Who Was Frederick Oelschlaeger?

Editor's Note: Local author Tom Mueller presents the story of some familiar local names in a special Oak Creek Patch series leading up to Memorial Day. Today is part 2: examining the life of Frederick Oelschlaeger, whose name is now part of the Oelschlaeger-Dallman American Legion Post 434.

If you missed part 1, .

Oak Creek’s Frederick Oelschlaeger was killed July 16, 1944, on New Guinea amid a series of fierce battles near the jungle villages of Afua and Aitape and the Driniumor River. He was in the 127th Infantry Regiment of the Army’s 32nd Infantry Division, and is buried in the Philippines.

Frederick was born Aug. 6, 1919, so his death came about two weeks before his 25th birthday.

The family had lived in Milwaukee and moved to what is now Oak Creek in 1933, buying a 20-acre farm on East Oak Street up the hill from Howell Avenue. Frederick was the first child, followed by Gordon, Audrey and Dan. The father, Fred, was of Luxembourg descent and was an engineer at the Lakeside power plant in St. Francis. The mother was Sophie.

Dan was 17 years younger than Frederick and always called his brother Fritz. Fritz called him Joe and when he came home on leave, “he’d throw me up in the air and catch me. He was 6-foot-2 or 3, a big guy,” Dan said. The Fritz and Joe show, complete with giggles and hoots and thrills, was far better than any carnival ride.

Dan was 8 when the fateful telegram arrived. The family was not sure whether it would involve Frederick or Gordon, who was a Marine in the invasion of Saipan, which had begun a month earlier. “My Dad was a pretty tough dude, but he sat on the sofa and put his head in his hands and was crying,” says Dan, who still lives in Oak Creek. Dan had never seen his father cry before.

The memorial service was Aug. 19 at St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church at its original site on Howell Avenue, in an area that everyone then knew as New Coeln. The church now is located at West Oakwood Road and South 13th Street.

A newspaper article said it was the “first World War II Memorial Requiem High Mass” at St. Stephen’s.

The pastor, Father C.J. Eschweiler, built his sermon around the Bible’s verse that “No greater love hath any man than he who giveth his life for his friend.” The story said  “he emphasized that Frederick was the first to volunteer when his country was in danger, that he was the first of his congregation to meet death in action, and likewise the first of the Town of Oak Creek.”

A newspaper story the day before the funeral gave Oelschlaeger’s background: He was a graduate of Green Lawn school and of Bay View High School. “He was employed on the John Ballbach farm at the time of his enlistment … in the Wisconsin National Guard Sept. 26, 1940.”

Ballbach ran a large dairy farm on what is now the south campus of Milwaukee Area Technical College.

The story said Oelschlaeger “went overseas May 27, 1942. He was twice hospitalized for injuries sustained in action, but each time returned to duty. He had expected to be home on furlough in a short time.”

The 32nd Division, Wisconsin’s famed Red Arrow, had started fighting at Buna, New Guinea, in September 1942 and was so depleted by jungle diseases and challenges and the Japanese that it was out of action for nearly a year, based in Australia as it was refurbished and revitalized. It returned to combat at Saidor in New Guinea in the first days of 1944. Then came Aitape.

The official history, “The 32nd Infantry Division in World War II,” a 1957 book by Maj. Gen. H.W. Blakeley, said the hamlet of Afua “changed hands several times, and South Force (Oelschlaeger’s group) engaged in over a week of complicated fighting, made particularly difficult by the broken jungle-covered terrain, the lack of roads, the inaccurate maps, and the mixing of units. ... South Force’s casualties between 13 and 31 July were 106 killed, 386 wounded, 18 missing, 426 evacuated because of illness.”

Three men earned the Medal of Honor during the period, including one for actions on the very day that Oelschlaeger was killed.

Second Lieutenant Dale Eldon Christensen of the 112th Cavalry, a unit fighting as part of the same force that Oelschlaeger was in, was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for several examples of heroic leadership from July 16 to 19. “On July 16, his platoon engaged in a savage fire fight in which much damage was caused by one enemy machine gun effectively placed. 2d Lt. Christensen ordered his men to remain under cover, crept forward under fire, and at a range of 15 yards put the gun out of action with hand grenades,” the medal citation said. There were many more days of fighting, and Christensen was killed on Aug. 4.

Christensen, from Iowa, was 24 and is buried in Manila, the Philippines, in the same section, Plot A, of the cemetery where Oelschlaeger is.

One member of Oelschlaeger’s 127th Regiment, Pvt. Donald Lobaugh of Pennsylvania, received the Medal of Honor less than a week after Oelschlaeger died. “The enemy emplaced a machine gun, protected by the fire of rifles and automatic weapons, which blocked the only route over which the platoon could move,” according to the medal citation. “Lobaugh volunteered to attempt to destroy this weapon, even though in order to reach it he would be forced to work his way about 30 yards over ground devoid of cover. When partway across this open space he threw a hand grenade,” but took fire and was wounded. Lobaugh, 19, died in early August and is buried in his home state.

In late August, six weeks after Oelschlaeger was killed, his family received a general letter from Father Edward Connolly, chaplain of his regiment. “Of all the sorrows and crosses that may befall us in this life, to suffer the loss of a near and dear one is perhaps the greatest,” Connolly said. “… In his unit your dear one was admired and respected by his fellow soldiers.He was a good soldier; a brave and courageous soldier. He has left us with a shining example, and we will long remember him and the cause for which he died.”

Oelschlaeger was in Company K, commanded by Capt. George M. Ficklen. In a letter to the family on Sept. 1, 1944, Ficklen said: “I know that I speak for all the officers and men who knew him, when I say that he was highly regarded by all. We will long remember Frederick, and his outstanding performance in combat. I trust that he now rests in peace, free from the trials and tribulations of mortal man ….”

Oelschlaeger is buried at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines. There are 17,202 graves and 36,285 names on the MIA wall. All told, 1,035 Wisconsin men are there. The Manila facility is the only American one west of Hawaii, which explains the huge numbers it contains.

Tom Mueller, author of these reports, has called Oak Creek home since 1978 and has been writing for nearly 30 years about those who made the Ultimate Sacrifice. His two books are “The Wisconsin 3,800,” about men and women buried overseas or MIA from World War II, and “Heart of the Century,” about Korea and other events in the news and daily life between 1949 and 1951. His author website is www.warbooks.webs.com