‘A very significant part of his service’

Rhinelander’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3143 was the site for a special event on Oct. 24. 

World War II veteran Erwin, or Erv, Kuhn was honored with a party for his 100th birthday.

“My dad was actually born in Russia but I’m glad they didn’t have birthright citizenship because we’re not Russian,” Steve Kuhn said. “We’re German.”

World War II veteran Erwin “Erv” Kuhn cuts the birthday cake during his 100th birthday celebration at Rhinelander’s VFW Post 3143 on Oct. 24. (Contributed photograph)

Steve Kuhn is Erv’s son and he explained his father’s mother and father, with their family in Canada after immigrating there, moved to the Lansing, Mich. area. 

“That’s where dad grew up,” Steve Kuhn said. 

Erv Kuhn graduated from Eastern High School in Lansing in 1943 and his son said he “immediately enrolled in a secretarial school.”

“He learned typing and shorthand and those types of skills,” Steve Kuhn said. “It was later that year, just before Christmas, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Ft. Sheridan in Illinois and then Camp Grant, Ill., which is, I think, the place from which he was deployed.”

Erv was ultimately assigned to the U.S. First Army’s Advance Section of the Communications Zone (ADSEC) a military logistics unit which was the farthest forward supply unit in the U.S. Army’s European Theater of Operations.

The ADSEC moved forward with army units but behind them to provide close support to soldiers at the front lines. 

“I know one thing that he says made a difference in his future was when he was in England and people would take turns guarding prisoners brought from France to England,” Steve Kuhn said. “One of the guys that was supposed to take this particular duty was sick so dad volunteered, he said.”

Erwin and Bette Kuhn on their wedding day in 1948.
(Contributed photograph)It was during Erv’s time guarding prisoners that the last major German offensive of the war in western Europe, which became known as “The Battle of The Bulge,” began on Dec. 16, 1944 as German armor and infantry hit thinly manned American lines in Belgium’s Ardennes Forest. 

“They needed support,” Steve Kuhn said. “So, everyone in that particular office was sent to the front lines. If he had been in the office at that moment instead of guarding prisoners, he would have been sent to the front lines, too.”

He took a moment.

“At times I think by the grace of God I’m here at all,” Steve Kuhn said, thinking about what might not have been had his father been killed during war. 

“That was a very significant part of his service there that sort of changed our family history,” he said. “Dad’s told me that he never saw a lot of his friends he had served with again, people he worked with. That was hard.”

After the war, Erv was discharged from the Army in May, 1946, and returned to Lansing where he began a 28 year career as an engineer with Diamond T trucks which later, became Diamond Reo.

He had the opportunity to retire from the company at 30 years but it went bankrupt. Steve said his dad lost a “pretty good pension he thought he was building all those years.”

“He struggled a lot with that but then he got a job as an industrial engineer with Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee and worked there for nine years,” Steve said. 

Erv was 59 years old in 1984 when he had heart bypass surgery. 

“He almost died,” Steve said. “I think it’s because all the stress of all the different jobs he had.”

 Erv married his wife, Bette, on June 19, 1948. 

“They were married a little over 70 years,” Steve said of his parents. “One of the ‘old school’ couples who actually stayed together.”

Steve’s mom died in 2019. 

The couple had two children, Steve and Mari Anne, who lives in Virginia. 

After his mom died, Steve and his wife brought his dad to Rhinelander from southern Wisconsin to live with them. 

Steve said he feels his dad was a good dad. 

“He would never raise his voice,” he said. “I would say he was firm but gentle. He spent time playing catch and doing other things. He was actually a very good dad.”

At the birthday party, Erv was honored with a 21 gun salute, happy birthday played on bagpipes and he was named an honorary member of the Northwoods Honor Guard. 

“It went very well,” Steve said. 

Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].