(engines roaring) (dramatic music) (guns firing) (dramatic music) - This is a picture of the landing of Iwo Jima.

You see all those ships going in there?

There were hundreds of ships that day.

We were back here on the background, and we had bombed this island for about two weeks.

These were pictures taken from the air with our photo reconnaissance airplane.

(dramatic music) (somber music) Look at that.

Look at that mess.

For miles on that beach looked like this.

And now what they did, they took two or three volunteers from every ship that would go in there every day on a landing barge and to help clean up all this mess.

And I got the job of going in there and helping clean up this mess.

There were dead bodies laying all over in here.

American bodies, Japanese bodies.

All their equipment.

We had to identify these, and if you couldn't identify the body, it was dumped into a pit and covered up.

(somber music) (gentle music) My name is Delbert Thielke.

I was born in November 9th, 1923.

I was born a very small baby, and I was not expected to live too long.

And my mother took me home, and she had me home a few days, and then she took me to church and had me baptized, only a few days old.

And you know, at that moment, God came into my life.

(bright music) You see this clock here?

This clock is over 200 years old.

That clock belonged to my grandparents.

I think it come from Germany.

It still runs too.

My grandparents couldn't speak English, so my parents were talking German all the time.

This is all I heard was German.

And when we sat up at the table to eat, I sat in a little high chair.

I can remember this.

How many people can remember when they were babies sitting in a high chair?

And my dad, he taught me how to pray in German.

That's the first words that I learned.

(Delbert speaking in German) I got to be where I was about six years old.

There were other kids in the neighborhood that I learned English from, and that's how I learned to speak English.

(gentle music) Well, when I got to be a senior, I was a printer on our school paper.

My best friend, Myra, was the editor of this paper.

And we put out a paper every week, and I did all the printing, and nobody told me how to do it.

I would get the mimeograph sheets and put 'em on the mimeograph and print 'em off and distribute 'em.

(fanfare music) - [Reporter] On December 7th, 1941, Japan, like its infamous Axis partners, struck first and declared war afterwards.

Costly to our Navy was the loss of war vessels, airplanes, and equipment.

But more costly to Japan was the effectiveness of its foul attack in immediately unifying America in its determination to fight and win the war thrust upon it, and to win the peace that will follow.

- I had already signed up in the Navy when I was only 17 years old.

When I graduated from high school in 1942, I went in the Navy the next day.

And I said, "Myra, you know I love you so much, Myra, I wanna give you a ring.

Will you wait for me now until I get home from the service?"

And she said yes.

So I was engaged the day I left for the service.

I gotta show you what our ship looked like.

That's my ship right there.

(bright music) So there were 30 men in the division that I was assigned to, and our job was on the top of the ship to take care of the airplanes.

We loaded all the bombs, all the rockets, anything that had to do with ordinance, and I was assigned as the aviation ordinance storekeeper.

I took care of all the records.

And I would have to make a report in writing every day to the command on the ship of what we had left on our ship.

I spent 4 1/2 years on this ship as a aviation ordinanceman.

(bright music) (airplane engine roaring) (bright music) This is how they landed the airplanes.

And we would, as aircraft ordinancemen, would jump up on the wings and unload the plane's guns so that there was no ammunition in the guns, because the wings would fold up so we could move them forward so we could land more planes.

That's how we operated our carrier.

There was a plane that came in and didn't hook and hit some of the planes that were up in the forward end of the flight deck.

And you know, we had to clean this all off of the deck before we could land any more planes.

So these planes were just pushed over the side.

We couldn't save anything.

This is some of the accidents that we had.

These are all pictures now of different scenes on the ship.

This is a ship that was hit next to ours.

This was a suicide attack on the USS Sangamon.

That was just one of the ships that was hit.

(somber music) I never had any problems with the things that happened that were bad.

But you know, now, since I became a hundred, I don't sleep as good as I used to.

I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm back there loading bombs, ammunition, and I'm working all night long doing these things that I did.

(somber music) (lively music) I had no way of letting Myra know that I was coming back.

But I was discharged and I got my seabag on, and I had the address where Myra lived with some other nurses that had graduated with her from nurse's training.

She came to the door and she said, "Oh, Delbert, what are you doing here?"

Well, I says, "Myra, I'm home.

I'm discharged today."

"Oh, well, while you were gone, I found somebody else, and I wanna give you your ring back to you."

I didn't know what to say.

I stood there, and finally I thought, "Delbert, you loved her when you gave her that ring, and you still love her.

