Dog tag found in Italy returned to Minnesota family 77 years after soldier vanished

A rusty scrap on the ground caught the eye of Italian farmer Rodrigo Bastoni as he was walking in March between his donkey's stable and his home near the Mediterranean coast, a path he navigates daily.

"I was thinking it was only a generic piece of metal," he said.

But when he reached down and picked it up, Bastoni realized he was holding a military dog tag. It turned out to be the ID of an American soldier named Harlan Melinsky. Despite 77 years of rust on the tag, the stamped letters of Melinsky's name were clear, as was his father's name and his hometown of Howard Lake, Minn., 45 miles west of Minneapolis.

Bastoni hopped on the internet and found a 2016 Minnesota newspaper story telling how Pfc. Melinsky had vanished after his unit came under Nazi attack near Itri on May 20, 1944. His remains were never found, but Bastoni read in the Winsted-based Herald Journal, which covers communities in Wright, McLeod and Carver counties, how Melinsky's relatives had placed a military marker in his honor at the Howard Lake Cemetery.

"This story hit my heart so much," Bastoni, 34, wrote the Herald Journal in the first of a string of e-mails, first to the newspaper, then to a niece of "Uncle Harley" — and eventually to me: "Harlan gave his life for the freedom of my country, and for my town."

Returning Melinsky's dog tag to his Minnesota relatives, Bastoni wrote me, would "give some consolation to the family."

In Cokato, Minn., nearly 5,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean from Italy, 79-year-old Margy Holm was stunned to learn that an Italian farmer had contacted her local newspaper to say he'd recovered her uncle's dog tag. Word spread quickly among her seven surviving siblings, including the oldest, Burton Horsch, who turns 90 this week in Howard Lake, and the youngest, Verla Olson, 71, of Bloomington.

"Thank you so much Rodrigo," Holm e-mailed Bastoni last month after opening her mail. "I have the tag in my hand. Mission complete. This is having a part of him back home."

In his reply, Bastoni said it brought him "pure happiness" to know they had the dog tag. "Maybe now Harlan can rest in peace a little more than before."

Bastoni credited "years after years" of wet spring weather, including heavy rain the night before his discovery, for unearthing the ID.

"I wasn't looking for anything," he said, adding: "It's a path that I walk every day," and that he was alone — "maybe with my dogs!"

Said Holm: "For some reason, we were supposed to find this. It's something we didn't have before and we'll take that."

He joined the service at 22 and had been on active duty for 17 months when he went missing. He was posthumously awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

According to a 1946 letter from a fellow soldier in his squad, Melinsky's unit descended an Italian mountain near Itri, 60 miles northwest of Naples, "when the Germans opened fire on us." As soldiers hid in a ravine, Melinsky stepped out to guard the company's right flank. But when the men regrouped at nightfall, he didn't show. Despite an extensive search, they found no trace of him. He might have been taken prisoner, though his name never appeared on POW lists.

Bastoni found the dog tag about 600 feet from the remnants of what locals say was a Nazi bunker. A Defense Department researcher has since asked Bastoni to help a team of researchers look for Melinsky's remains this fall.

"Hearing the news of the dog tag, my first thought was of my mother and how important this would be for her," said Olson, whose mother, Lillie, died in 1989 at 77 with no clues about her youngest brother's fate.

It wasn't Lillie's only heartache. Her other brother, Grant Melinsky, also served in World War II — crossing paths with Harlan in North Africa for a 1943 reunion captured in a snapshot. While Harlan was presumed dead in Italy, Grant died in a 1956 tractor accident at 37. Finding Harlan's dog tag would have lessened Lillie's burden, Olson said.

Olson feels "overwhelming gratitude" for Rodrigo Bastoni, who also plays the drums, teaches music and runs a hotel at his small family farm about 4 miles south of Itri.

"He saw something that he felt would be important to total strangers, an ocean away," Olson said, "and acted on those feelings."

Curt Brown's tales about Minnesota's history appear each Sunday. Readers can send him ideas and suggestions at mnhistory@startribune.com. His latest book looks at 1918 Minnesota, when flu, war and fires converged: http://strib.mn/MN1918.