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Remember...George Lewis Winkler
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The story of George Lewis ("Rip") Winkler is a prime example of the length to which a family will go to identify the remains of their fallen loved one, provide a respectful burial, and tell his story. Winkler's family's odyssey is perhaps best told in a CBS news report aired on July 16, 2014. It tells of his sister's intense preoccupation of dealing with the Pentagon bureaucracy and ultimately getting her brother buried at Arlington National Cemetery, where she believed he rightly belonged. Mickey Beard felt that many World War II families were all but forgotten. She pointed to the fact that the government held annual meetings for families of those killed in Korea or Vietnam, but none for World War II families. Consequently, this determined family member took it upon herself not only to find out what exactly happened to her brother's remains but also to push for greater accountability for other families. (Chip Reid, "Some Troops Killed in WWII Still Haven't Been Brought Home," CBS News, 16 July 2014, accessed 7 January 2020, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/veterans-killed-in-wwii-have-still-not-been-brought-home/.)
| Rip's story begins in Huntington, Cabell County, West Virginia, where on April 23, 1921, he was born to Russell King Winkler, a pharmacist, and Elizabeth Ann Forman, a telephone operator. His mother would marry again later to Russell Boster. Rip's siblings included a brother, Russell Marion "Buddy" Winkler, and half-siblings Charles Owen Boster and Mary "Mickey" Boster Beard. |
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 Iris Winkler and son Lance. George L. Winkler and Mary Boster Beard Collection, West Virginia State Archives, Ms2019-086. |
Rip graduated from high school in Huntington. The 1940 Federal Census indicates that he was a salesman. On November 6, 1940, he married Iris Louise Wishon, an artist, and they had a son, Lance, who was born after his father left for service and never got to know his father. When Rip registered for the draft on February 16, 1942, he indicated he was employed by the International Nickel Company in Huntington. According to the current website for the Special Metals Corporation (which evolved from International Nickel), "The Huntington Alloys works in Huntington, West Virginia began in 1922 as a processing mill for nickel alloys melted at the Orford Works of the International Nickel Company in Constable Hook (near Bayonne), New Jersey. Eventually melting operations were added to the Huntington works and it became a fully integrated nickel alloy processing mill. Research and development became a key component of the Huntington operation." ("SMC-History: Huntington, West Virginia," PCC Forged Products, 2018, accessed 9 January 2019, http://www.pccforgedproducts.com/brands/special_metals/about_us/history/.) |
Upon induction into the U.S. Army, George Lewis Winkler was assigned to the 100th Bomber Squadron, 42nd Bombardment Group, 13th Air Force, and rose to the rank of staff sergeant. He was killed in action at Cebu in the Philippines on April 4, 1945. Briefly, here's a description of the incident and its aftermath:
On April 3, 1945, Captain Leonard E. Orcott and his crew took off from Puerto Princesa Airfield in their B-25J Mitchell bomber on a combat mission. Pilot Orcutt's crew consisted of co-pilot 2nd Lt. Robert S. Emerson, Norway, Maine; navigator Lt. Harry L. Bedard, Minneapolis, Minnesota; engineer S/Sgt. George L. Winkler, Huntington, West Virginia; gunner Sgt. Willis W. Ehrhardt of California; and radioman T/Sgt. Louis H. Miller, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The pilot of another aircraft in the flight reported seeing Orcutt's plane stall out and crash about one mile northeast of the village of Consolacion in a swampy area. While it was initially believed there were no survivors, the next day, Filipinos found Ehrhardt alive, but he died soon after from injuries.In early 1947, personnel from the Army's Graves Registration Service (AGRS) recovered the remains of five crewmen from the crash site and buried them as unknowns in a common grave at Leyte, Philippines. In 1949, the remains were disinterred and transported to the AGRS mausoleum in Manila. April 1949 records state the remains could not be individually identified. As a group, they were then transported to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in Missouri and buried together in one site.
