Mills Co.
      • Montgomery Co.
      • Shelby Co.
      • Other SW Iowa Counties
      • Other Iowa Counties
      • StatesBorderingIowa
      • Other States
    • Roster Fatalities >
      • War with Japan
      • Battle of the Atlantic
      • Mediterranean Theater
      • European Theater
      • Stateside Deaths
    • Roster Notes >
      • The Air Dead
      • The Sea Dead
      • Awards for Valor
      • Roster Demographics
      • Iowa Casualties & Dead
    • Roster Photos >
      • Roster Photos - Contents
      • Photos of Individuals
      • Land War with Japan
      • Air War with Japan
      • Sea War with Japan
      • Land War with Germany
      • Air War with Germany
      • Sea War with Germany
      • Stateside
      • Memorials
      • Cemeteries
    • Roster Outliers >
      • Pott. Co. Discrepancies
    • About the Roster >
      • Roster Planning
      • Members Not in St. Paul's
    • Roster Attic >
      • Recent Roster Additions
      • Roster Additions Log
  • WWII US
    • WWII Operations
    • WWII Overview
    • WWII Commanders
    • WWII Web Sources >
      • Web Sources - Personnel
      • Web Sources - Japan
      • Web Sources - Germany
    • WWII Personnel >
      • WWII Casualties
      • WWII Deaths
      • WWII Burials
      • Service Numbers
    • WWII Ground Forces >
      • High Level Organization
      • Infantry Organization >
        • Infantry Equipment
      • Ground Forces - Japan
      • Ground Forces - The MTO
    • WWII in The Air
    • WWII at Sea
    • WWII at Home
    • Civilian Victims
    • Strategic Bombing
    • The Cold War
    • World War I >
      • Iowa In World War I
  • Japan
    • WWII - Japan Overview
    • Japan Ascendant
    • Japan Lashes Out >
      • Pearl Harbor
      • Guam & Wake Island
      • Malaya & Singapore Lost
      • The Dutch Indies Lost
      • The Philippines Lost
      • New Guinea & Solomons
    • Japan Overreaches >
      • Coral Sea
      • Midway
    • South & SW Pacific >
      • Solomons Naval War
      • Solomon Is., Guadalcanal
      • SE New Guinea, Papua
      • NE New Guinea, Lae to Madang
      • Solomon Is., New Georgia
      • Solomon Is., Bougainville
      • Bismarck Archipelago
      • Western New Guinea
    • North Pacific >
      • Alaska
      • Attu & Kiska
      • Pacific Lend-Lease Routes
    • Central Pacific >
      • Gilbert Islands
      • Marshall Islands
      • Mariana Islands
      • Palau Islands
    • Philippines Liberated >
      • Leyte
      • Battle of Leyte Gulf
      • Philippines Naval War
      • Luzon
      • Southern Philippines
    • Iwo Jima & Okinawa >
      • Iwo Jima
      • Land Battle of Okinawa
      • Naval Battle of Okinawa
    • China-Burma-India >
      • China - 1941-45
      • India - 1942-45
      • Burma - 1941-45
      • Crossing the Hump
    • Japan Overpowered >
      • Japan Under Attack
      • Strategic Air War - Japan
      • Japan Vanquished
    • US Naval War w/ Japan >
      • US Submarine Force
      • Third & Fifth Fleets
    • US Air Force War w/ Japan >
      • Fifth Air Force
      • Seventh Air Force
      • Thirteenth Air Force
    • The Pacific Base Areas
  • Germany
    • WWII-Germany Overview
    • Battle of the Atlantic
    • The MTO >
      • MTO Overview >
        • MTO Background
      • North Africa >
        • Operation Torch
        • The Race to Tunis
        • Tunisia
      • Italy >
        • Sicily
        • Italy Leaves the Axis
        • Salerno-Naples-Foggia
        • To the Gustav Line
        • Battle of Anzio
        • Cassino/the Gustav Line
        • Cassino to Rome
        • Rome To Florence
        • Northern Apennines
        • The Po Valley
      • MTO Air War
      • MTO Sea War
      • MTO Comm. Zone
    • The ETO >
      • ETO Overview >
        • ETO Background
      • ETO Orders of Battle >
        • ETO Unit Subordination
      • Normandy Campaign >
        • D-Day
        • ETO, 6 June 1944
        • Normandy, June 1944
        • ETO, 30 June 1944
        • Normandy, July 1944
        • After D-Day
      • Liberation >
        • Operation Cobra
        • ETO, 1 August 1944
        • Brittany
        • Normandy
        • Northern France & Belgium
        • ETO, 25 August 1944
        • Southern France
      • War of Attrition >
        • ETO, 15 September 1944
        • Netherlands 1944
        • Rhineland 1944 >
          • V Corps at the West Wall
          • Aachen
          • Hürtgen Forest
          • Operation Queen
          • Queen/Hürtgen
          • Last 1944 Offensives
        • Lorraine/Alsace 1944 >
          • Lorraine/Third Army
          • Lorraine/Seventh Army
          • Alsace/Seventh Army
        • ETO, 15 December 1944
      • Ardennes/The Bulge >
        • Before the Bulge
        • The Bulge Begins
        • The Bulge Grows
        • Ardennes, 25 December 1944
        • The Bulge Contained
        • The Bulge Eliminated
        • Ardennes/Bulge Details
        • Ardennes/Bulge Overview
      • Alsace 1945 >
        • Alsace, Nordwind
        • Alsace, Colmar Pocket
      • Siegfried Line 1945 >
        • ETO, 26 January 1945
        • Operation Blackcock
        • First US Effort
        • Roer River Dams
        • VIII Corps to Prüm
        • XII Corps to Bitburg
        • XX Corps to Trier
      • To the Rhine >
        • ETO, 1 March 1945
        • Ops. Veritable & Grenade
        • Operation Lumberjack
        • Operation Undertone
        • Patton's Probing Attacks
        • Ninth & First Armies
        • Third & Seventh Armies
      • Central Europe >
        • Crossing the Rhine
        • Beyond the Rhine
        • ETO, 4 April 1945
        • Central Germany
        • Southern Germany
        • Germany Surrenders
      • ETO Air War
      • ETO Sea War
      • ETO Comm. Zone
    • The Eastern Front
Picture
Picture
WWII Roster
 website bigpigeon.us, webpage WWII Roster > About the Roster, © 2023 by Robert A. Christiansen, updated 24 Dec 2022.

