Kermit Peter Johnson was born March 31, 1919. He was one of nine children born to John and Christine Johnson, who farmed near Stanchfield, Minnesota. Johnson's paternal grandparents came to the United States from Sweden in 1867 and homesteaded the farm which was located near Rush Point. Johnson attended school at Grandy, Minnesota until 1932. He worked for his father on the family farm until 1939. He moved to Minneapolis, and until April 1941 he worked for an electrician doing motor repair work and for Jacobs Wind Electric Company, a Minneapolis firm that manufactured wind chargers.
Johnson served as a medic while in the army, performing various duties in a combat clearing station, including giving emergency medical treatment and preparing casualties for evacuation. He entered active service at Fort Snelling on April 29, 1941, and in May was shipped to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana where he was assigned to Company B of the 136th Medical Regiment, 34th Infantry Division. The 34th Division was initially made up largely of national guardsmen from Minnesota, Iowa, and North and South Dakota. In January and February 1942 Johnson was stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey. On March 2, 1942 he arrived in Northern Ireland, where he remained until December 1942. He saw combat service in North Africa (January-September 1943) and in Italy (September 1943-March 1945). Johnson left Italy for a furlough in the United States in March 1945. The war in Europe ended during his furlough (May 8, 1945), and on May 18, 1945 he was honorably discharged at Fort Snelling as a member of Company D of the 109th Medical Battalion. Later in life (1990s) Johnson made his home at North Branch, Minnesota.
Biographical information was taken from materials in the collection
and from Johnson's book
The collection includes letters Johnson wrote home to his parents and
to a few other people while in the military. In his letters he talks about his
experiences and about military life. These letters apparently form the basis of
his book
Much of the collection consists of a disassembled scrapbook that includes newspaper clippings, ticket stubs, discharge documents, pay books, servicemen's guides to Rome and other cities, ration books, military pay record books, some letters, and miscellaneous printed material. There are also some newsletters in German that were dropped from Allied aircraft to German troops. About half of the disassembled scrapbook consists of chronologically ordered snapshot photographs taken by Johnson documenting his army experiences at Camp Claiborne (1941-1942) and in Northern Ireland (1942), Scotland (1942), London (1942), North Africa (1943), and Italy (1943-1945). The photographs show Johnson and his army buddies, camp life, local people, war damage to buildings, wrecked German aircraft and tanks, some photos of captured German soldiers, and some photos of the graves of German soldiers. A few of the photographs were taken while Johnson was on furlough in Minnesota. Others were taken while he was on sightseeing excursions in London. The photographs and the printed material were removed from the scrapbook and placed in 19 chronologically-ordered folders in keeping with their original order.
There are also some membership rosters and other information about the Des Moines, Iowa-based 34th Infantry Division Association, which apparently was an organization of divisional veterans.
Johnson's self-published book,
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should
Accession number: 15,727
Processed by: David B. Peterson, June 2003
Catalog ID number: 09-00323634