Tell her.

Tell her about it."

So I did.

I said, "Myra, I'm not taking that ring back.

You can throw it away, you can sell it, you can do whatever you want with it, but I am not taking that ring back."

When I got home here, my mom and dad were home.

They said, "Delbert, why are you crying so?"

I said, "Mom," I said, "you know, I stopped to see Myra on my way when I got off, and she said that she'd found somebody else."

I says, "I don't know what I'm doing."

I says, "I'm just, I can't think straight, but I wanna do one thing.

I wanna go over to church."

You know, I went into church, and I felt at home right away.

And I went up to the altar and I knelt down.

And I said, "Jesus, I'm sorry, Jesus, for the way I am acting."

I said, "I gotta thank you, first of all, for taking care of me now for 4 1/2 years, that I was never hurt, I was never seasick, and you took care of me for four years.

And now I come home, I don't know what I'm going to do.

All I ask is that you be with me now and give me the guidance like you have been doing."

(gentle music) So what I wanted to do, I wanted to go to art school and become a commercial artist.

And I took this to my commanding officer, and he says, "Well, Delbert, there's only one school that the VA will approve, and that's in Chicago, Illinois."

I talked to the superintendent.

She said, "Delbert, we're gonna accept you in our school, but we can't get you in here for about three months."

I thought, well, I've made my arrangements to go to school now.

What am I gonna do now?

But I had a friend in Appleton that had a hardware store, and he said, "Delbert, why don't you come down and work for me in the store?"

And it was about two weeks before Christmas, and I got a letter in the mail.

What do you suppose that letter was?

It was from Myra.

It was a very simple one-page letter.

It said, "Dear Delbert, I am sorry that I treated you the way I did when you were discharged, and I want you back."

(cheery music) This was when we were first married.

Doesn't that look like a happy couple?

See these two bookends?

These were given to me by Ms. Martinson.

One to Myra and one to me.

And she gave those to us when we were seniors in high school.

And she said, "You know, someday I think you two are gonna be together again."

And here they are.

Isn't that something?

(cheery music) Pretty soon I got my call to go to school.

We went to Chicago.

We had two suitcases and a trunk.

That was all that we owned.

I went to the school and got enrolled, and we started looking for a place to live.

And I talked to some commercial artists and they said, "Del, you're doing some nice work.

But you know, the only problem, you almost have to know someone that's in that business in order to get in with them."

And they said, "It's gonna be hard to get into that business."

I switched over to photography, and I graduated at the top of my class.

I went around looking at studios.

I couldn't find a job.

So I got a job working in a service station.

(cheery music) I got one Sunday off a month.

I said to my wife, I said, "You know, let's go to church today."

And they were having confirmation that Sunday.

After they take the pictures, the pastor said to the photographer, "You know, we've got a young person in our church today that just graduated from photography school, and he's looking for work."

Well, the photographer said, "Do you retouch?"

I said, "Yes, I retouch negatives."

He says, "I'll give you $35 a week."

Here I was making about 200-and-some dollars a week working in this station.

Look what I'd have to drop down to.

For two years I worked for this photographer.

$35 a week.

So I went to a photographer in Montevideo, and his name was Tord Knudsen, and he got to be a friend of mine.

I said, "What do you think my chances are of starting a studio in Dawson?"

That was my business start in Dawson, as all I had was that little ad.

Can you imagine that?

That's how I got my business started.

(gentle music) I told my wife, Myra, we had two children at that time, "You know, I got plans for a house that I made up when I was in high school, and I can add onto that another 15, 20 feet, and I can make a studio on there."

And that's what you see here is this building right here.

(bright music) So you see, when customers would come, they'd come into the studio.

This was the studio in here.

I built that in 1955, and I was in this building 57 years in the photography business.

But look at the shape that's in.

You can't see any wear on that.

That's how good I took care of my equipment.

(gentle music) I got seven graves that I have to decorate, and I put flowers on every one of them.

I got my wife out here and my one son.

And then I go to Lewisburg and I've got my wife's mother there and her husband.

And then I go to Appleton, and I have my second wife that's buried in Appleton.

And these are flowers I got and that I put out on the graves.

(gentle music) Isn't that quite a life that I've had?

(gentle music) (dramatic music) (bright music) - [Announcer] "Postcards" is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the Citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies.

Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails, and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

A better future starts now.

West Central Initiative empowers communities with resources, funding, and support for a thriving region.

More at wcif.org.

(upbeat music)