​
Why the Pottawattamie Area WWII Dead Roster
While researching my home town of Avoca, Iowa, I found that some World War II deaths were missing from family histories or family trees.

It troubled me that anyone lost while serving their country, dying away from family, usually in some combination of misery, filth, pain or terror, might be forgotten. Most war dead did not even have children to preserve their memory; some were as young as 18. This I began this on-line roster to preserve key information about the Pottawattamie area WWII dead.

I was fortunate - few areas in the United States have the on-line resources sufficient to build a roster like this.
  • Resources for the Pottawattamie area were developed over the years by hundreds of individuals, most of whom are both unknown and deceased. I am grateful to all of them for making this project possible.
  • The WWII: US > WWII Web Sources submodule contains links to many sources that used in building the roster.
  • The WWII Roster > Roster Outliers webpage has a short list of my commonly-used sources.
Who is included in the Pottawattamie Area WWII Dead Roster
I've cast my net widely as to who is included in my Pottawattamie Area WWII Dead Roster:
  • I've included almost all known WWII deaths of those who lived in Cass, Pottawattamie, Harrison, Mills, Montgomery, or Shelby Counties at one time. Roster Outliers lists deaths that are not included.
I have also included:
  • Some who had a spouse, parent, or next of kin who lived in the Pottawattamie area.
  • Almost all WWII deaths that I found in my Reunion for Mac databases such as my main database, St. Paul's. Thus a few roster members never lived or had immediate family in the Pottawattamie area.
  • Those who were in service when hostilities ended and died while still in service before the WWII period officially ended on 31 December 1946; these were mostly accidental deaths.

Two appendices list Pottawattamie area individuals who served during WWII but died in the immediate postwar period. Those listed are not included in Big Pigeon's Pottawattamie Area WWII Dead Roster, although their beneficiaries were entitled to a bonus from the 1949 Iowa WWII bonus program.
  • WWII Roster > Roster Appendices > Other In-Service Deaths - joined before WWII ended and died while in service before 7 December 1941 or after 31 December 1946. 
  • WWII Roster > Roster Appendices > Post-Separation Deaths - died after separation from service. An unknown number of those on this long and sad list died from wounds, psychic or physical, suffered during their WWII service.

