Tecumseh Area Historical Museum WWII history exhibit runs through mid June

“Mom, if you want to make me happy please don’t worry about me. You are the only thing in the world that matters to me; you and my family. So please try to forget about me and the war. If anything does happen to me take it like a dream. I at least will have died for something worthwhile. Until a person has been over here he don’t know what we have in the United States. In fact he will never know the meaning of the words LIBERTY and FREEDOM.” Those words were written by Pfc. Henry Walden, a 20-year-old Tecumseh man who died in Luxemburg, Germany fighting with the Third Army with Gen. George Patton during World War II and is just one of many pieces of WWII history currently at the Tecumseh Area Historical Museum on display through mid June. “Just powerful stuff for a 20-year-old kid to write that,” said Robert Elliott, local historian and Tecumseh Area Historical Museum volunteer. The exhibit, which Elliott said is about 95 percent his collection, features photos, newspaper clippings and artifacts such as complete uniforms, an M1 Garand rifle, a complete army footlocker, 44-mm artillery shells and other memorabilia. “Tecumseh Products is just exceptional with the stuff that they did during the war,” said Elliott, adding that Tecumseh Products helped produce 40-mm artillery shells and that there are letters from U.S. Navy admirals commending the work of the employees of the factory during the wartime effort. Elliott said that the idea for the exhibit came from a gentleman bringing in dozens of World War II photos from former Harrison’s gas station on the corner of M-50 and M-52. “I thought it would be kind of fitting to do this up through Memorial Day,” Elliott said. “These guys here from town, they came out of The [Great] Depression to free the rest of the world. A real patriotic town here.”There is a photo in the exhibit of then Adm. Chester W. Nimitz pinning a Navy Cross on Leon Williamson of Tecumseh. The Navy Cross is the second-highest military decoration for valor that may be awarded to a member of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, or U.S. Coast Guard.Williamson, according to Elliott, was at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, but couldn’t get a plane airborne that day. He was also at the Battle of Midway and sunk a Japanese battle ship. There’s a picture at the exhibit of Williamson with his two brothers in downtown Tecumseh. There is a “Wall of Honor” at the museum that shows the Tecumseh residents that fought and died in World War II. Lt. Jack Hammel, a 1939 Tecumseh High School graduate and class president was a 1943 graduate of West Point. He was killed in action in 1945. The Tecumseh Area Historical Museum is open on Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and is located at 302 E. Chicago Blvd., Tecumseh. For more information, call 423. 2374.

Tecumseh Herald

 

110 E. Logan St.
P.O. Box 218
Tecumseh, MI 49286
517-423-2174
800-832-6443

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