Wisconsin Veterans Museum

Robert Paulson of Excelsior, Wisconsin, carried this musette bag as part of his kit while serving in Europe with the 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Division, as part of an anti-tank squad. Paulson enlisted in 1940 while in the Civilian Conservation Corps and was stationed initially in Iceland before crossing the English Channel on D-Day Plus One and participating in the Invasion of Normandy.

While fighting in Normandy, he and his squad robbed a French bank, blowing the vault open with their bazooka. He stuffed this bag full of French francs, which he slowly mailed back in portions as “poker winnings,” later using some to buy a car. Paulson was wounded when a German mortar shell struck a house he was taking cover in. He awoke from amnesia two weeks later in a hospital in Luxembourg, with money still in his bag.

Paulson was present at Buchenwald very shortly after its liberation. In 1945, he was stationed in Paris and later Reims as part of a car company. According to his oral history, Paulson drove German Generaloberst Alfred Jodl to the preliminary German surrender to Eisenhower. When Jodl asked him how he liked Germany, he reportedly responded “well, it was probably pretty nice until we blew it up.”

Paulson’s oral history can be found here: https://wisvetsmuseum.catalogaccess.com/archives/53071

75 years ago today, in 1951, UN and Communist negotiators met to open armistice negotiations to end the Korean War. Many issues proved contentious, and even setting an agenda took many weeks. Ultimately, the negotiators decided to specify a demilitarized zone (DMZ) across Korea, rules for force management, repatriation of prisoners of war, and recommendations for a peace conference to be held within 90 days.

During the negotiations, the battle lines remained largely static. Elderon’s John Breske, serving the in 1st Marine Regiment, recalled what it was like: “There were a lot of trench lines, and the MLR, the main line of resistance, was a trench line pretty much all the way across Korea. There were bunkers so that you could take artillery and mortars. I think the biggest thing where I saw most of the combat was on the outposts. They were somewhere half a mile out in front of the main line. That’s where we spent most of our time. There were a lot of them.”

The armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. A peace treaty have never been concluded, meaning the war is technically still going on.

(Images of the negotiation tent and US delegation from US Army and US Navy, respectively.)