WWII Roster > About the Roster > Roster Planning lists roster records being prepared but not yet incorporated within Big Pigeon.
About Big Pigeon's WWII-Japan and WWII-Germany Modules
As a retired teacher, I developed these two modules with two major goals:
  • Supporting my Pottawattamie Area WWII Dead Roster.
  • Developing a brief overview of World War II that is easier to grasp for systemic learners like me.

By systemic learning, I mean the learning of a difficult and complex subject by starting with a simple outline and gradually adding complexity and detail, using analogy, visual aids, bullets, and timelines when possible. With this in mind, I proceded thusly:

I broke World War II up into two natural areas:
  • The War with Japan
  • The War with Germany

Viewed geographically, the War with Japan has two major components:
  • The war in Asia, which started with the war between China and Japan from 1937 to 1941 and segued into operations in what is known as the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater, from 1941 to 1945.
  • The war in the vast Pacific Ocean area, often briefly referred to as Pacific Theater operations, from 1941-1945.
Viewed by belligerents, The war in Asia involved the Republic of China vs the Japanese Empire from 1937 to 1941 and the British Empire, United States and Republic of China from 1941 to 1945.

​to be continued​ ...
To keep in mind when viewing the Pottawattamie Area WWII Dead Roster
  • Beware - My roster has voluminous amounts of data and is bound to contain errors. Please feel free to report errors or suggest changes via the Contact Form at the end of the Home > Usage Hints webpage.
  • Regarding privacy - I try to use only publicly available information. I believe that all individuals named, including spouses, are now deceased. However, in a few cases my information might be embarrassing to surviving family members. If this is the case, please contact me and we will work out an alternative.

Unlike Big Pigeon's Pottawattamie Area WWII Dead Roster which has universal access via the web, my underlying data is on my personal computer and thus is private:
  • I store my data using Release 13 of the Reunion for Mac genealogical data management software.
  • Most data is in a large database named St. Paul’s, which contains information for over 47,000 individuals with family connections, albeit often tenuous,  to rural Pottawattamie County. St. Paul's focuses on the Boomer/Hazel Township area, in which St. Paul’s Lutheran Church is located. My St. Paul's database is in my Mac folder Bob Docs | _Reunion Databases.
  • Each of the ~140 roster members not in my St. Paul's database has a small family database in my Mac folder Bob Docs | _Reunion Databases | R13 - Not In St.Paul's. WWII Roster > About the Roster > Members Not in St. Paul's lists these members.
Sources for Big Pigeon's WWII Roster > About the Roster webpage:
  • "History would never be forgotten if it were taught through stories" page header quote, c/o https://tfipost.com/2022/07/gone-but-not-forgotten-quotes/.
Picture

Epigraph from Veterans Plaza Memorial, Bayliss Park, Council Bluffs, Iowa
In memory of those in my WWII Dead roster to whom we owe so much, I have included the following eloquent and moving epigraph, The Glory of their Spirit by the late Richard W. Peterson of Council Bluffs.

When destiny demanded and country called,
they in answer left our rolling hills
and great river valley, and learned the arts of war. Then, on and beneath restless waves of the deep,
in endless skies and across vast oceans to island shores, on broad plains and barren hillsides, in dark forests,
on snow-covered mountains and in the rubble of smashed villages
and cities they faced and fought, with valor and dedication,
those who challenged our ideals and freedom and,
in the very vortex of combat, were then greeted and embraced by Death. The soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen were not born
to die in the youth of their lives – yet they did.
They were not born to die death of violence – yet they did.
By cruel and brutal circumstances of war, they gave their lives
that we might live our lives and years in liberty and peace.
Never should we forget their ultimate sacrifice.
We now in their memory carve their names in stone,
and enshrine them in our hearts;
we now cast in eternal bronze, figures who in sorrow and
in the long, long thoughts of youth
reflect on the last measure of devotion given by those we now honor, and we join their mute and motionless yet eloquent presence
in their silent meditation,
Thinking not only of the passing of the departed patriots,
But remembering the glory of their spirit.


© Richard W. Peterson, reprinted with permission of Kip (Peterson) Sherbondy.
Proudly powered by Weebly