Marine from Morris, Minn., re-emerges in new WWII book

In the 1940s and '50s, Sgt. William Knuppel Jr. served in Iceland, New Zealand, World War II battles and in the Korean War. During his decorated 22-year military career, the no-nonsense Marine from Morris, Minn., saw it all.

But he nearly saw nothing. In one dramatic moment during the Battle of Saipan in the Pacific in 1944, his hazel eyes seemed to go blind.

Before the United States entered World War II in 1941, Bill Knuppel (pronounced kah-NUP-ul) worked as a landscaper in Morris and a florist in Minneapolis and served in the National Guard.

His buddy from Annandale, Leo Ahsenmacher, captain of his high school wrestling team, suggested they join the Marines rather than await looming draft orders. Leo flunked the physical, but Knuppel passed and enlisted two weeks after the first U.S. peacetime draft began that September of 1940.

Asked in 2009 at age 90 why he enlisted, Knuppel told the interviewer with a chuckle: "I was hungry!"

As sergeant in a scout-sniper platoon deep into the war, Knuppel hit the beach on Saipan before dawn on June 15, 1944. Capturing the island would put U.S. forces within bomber range of Tokyo, and the Japanese fought desperately for more than three weeks to fend off the invasion. By July 9, when the U.S. flag was finally raised over Saipan, at least 27,000 Japanese soldiers were dead, along with 3,000 Americans killed and 13,000 wounded — including several from Knuppel's platoon.

At the start of the invasion, a shell exploded and sent the 25-year-old Knuppel sprawling, sand blurring his vision. Rubbing his eyes, he squinted to locate his injured colonel, whose legs were shredded by shrapnel. Two nearby lieutenants had been decapitated by Japanese fire.

A corpsman rolled him onto his back, flushed his eyes with canteen water and assured him that he'd be fine.

That's just one of the gripping scenes in a new book by Minneapolis-based restaurant developer Joseph Tach­ovsky and Cynthia Kraack, "40 Thieves on Saipan: the Elite Marine Scout-Snipers in One of WWII's Bloodiest Battles." (tinyurl.com/Saipanbook).

Knuppel died in 2013, the day before his 94th birthday, at his retirement dream home on Flathead Lake near Big Arm, Mont. But he emerges in the new Saipan book as yet another of the Greatest Generation's most colorful military characters.

The seed of the book began germinating 10 years ago when Knuppel's superior, Lt. Frank Tachovsky, died in 2011 at 96. Sorting through what had been an off-limits footlocker in his father's garage in Sturgeon Bay, Wis., Joe Tachovsky found a trove of medals, photos, letters — and a platoon roster.

Weathered and tattered, the typed roster included a handwritten list of four platoon members who'd died and another eight who had been wounded. It had been typed up by Knuppel, who Lt. Tachovsky hand-picked to serve as his platoon sergeant and right-hand man.

"The guy that wins the fight is thrown in the brig, the other guy goes to the infirmary," Tachovsky told Knuppel. "The guy in the brig is the kind of guy we want."

The December 1944 issue of "Leatherneck," the Marines' magazine, reported that the Tachovsky-Knuppel platoon included some "of the craziest, fiercest, most lovable Marines" who had "wreaked havoc in, around and mostly behind the enemy lines."

Tachovsky and Knuppel lost track of each other after WWII until the sergeant tracked down his lieutenant in the early 1990s.

"Bill was always introduced as a 'Marine buddy' and that they were on Iceland together," said Joe Tachovsky, 62. He said that whenever Knuppel brought up the war, his dad would cut him off — "Bill, those days are over" — and Knuppel would comply. "Even in their 80s, there still lingered a relationship of sergeant to lieutenant," Joe said.

Knuppel and a couple of his Marine buddies once made a pledge: If they survived the war, they would find a mountain to retire on. Into his 90s, Knuppel swam daily in his pool overlooking the Mission Mountains and Flathead Lake, where he lived with his wife, Mildred.

One fact that didn't make the book reflects Knuppel's toughness. According to a 1956 Minneapolis Star story, Knuppel was an interservice champion of military-style triathlon competitions that combined running, shooting and swimming.

At the time, he was 37 — fully a decade older than his next-oldest competitor.