John James “Jack” Ginzl

John James Ginzl was born December 6, 1917, in Winchester, to Joseph, Sr. and Mary Ginzl. John was the youngest of seven children and was the younger twin brother of Joseph, Jr.

John was raised in Rhinelander and graduated from Rhinelander High School in 1936. During high school John was on the football and basketball teams (the basketball team won the Wisconsin Valley Conference his senior year) and he participated in the Booster and Hi-Y clubs.

After high school, John worked at the Rhinelander Paper Mill. He entered the service at Chanute Field, Ill., on July 19, 1940, and was a member of the 17th Bombardment Squadron, 27th Bombardment Group, stationed in the Philippines at the time of U.S. entry into World War II. According to the “Ripco Ripples” paper mill newsletter of August 1945, John was the first paper mill employee to enter military service in World War II.

The personnel of the 27th Bombardment Group participated in ground combat on the Bataan peninsula. The Filipino-American defenders of Bataan held out for over three months despite a lack of food, medicine, and ammunition. Due to the dire situation, and because their aircraft never arrived, on April 9, 1942, the sick, starving troops surrendered to the Japanese. Many of the men were subjected to the 65-mile “Bataan Death March” into captivity. Corporal Ginzl was among those who survived the Bataan Death March.

As World War II progressed, the Japanese increasingly attempted to send Allied prisoners of war back to Japan for use as slave laborers. They packed prisoners into what are now known as “hell ships” that were unmarked and did not indicate the vessels as carrying prisoners of war. As a result, Allied aircraft attacked these vessels, resulting in the sinking of several of these vessels and the deaths of thousands of prisoners.

Corporal Ginzl is believed to have been among the survivors on one of these “hellships,” the Oryoku Maru, that was bombed on December 13,1944.

On December 27, 1944, the prisoners boarded the Enoura Maru and the Brazil Maru to continue the journey to Japan. During this journey prisoners also perished due to the conditions aboard the ships, with some of these casualties turned over to local authorities at Takao, Formosa, where they were buried in a local cemetery. On January 9, 1945, while docked at Takao, the Enoura Maru endured an attack from U.S. aircraft. Corporal Ginzl is believed to have died on January 9, 1945. The Japanese allowed survivors to bury the dead in mass graves on shore.

The American Graves Registration Service (AGRS) had recovered a collection of 407 remains from mass graves around Takao in May and June 1946. These sets of remains were then separated into group caskets, each of which contained 10 purported individuals. The remains were sent to the AGRS China Zone Remains Depot in Shanghai for attempts at identification, and subsequently to Mausoleum 2 at Schofield Barracks, in the Territory of Hawaii. The unknowns were then interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific (the Punchbowl) in Honolulu, Hawaii. Through the dedicated work of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and advances in forensic science and DNA analysis, the remains of Corporal John J. Ginzl were accounted for in June of 2025, finally allowing him to be brought home.

Allied Forces surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, 1942, and the last report for Corporal Ginzl was made on January 9, 1945. Based on these two reports, he was imprisoned for at least 1,006 days, one of the longest durations recorded.

Please note that most of this obituary is documentation provided by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. This documentation has been invaluable in allowing us to understand what John Ginzl endured during his time in the service to our country.

For his service Corporal Ginzl received the following medals:

For heroic actions in the face of the enemy

• Bronze Star medal

• Purple Heart

Recognition of Service and Sacrifice

• Prisoner of War (POW) medal

• Army Good Conduct medal

• Presidential Unit Citation with 2 Bronze Oak Leaf Clusters

Campaign and service medals

• American Defense Service medal with Foreign Service Clasp

• Asiatic-Pacific Campaign medal with 1 Bronze Service Star

• World War II Victory medal

• Philippine Defense Ribbon with 1 Bronze Service Star

A Final Honor:

• Honorable Service lapel button WWII

Corporal Ginzl’s name is permanently inscribed on the Walls of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines and on the monument at the Rhinelander courthouse that is “dedicated to the men and women of Oneida County who served and especially to those that gave their lives so that we could be free.”

At the time of his death, his surviving family members were his maternal grandmother, Mary Kettner, his parents, Joseph, Sr. and Mary Ginzl, brother Edward and his children Edward, Kenneth and Elaine, brother Wesley and his children Richard, Thomas and Harry, and twin brother Joseph and sisters Alice, Wilma and Forrest. Nieces and nephews born posthumously were Bruce and Ginger, son and daughter of Wesley, Mary and Ann Marie, daughters of Forrest, and Gary (Ron), son of Joseph, Jr.

Visitation will be held from noon to 1:45 p.m. at Rhinelander High School on Sunday, May 24, followed by a full military honors memorial service. Graveside services will be held at Forest Home Cemetery in Rhinelander. Hildebrand Funeral Home is overseeing all arrangements necessary to bring John Ginzl home.

In lieu of flowers, the family would like donations to go to the Hodag Schools Foundation, 665 Coolidge Avenue, Rhinelander, WI 54501.