Monday, July 19, 2004 11:31 AM CDT
From Iwo Jima to Vietnam, 13 Wilhelm boys served their country
By HUEY FREEMAN, Staff Writer
DECATUR -- In the summer of 1936, the leading newsreel story at the nation's movie theaters was the nomination of Franklin Roosevelt for a second term in the White House.
The second story was about an unusual family in rural Sullivan.
"It's a boy," famed announcer Lowell Thomas told the moviegoers. "That's what Mr. and Mrs. George Wilhelm heard on 13 separate occasions."
On cue, the 13 boys, dressed in their best clothes, marched or were carried double-file out the front door of the two-story clapboard house, directly toward the camera.
"They range in age from 10 months to 21 years," Thomas said.
While "Movietone News" crew members recognized the singular accomplishment of the Wilhelms -- who would have one more boy before their only daughter was born -- they did not know the family would distinguish itself in another way.
Thirteen of the Wilhelm boys, all that reached adulthood, would serve in the U.S. armed forces.
Seven served during World War II. One fought in the Korean War, one in Vietnam, and the others served during peace time.
Charles Wilhelm of Decatur, 68, a former Marine and the last family member to join the military, said he does not consider his family more patriotic than other families. During all of their service years, the draft was in effect for able-bodied men without special exemptions.
"All 13 of us were subject to the draft," said Charles Wilhelm, one of the six children who are alive today. "We all passed the physical. That was in our favor, or in Uncle Sam's favor."
Gene, the only male who did not serve, died of an unknown ailment when he was 3 years old, in 1936.
Charles Wilhelm, who is working on a book on his family's military history, has been trying to ascertain if his family holds a record for most family members in the military.
The results of his extensive research are inconclusive, but he has found no record of any family since World War I sending as many of its offspring to the military as the Wilhelms. The Associated Press reported that a Chicago woman had 11 sons who served in World War II.
Charles Wilhelm also believes his family could hold the world record for consecutive births of one gender. The Guinness Book of World Records does not contain that statistic, but lists a Russian woman in the 18th century as the most prolific, with 69 children, all multiple births.
Of the Wilhelm boys who served in World War II, just two remain: Ray, a B-24 bomber pilot in the Pacific, and Dennis, a Marine machine-gunner whose battles included Iwo Jima.
Ray, the oldest brother, was a pilot who flew bombing missions in Borneo. Carl, the first to enter the service, was a sharpshooter who fought at Guadalcanal. Arnold was a mechanic who served at the front lines in North Africa and Italy.
Edgar, the most decorated brother, with a Bronze Star, Distinguished Service Cross and Purple Heart, was an infantryman who fought at the Battle of the Bulge. Lloyd, the only brother to join the Navy, served in the Pacific aboard a ship that was torpedoed, with one-third of it sinking.
Albert was a teenager when he joined the Army just before the war ended, training as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division.
Charles, a young boy during the war, recalls that his mother, Iva, was almost to the point of grief at many times while her sons served overseas.
"It would be weeks and sometimes months before she heard from them," he recalled. "She knew what battles they were in and what was happening in those battles. She had a lot to worry about."
The boys' father, George, a farmhand, rarely showed any emotion, Charles said.
Dennis Wilhelm, 87, sits on the porch of the north side Decatur house he has lived in for the past 35 years. He is grieving from the recent loss of his wife of 65 years, Clara, who died June 29.
He recalled that when he received his draft notice early in 1944, he was married with two children, working as an inspector for Mueller Co., then an ammunition maker.
He volunteered for the Marine Corps and was sent to the Pacific after basic and advanced training. He arrived in Guam in October or November.
"The Japanese had surrendered, but they were thick in the jungle," he recalled. "We had to make several sweeps to clean them out."
In February 1945, he boarded a ship to join the invasion of Iwo Jima, an eight-square-mile Japanese island defended by 21,000 troops, commanded to defend and die, hidden in underground bunkers and tunnels.
Dennis Wilhelm, then 27, could not believe the sight of 880 ships around him, in the armada heading for Iwo Jima, which contained three airstrips that had been used for kamikaze attacks against Americans.
"Planes kept bombing the island," he recalled. "They kept bombing Mount Suribachi."
Dennis Wilhelm was in the Marines' 3rd Division, the last of the three divisions to land on the black, volcanic sand.
"We went to take over an airport that we needed real bad," he said of the airstrip north of Suribachi, the high point of the island famous for the Marine flag-raising during the campaign. "We got it done, even if we did lose 50 percent of the people doing it."
Through the years, Dennis Wilhelm has repeatedly declined to talk about the details of his service on Iwo Jima, because it is so painful to him.
"I lost a lot of friends in my division," he said, adding he knew some of them all the way from boot camp to Iwo. "It was so brutal."
More than 6,800 Americans were killed in 36 days of fighting, most of them Marines.
After Iwo, Dennis Wilhelm returned to Guam, where he met up with younger brother Lloyd, the sailor.
"I stayed with him all night in his little landing craft," he said.
Their oldest brother, Ray Wilhelm, 88, still works part time, as a janitor at a Sullivan auto dealership.
He was working as an auto mechanic when he was drafted into the Army in July 1941, five months before the United States entered the war. He signed on with the Army Air Corps as an aircraft mechanic, and was stationed at Chanute Field in Rantoul.
Ray Wilhelm preferred to see the rest of the war from a cockpit, so he applied to flight school, earning his wings the same day he married 19-year-old Wilma Crane, a young lady he became acquainted with at her church near Sullivan. The couple recently celebrated their 61st anniversary.
During the war, Ray Wilhelm guided his B-24 on three bombing missions, targeting a Japanese oil depot near New Guinea.
"We went over every other day and destroyed it," he said.
While overseas, he kept up on the exploits of his brothers through letters from his mother, which he received "pretty regularly."
Just before the war began, the Wilhelm family welcomed its last child and first girl, Beverly.
Beverly Wilhelm Maddox, 65, said that when Ray returned from the war, she did not know who he was. The seasoned veteran told her: My mommy is your mommy and I'm your brother.
"I cried," Maddox recalled. "I didn't like that answer at all."
She said having so many older brothers made her feel different, but not out of place. Her friends laughed at how her brothers were the same age as their fathers.
"It just seemed like I was always that girl who had all those brothers," she said. "That's the way I am still introduced."
As she grew up, there were constant reminders that her family was different.
"When the younger ones went in the service, there were write-ups about it," she said.
When Ray Wilhelm was finishing his tour in the service, he was thankful when he heard that all his brothers had made it through the war safely.
"That was a miracle," he said.
Contact Huey Freeman at hfreeman@herald-review.com or 421-6985.
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