This might have been the end of the story, had it not been for the persistence of Rip's family and emerging technologies. But from 1951 through 1953 additional remains were recovered, including some identification tags. According to the Pacific Wrecks website, "During 2001, Mickey Beard (sister of Winkler) contacted the U.S. Army about the additional remains found in the 1950s. In 2008, the U.S. Army then disinterred the group remains at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. The remains were transported to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Oahu, Hawaii for forensic identification." (Summarized from "B-25J-20 Mitchell Serial Number 44-29760," Pacific Wrecks, 10 August 2019, accessed 27 November 2019, https://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/b-25/44-29760.html.)
| Mickey Beard's quest was relentless. In 2007, writing in the Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail ("Cold Case," 6 May 2007), Tara Tuckwiller provides additional detail in the saga of the remains of George Lewis Winkler. Mickey was only eight years old when her two big brothers left West Virginia to fight in World War II. Her other brother Russell ("Buddy") lived in Charleston with his father, and he returned from the war. Rip, on the other hand, lived with the Bosters in Huntington, and she retained memories of a childhood growing up with admiration for him. In the Tuckwiller interview, Mickey remembers Rip buying a wringer washer for their mother's birthday, and his wheeling it into the dining room with a big ribbon around it with the little sister in one of the tubs. Tuckwiller writes:
After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, both young [Winkler] men joined the Army as soon as possible. Both were sent to lay the groundwork for the invasion of Japan: Russell in the frozen Aleutian Islands of Alaska, and Rip with the Air Corps to the swampy jungles of the Philippines. . . . |
 B-25J 44-29760 IN FLIGHT, c. 1945. Courtesy USAAF, 13th AF, 42nd BG, 100th BS via Mickey Beard |
Over the years, Mickey Beard's quest was relentless. The next chapter in the story moves to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis. As she worked through her brother's odyssey, she was skeptical that her brother's remains were among those in Missouri, especially when she found a document that indicated that they might have been sent to the San Francisco Port of Embarkation. At the time of the Tuckwiller article, JPAC indicated it had about 1,000 cases open at any given time, but the case of George Lewis Winkler was not one of them; officially, his case was considered "resolved." Mickey Beard did manage to get a headstone placed at Arlington National Cemetery in 2003 with the notation that the location of the remains was still unknown.
 Headstone for S/Sgt. George L. Winkler. Courtesy Arlington National Cemetery |
Still, Mickey Beard was not satisfied. According to a proclamation by West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin: "Following years of effort and research by the family of Staff Sergeant Winkler and others, the United States Army exhumed the remains found in Nineteen Hundred Forty-Seven, along with additional remains discovered at the site [in the Philippines] in Nineteen Hundred Fifty-One, and final identification of five airmen of the Jungle Air Force was made in December, Two Thousand Ten, in Hawaii." In May 2011, Mickey Beard received official word from the U.S. Army that George Lewis Winkler was entitled to the following awards: the Purple Heart, the Air Medal with on Bronze Oak Leaf Cluster, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two Bronze Service Stars, the World War II Victory Medal, the Philippine Liberation Ribbon, Aerial Gunner Wings, the Honorable Service Lapel Button-World War II, and the Philippine Republic Presidential Unit Citation. He was brought home and finally laid to rest in 2011 at Arlington-where he rightfully belonged. |
According to a story Mickey wrote about her brother's family (found in the Winkler/Beard collection at West Virginia Archives), Iris Winkler did remarry. Both she and her second husband had passed away before Rip was interred at Arlington National Cemetery. At the time of the interment, Lance finally met his dad. Lance passed away in 2017.
Mickey Beard died September 16, 2019, knowing that her brother would be remembered as she wished. In the fall of that year, members of S/Sgt. George Lewis Winkler's family formally presented to the West Virginia Archives numerous materials regarding his life and the long-enduring saga of his family. Much of the material was in the form of artifacts to be housed with the State Museum. Textual materials are housed in the Archives as the George Lewis Winkler and Mary Boster Beard Collection. This brief biography cannot do justice to the methodical record-keeping of Rip's sister, and it is hoped that others will find the collection useful in their research. Thanks to the generosity of his family, we can reconstruct the story of this soldier's life, admire the dedication of his sister, and understand another piece of the tragedy that was World War II.
Article prepared by Patricia Richards McClure, with assistance from Debra Bosko and Beth Boswell, daughters of Mary "Mickey" Boster Beard
February 2020
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.
