Courtesy Photo | This is a photo from the mid-1950s taken at then-Camp McCoy, Wis., by former Sgt....... read more read more
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In June 2025, Linda (Wendel) Dehaven contacted the Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office by email to discuss some old photos she found taken by her father while serving in the Army at then-Camp McCoy, Wis.
The photos and the time her father served were during the 1950s. Her father, former Sgt. Donald Wendel with the 110th Engineer Battalion of the Missouri National Guard, served within the Army engineer field during his entire service in the National Guard.
“My dad was a lifelong Missouri resident,” Dehaven said. “He was born in Raytown, Mo. Then bought the family farm in 1952. He owned and operated Wendel Dairy Farm his whole life. My dad passed away in 1990, he was 55. He died from an aneurysm.
“He had four children, Bill, Bob, me, and Mary,” Dehaven said.
The photos were donated by Dehaven and the Wendel family to Fort McCoy to be included in the installation’s historical archives, which are located within the Fort McCoy History Center at the Fort McCoy Commemorative Area.
According to history, operations at Camp McCoy in the 1950s included wartime training mobilization operations at the post from 1950-52 for the Korean War. This mobilization training, which is something the installation still supports today, was similar to the Camp McCoy training operations held during World War II.
During the rest of the 1950s, Camp McCoy was a key training center for Guard and Reserve troops to complete their weekend and annual training duties — also something the post still supports significantly to this day.
When she was initially looking to donate the 20 black and white photographs, Dehaven emailed some scanned versions of them. In the email she said, “My mother recently passed away, and I have been going through her photos. I have found several photos of Camp McCoy. I was wondering if you would like to have them. My dad was stationed there while in the National Guard.”
After the installation noted they would accept them, she mailed them to the post from her home in Wamego, Kansas.
One of the photos shows her father in full uniform at the post. Others show where he may have been working in a motor pool near a training area.
Photos also show Army vehicles and equipment to include trucks, a Jeep, tracked vehicles, and even helicopters. The helicopter photos, though not mentioned anywhere on the photos, appear closely to resemble the Bell R-13B. But they also could be the H-13 Sioux or the H023 Raven. All were used significantly by the Army in the 1950s.
In the 1950s, helicopters were still a relatively new concept for military training. Army history shows that helicopters showed their worth especially during the Korean War.
“The Army helicopters initially deployed to Korea were the Bell H-13 Sioux and the Hiller H-23 Raven, the first in a long line of Army helicopters named for Native American tribes,” states a 2016 article by Dr. Kaylene Hughes at https://www.army.mil/article/177302/army_helicopters_in_korea_1950_to_53.
“The service had acquired the Sioux in 1946 but had just 56 in its inventory when North Korea invaded the south in June 1950,” the article states. “Dubbed the ‘Angel of Mercy’ by Soldiers on the battlefront, the aviators used the H-13 to transport 18,000 of the war’s total 23,000 casualties to forward deployed mobile Army surgical hospitals.”
The dates of the donated photos may be tied to two letters Dehaven shared in her doing research. One letter shows Wendel had mailed home from Camp McCoy in July 1954. And a second letter shows it being mailed home to Missouri from Camp McCoy in August 1955.
In any case, Fort McCoy’s photo archives from the mid-1950s have significantly less photos than other eras in the post’s 110-year-plus existence, so they are a welcome addition.
“Thank you so much for taking these pictures,” Dehaven wrote in a letter enclosed with the photos. “I didn’t want to throw them away. I love history.”
For more information about Fort McCoy history, stop by the Fort McCoy History Center during open hours or contact the Fort McCoy Public Affairs Office for a special visit.
Fort McCoy history is also highlighted in every monthly issue of The Real McCoy — Fort McCoy’s official newspaper — in the “This Month in Fort McCoy History” column. See past editions at https://www.dvidshub.net/publication/1002/the-real-mccoy.
Learn more about Army history by visiting the Army Center for Military History at https://history.army.mil.
And learn more about Wisconsin’s history by visiting the Wisconsin Historical Society at https://www.wisconsinhistory.org.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
| Date Taken: | 08.05.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 08.05.2025 14:03 |
| Story ID: | 544803 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 163 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Family donates 1950s-era photos to Fort McCoy father had from training at then-Camp McCoy, by Scott Sturkol, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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