(Radio Iowa) – An American flag that was part of history made by soldiers from Iowa in World War Two has been restored and is back that the Grout Museum in Waterloo. Museum exhibit registrar Nicholas Erickson says the flag was donated by Brigadier General Howard Jesse Rouse, who commanded the Iowa National Guard 133rd Infantry Regiment in Waterloo.
“This is a fact that is, to this day, strangely underappreciated, even among Iowans, even among residents of the city of Waterloo,” he says. “And this flag that he donated in 1960, all evidence point to it being the flag that the first American soldiers to set foot in Europe on January 26th, 1942, marched under.” The 133rd was part of the 34th Infantry Division that also included soldiers from Minnesota. Erickson says a famous picture showed the Iowans.
“There was a Life magazine article that ran February 23rd, 1942. And that picture that runs at the front of the article, is the first photograph that most Americans saw of their boys in Europe in the Second World War,” Erickson says. He says the Waterloo regiment was randomly chosen to land in Ireland, and its 1st Battalion was chosen to be the first one to cross the ocean, and its Company B was chosen at random to be the first to get off the boat in Ireland. He says the 133rd gained the nickname the “Ironman Battalion” because of the number of days they fought in Europe.
He says “Yank Magazine” did an article on February 2nd of 1945 to find out what happened to them. “They tracked down Baker Company, that first unit from Waterloo, to step off the boat, right, in Belfast, February 26, 1942. And they try to locate men who were there on the first day. They find seven out of a company of over 100 who are still with the unit,” he says. Erickson says the battalion served in arguably more days of frontline service than any other unit in the United States Army during the Second World War, a purported 611 days in combat in Italy.
Erickson says the flag had been forgotten in storage until he discovered it about five years ago while looking for a flag from the Iraq war for some veterans who had captured it and wanted it for a reunion picture. He says silk 48-star flag with a Philadelphia quartermaster inspection stamp on it had damage on the side that isn’t attached to the flagpole.
“That’s common in silk, silk breaks, it breaks along the weave into like a box pattern and comes apart, which is probably why the flag was retired. And we suspect that’s how Rouse got it in hand,” he says. They raised funds and sent the flag to a Minneapolis company to be restored. Erickson says they did some more research and found five video interviews in the archives from members of the 133rd. “Every last one became a POW at Kasserine or Faid Pass or later in Italy. All 100 percent of the interviews we have with guys who were there at that first part of the war, they all got captured,” he says.
Erickson says they are looking for any relatives of the Ironman Brigade to talk to them about their relatives who served. “Any descendants or family of anybody with 133rd Infantry Battalion, 34th Infantry Division from the Second World War. And frankly, we would love to know these family or descendants of their veterans, even if their particular veteran was not there on the first day. I mean, any point. I mean, my gosh, those units sustained casualties in Italy that are unthinkable today, unthinkable,”Erickson says.
He says they are going to do some fundraising to create an exhibit for the newly refurbished flag and want to use information from the families in that exhibit.
