He died last year at age 96; service is Saturday
By Dennis West
When NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw coined the term “The Greatest Generation” to describe Americans who grew up during the Depression and helped to win World War II, he might have had Delavan resident Harry E. Larsen in mind.
Larsen was born Oct. 22, 1923, died on May 12, 2020 at age 96. His parents, Charles and Cornelia Halverson Larsen, were natives of Norway who came to the U.S. and worked various farms in the Walworth County area on shares to support a family of five sons and five daughters.
In 1931, Harry’s father contracted tuberculosis and was placed in a sanitarium. Some of the children – including Harry – were placed on foster farms. Harry attended the former rural Jackson school south of Elkhorn through eighth grade, at which time his education ended.
During the Depression, he worked as a hired hand on various area farms. In 1938, he got a job as a stock chaser at the G.W. Borg plant in Delavan. His pay was 35 cents an hour. He remained at Borg for five years and was eventually promoted to mechanism regulator. At the time the plant was making time fuses for military explosives.
In March 1943, he was inducted into the U.S. Army. After a brief stop at Camp Grant in Rockford, Ill., he was sent to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where the 106th Infantry Division was being formed. His proficiency on an aptitude test and the rifle range earned him an immediate promotion to Staff Sgt. and platoon leader.
In the early fall of 1944, Larsen was assigned to the 423rd Regiment of the 106th when it left from the east coast aboard the converted luxury liner, Queen Elizabeth, for an uneventful voyage to England. D-Day had taken place in June. Harry’s unit crossed the English Channel in Early December, landing near LeHavre, France and later assumed a position near the Luxembourg-Belgium border.
Prisoner of war
On Dec. 16, three German armies initiated a fierce attack that became known as the “Battle of the Bulge.” During the battle Harry received fragmentary wounds to an arm and leg from enemy mortar fire. In the turmoil, his company became separated from the rest of the division. Surrounded by German troops and completely cut off from any relief, they received orders to destroy their weapons and surrender.
Although the Germans didn’t mistreat their prisoners, they forced them to march for four days in bitter cold weather to a railroad junction where they were packed into boxcars – 60 men to a car – for a long trip to Stalag 9A prison camp where more than 300 POWs were jammed into one-story wood and tarpaper barracks with only one cold water tap and a small stove that heated the barracks for about one hour a day. Every building was infested with bedbugs, fleas, lice and other vermin.
Not surprisingly, food was of poor quality and quantity, chiefly small portions of horsemeat and a soup made from putrid greens. No eating utensils were provided and the prisoners ate out of their helmets or old tin cans. Larsen was frequently sent out on work details, usually to clean up debris following Allied air raids. The prisoners experienced some close calls during air raids by British and American aircraft.
Larsen said that although the POWs’ food rations left much to be desired, the Germans didn’t fare much better. As the Allied offense drove into Germany, the prisoners were moved to another camp. By now most of them were suffering from malnutrition and many had dysentery, influenza and bronchitis. Medical facilities were very limited and Red Cross parcels didn’t arrive until just prior to liberation.
Toward the end of the war, most of the German guards at POW camps were men 65 and older who had been hurriedly recruited from the civilian ranks. Many were sympathetic to the plight of the prisoners and smuggled food to them. Larsen’s weight dropped from 172 to 90 pounds while he was a POW.
On April 1, 1945, Larsen’s prison camp was liberated by a tank unit under the command of Gen. George Patton. The POWs remained at the camp for some weeks while they regained their strength.
Returning to the U.S., Larsen was assigned to MP duty as a traffic director at Miami Beach, Fla., and then transferred to Camp McCoy, Wis., where he was discharged in November, 1945. During his years in the service, Larsen received a Purple Heart, Bronze Star, POW badge, two Battle Stars, a WWII Victory Medal, Good Conduct Medal and Expert Rifleman Award.
