Cpl. Archie Dean Tressler -   WW II Veteran

Sgt. Archie Dean Tressler - U.S. Army Reserve Veteran

Two years into World War II, Dean joined the Marines. He had graduated from Pittsford High School and was nineteen-years-old. Dean served in the Pacific, where the Marines were instrumental in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

The Imperial Japanese Army positions on Iwo Jima were heavily fortified. Eleven miles of underground tunnels allowed the Japanese soldiers to move around the island without being seen. It was the only battle by the U.S. Marine Corps in which the overall American casualties (killed and wounded) exceeded those of the Japanese, but the entire island was eventually taken by the Marines.

Okinawa was a large island only 340 miles from mainland Japan, and the Allies wanted to capture it to use as a base of air operations on the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland. It is remembered for the intensity of kamikaze attacks from the Japanese defenders. Tragic losses of civilians as well as the Japanese and American soldier made this the battle with the highest number of casualties in the Pacific Theater during WW II.

Dean was part of the force that occupied China. With the Japanese surrender after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the 1st and 6th Marine Divisions were assigned to north China to assist the Nationalist Chinese Armies with the task of returning Japanese soldiers to their homeland and to guard various Chinese facilities and infrastructure.

Dean left China and was discharged from the Marines in May of 1946. However, during the Korean War he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve, serving from November of 1950 to December of 1953. Having served his country well, he returned to Hillsdale County, where he worked for the Hillsdale Manufacturing Company.

JoAnne P. Miller