Shown is the main entrance to Warrior Field, where football games are played and track meets held at Wawasee High School. InkFreeNews photo by Tim Ashley.

By Tim Ashley
InkFreeNews

SYRACUSE — There have been approximately 100 Medal of Honor winners from the State of Indiana with only 10 of those being awarded to those serving during World War II. One of those was Harry J. Michael, who grew up west of Milford and is the only Medal of Honor recipient from all wars coming from Kosciusko County.

Dave Baumgartner, a Wawasee High School graduate and retired teacher and coach, is at the front of an effort to get Warrior Field, the high school’s football venue, renamed in honor of Michael.

Baumgartner spoke at the most recent Wawasee School Board meeting Jan. 11 and also addressed the board during its September 2021 meeting. Rich Rhodes, a nephew of Michael and who lives on the homestead Michael grew up on located on CR 200W, has also spoken to the school board.

Before Lt. Michael was killed by a German sniper on his 23rd birthday in 1945 during World War II, he had captured more than 70 Germans, liberated two Americans who had been captured and silenced a row of enemy pillboxes and two machine gun nests in a series of advances. Michael’s platoon, a unit of the 80th Infantry Division, was pushing into a forest to take a ridge.

A fellow soldier later said when the snipers opened fire, Michael deliberately drew fire and located and killed one sniper before the second one killed him.

Baumgartner said he has felt for several years something should be done but life’s responsibilities put it on the back burner. Then a couple years ago he met Rhodes and interviewed him for a virtual Veterans Day program in 2020 for WHS. Baumgartner drove out to Rhodes’ house and was impressed by the large amount of archives on Michael that Rhodes has in a room in an old barn.

“That sparked me,” Baumgartner said. “We needed to do something.”

Michael represents “all we try to teach in athletics” such as teamwork, dedication and more, he said. And, he added, “I feel very strongly we need heroes now.”

School board policy does allow for an athletic field to be named after a person who has made a significant contribution to the corporation, community, state or nation. “Michael meets all of those requirements,” Baumgartner said, and added Michael was a three-sport athlete who lettered in baseball, basketball and track at Milford High School and graduated in 1941.

This could be a teaching tool, Baumgartner commented, teachers could use to impart some local history to their students. And having the football field renamed would be much more visible than having something placed in the hallway of the high school, for example.

He said the American Legion posts in Milford, North Webster and Syracuse have expressed support for renaming the football field and Sheriff Kyle Dukes is also in support.

Rhodes said this is “not just a local issue, but would be a symbol to all of our armed forces who have put on the uniform.”

During the Jan. 11 school board meeting, board president Don Bokhart suggested a group should be formed to work with Dr. Steve Troyer, superintendent, and then Troyer would make a recommendation to the board.

Baumgartner said he hopes to have a committee formed soon and has already inquired about setting up a meeting with Troyer. Details will need to be worked out, such as would Warrior Field be dropped from the name or would it be named the Harry J. Michael Warrior Field.

“As far as I know, no other football field (in Indiana) is named after a Medal of Honor winner,” Baumgartner, but several fields are named after a person such as Fisher Field in Warsaw and Andrews Field at NorthWood High School.

Baumgartner and Rhodes are actually not the first to have the idea of naming the football field after Michael. In the Oct. 9, 1968, “Cruzin Around Cuse” column in The Mail-Journal Arch Baumgartner, publisher, suggested it.

As noted in the article, “The Lakeland school board chose well when it chose the name ‘Wawasee High School’ for the corporation’s new school. It should use similar good judgment when selecting a name for the school’s football and athletic field.

“In our opinion it would do well in considering calling the field the ‘Harry J. Michael Field.’”

An old black and white photo of Lt. Harry Michael, Medal of Honor winner who served in World War II. Photo provided by Rich Rhodes.