His heroics continued
Back in Delavan, Larsen drove a taxi for two years before forming a partnership with his brother-in-law, James Scheurell, to purchase the Cities Service gas station at Fourth and Walworth.
Harry and his partner’s sister, Joyce Scheurell, were married at St. Andrew’s Catholic Church on Oct. 27, 1949.
Between 1950 and 1957, Larsen and Scheurell also operated nine radio-dispatched cabs from the station.
In 1957, the partners sold the station. That same year, Larsen joined the Delavan Police Department as a patrolman at a monthly salary of $300. At the time the department consisted of Chief Walter Dineen and six officers.
Over the ensuing years, Larsen completed police training courses offered by the FBI and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He also completed a course in juvenile work and later served as Delavan’s juvenile officer.
In 1964 he attained the rank of sergeant. On April 1, 1966, following Dineen’s retirement, Larsen was appointed Delavan police chief. He served in that capacity until 1975 when he resigned to accept the department’s newly created position of technical services director. He retired three years later in 1978. He was a member of the Delavan Police and Fire and Commission and a 73-year member of Delavan American Legion Post 95.
Larsen said the most memorable event in a long career occurred in 1962 when he was instrumental in saving the lives of two boys, ages 5 and 7.
On June 21, the first day of summer, Jimmy Hohl, 7, and his best friend, Mike Golder, 5, set out to find an adventure. Unfortunately, they found more excitement than they bargained for.
As they prowled the neighborhood, they spotted a small trunk behind the American Legion Post. Thinking they had found a treasure, they opened the trunk. When they discovered it was empty, they did what any red-blooded American lads would do; they climbed inside. Sitting knee-to-knee, they tried three times to close the lid. Finally the top latched, trapping the boys in what nearly became their coffin.
Larsen was working the 3 to 11 p.m. shift as a juvenile officer. He and his partner, Frank Stirmel, received the missing persons call at about 5:30 p.m. The two officers searched all of the places they thought might attract two boys, with no luck.
It was just a week earlier that Larsen had helped to remove the bodies of eight-year-old twin boys who had drowned in Delavan Lake. He was desperately hoping for a happier ending this time.
As time passed with no result, Larsen enlisted the help of anyone he could. A 100-person search party consisting of Boy Scouts, dogs and nearly every member of the Delavan and Elkhorn police departments and the Jefferson and Walworth County Sheriffs departments combed the Delavan area.
By 7 p.m., the boys had been locked inside the trunk for four hours. Their only source of oxygen was a keyhole. Hot, exhausted and terribly cramped, the boys screamed and pounded. When Jimmy finally lost consciousness, Mike worked on the lock by himself.
When the boys hadn’t been found by 11:30 p.m., the search was suspended for the night. Unable to bring himself to go home, Larsen decided to take one more look around the Second Street area. At about midnight he walked down an alley by the Sykes Used Car lot.
Then he heard a faint whimper.
He turned around saw the trunk and uttered an oath. He feared he was too late. Too shaken to immediately open the trunk, he called to his partner, Frank Stirmel, who was about a block away. Then he announced over the police radio that the boys had been found.
Stirmel was the one who finally got the trunk open. Larsen put the boys on stretchers and rushed them to an ambulance waiting across the street outside what is now Phoenix Park. Both boys recovered from their nine-hour ordeal and became celebrities. Newspaper accounts of their ordeal appeared across the state, along with photos of the lads and their rescuers.
Larsen is survived by his wife of 70 years, Joyce; two sons, Steven (Maribeth) Larsen, of Rockford and Daniel (Joanne) Larsen, of Delavan; a daughter, Patricia (Jason) Cain, of Darien; six grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews.
He was proceeded in death by his parents; a son, Thomas; a grandson, Xavier; and eight brothers and sisters.
The memorial service that was delayed because of the COVID pandemic will be held at 11:30 a.m. Saturday, June 12, 2021, in St. Andrews Catholic Church, Delavan.
Monroe Funeral Home in Delavan is assisting the family.
