Korean War
So Minnesota: Princeton Boys
It’s an old film that went unseen for decades and was nearly lost.
The film from 1951 called Princeton Boys captures members of the Minnesota National Guard heading off to basic training and the Korean War.
The film was mailed to Barry Schreiber at Millie Lacs County Historical Society in Princeton, who had the film developed.
“I felt the weight of historic responsibility to do something with this,” Schreiber said. “It is just a fabulous window on Minnesota life and American life at the time. It was 70 years old and didn’t have much more shelf life left. I knew if we didn’t do something soon and we put it on a shelf, and it wasn’t looked after until 10 or 20 years from now it may have been lost.”
On that day, hundreds in town came out to send off the Princeton Boys with a parade. They wished them well at the depot.
Before leaving, the owner of the Strand Movie Theater in Princeton gave a guard member a camera and rolls of film to capture the group leaving and going through basic training at Camp Rucker in Alabama. The film provides a wonderful window into everyday life in basic training from work to play and serves as a time capsule of our past.
“It was a time machine,” Schreiber said. “It was being transported back to small town America on a very important day.”
KSTP
Korea became a new ball game when the Chinese Communists entered the war in November 1950. In response, US draft calls were stepped up, impending discharges were cancelled and reserve forces throughout the US were mobilized.
The Army Guard. The 47th "Viking" Division, composed mostly of Minnesotans, received word of its two-year mobilization in December 1950. By late January 1951, 9,000 Vikings found themselves at Camp Rucker, Alabama, where they trained new draftees. The 47th was eventually named as a replacement division and split up, its men reassigned individually or by unit to other Regular Army commands in the US, West Germany and Korea. The division in the meantime was kept at nearly full strength with Army recruits who replaced those who transferred out. Memorable training experiences for the division included such maneuvers as Operation Longhorn held in Texas, and participation in a Nevada atomic bomb test by Company C, 135th Infantry.
The Air Guard. Minnesota's Air National Guard was mobilized for 21 months in March 1951. The two Fighter Interceptor Squadrons, the 109th from St. Paul and the 179th from Duluth, were stationed at Minneapolis-St. Paul, but many individuals were reassigned elsewhere. Some found their way to "Mig Alley" in Korea.