86 years later, a hero comes home

On Saturday, May 24, the Rhinelander community will have the honor of welcoming U.S. Army Air Forces Cpl. John James “Jack” Ginzl home — a homecoming more than eight decades in the making.
A visitation for Ginzl, a 1936 graduate of Rhinelander High School and the first Rhinelander paper mill employee to enter military service in World War II, is scheduled from noon to 1:45 p.m., to be followed by a memorial service with full military honors.
Thanks to scientific advancements, Cpl. Ginzl’s remains were positively identified in June 2025, 80 years after his death on Jan. 9, 1945. For his family, the news brought the resolution of a mystery that had quietly endured for generations.
“All we knew was that he died in the war,” Bruce Ginzl, one of Cpl. Ginzl’s nephews told the Star Journal. “Our grandma and grandpa never talked about Jackie. My mother and dad, all they would say was that he died in the war. He was a POW and was on the Bataan Death March, made it through that, and then died on a ship. That’s all we knew.”
Now, at last, they know the full story.

A soldier’s journey — and a family’s long wait
According to Ginzl’s obituary, published in this edition, as well as information from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA), Ginzl was captured on April 9, 1942, after surrendering to the Japanese following the fierce three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines, and was subjected to the brutal 65-mile Bataan Death March.
Ginzl and thousands of other U.S. troops were held as prisoners of war by the Empire of Japan in the Philippines until 1944, when the Japanese military moved them to Manila for transport to Japan aboard the transport ship Oryoku Maru. Unaware that Allied POWs were on board, a U.S. carrier-borne aircraft attacked the ship, which eventually sank in Subic Bay. Ginzl was then transported to Takao, Formosa — known today as Taiwan — aboard the Enoura Maru. The Japanese reported that Ginzl died on Jan. 9, 1945, when U.S. forces attacked and sank that vessel while it was docked at Takao.
A collection of 407 remains from mass graves around Takao were recovered in the spring of 1946 and eventually interred at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific — known as the Punchbowl — in Honolulu, Hawaii. Between October 2022 and July 2023, the DPAA disinterred unknowns from the Punchbowl linked to the Enoura Maru for further analysis.
“To identify Ginzl’s remains, scientists from DPAA used anthropological analysis, as well as circumstantial evidence,” a DPAA press release explains. “Additionally, scientists from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA analysis.”
Bruce Ginzl’s brother Dick and cousin Mary Rawnsley submitted DNA samples at the Army’s request beginning in 2020. The results were staggering.
“The DNA that they received from my oldest brother and my oldest cousin was a 3.4 million to one chance that these are his remains,” Bruce said. “Even the scientist said it was remarkable how perfect it was.”
The call that changed everything
The identification was formally communicated to the family in a way that reflected both the gravity of the moment and the quiet, careful work of the government officials involved. Bruce’s eldest brother Dick, now 87, had been cautioned by his children not to answer calls from unknown numbers — a reasonable precaution in an era of rampant fraud. When a call came in from a Michael Mee at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, it went unanswered.
It was only when Dick mentioned it on one of the brothers’ regular Wednesday calls that the pieces came together. Bruce arranged a three-way call with Dick and Harry, and Mee explained what had been found — and that he needed to meet with the family in person.
“I said, we’ve got a brother in Wisconsin Rapids, a brother in Florida, a brother in Oklahoma City, a sister in Minneapolis — can we do it FaceTime?” Bruce recalled. “He said no. Government requires face to face.”
The family agreed to gather, and on December 4, the siblings met in Wisconsin Rapids, where Mee — accompanied by Sergeant First Class Aaron Harris of Fort McCoy, who serves as the family’s casualty assistance officer — presented each family member with a detailed booklet containing information about their uncle’s identification and history.
“He went through every page,” Bruce said. “It was three to four hours. It was just unbelievable what they have done.”
Harris, Bruce noted, has been a steady and reassuring presence throughout the process, coordinating between the Army and the funeral home. “He’s a phenomenal young man,” Bruce said.
Bringing Jackie home
From that December meeting, the family began the work of planning a proper homecoming.
They turned to Hildebrand Funeral Home, which has handled the funerals of multiple generations of the Ginzl family, including Cpl. Ginzl’s parents, Joseph and Mary Ginzl, who are buried at Forest Home Cemetery. It was decided that Jack — who will be cremated — will be buried at the foot of his parents’ graves, alongside his sister Alice, who is also interred there.
As for the scale of the service, the family was initially caught off guard by what the Army anticipated.
“Before we left that meeting, they said, ‘This will probably be one of the biggest funerals Rhinelander has ever seen,’” Bruce recalled. “’You had better think about renting the high school gymnasium, and probably get 1,000 programs.’ And here the five of us are sitting there thinking, okay — just our family, maybe the Methodist Church where they all grew up.”
The Army was right. The service will be held at Rhinelander High School, and the response from the community has moved the family deeply.
“I can’t say enough about how the people of Rhinelander have reached out to us and helped us,” Bruce said. “From the VFW, the fire department is going to have their ladder truck up with a flag draped from it. The Oneida County Sheriff is going to escort the procession into town from the highway. Rhinelander has really stepped up for us — all we did was ask a few questions, and everyone said, ‘We’d be happy to do that.’”
A family defined by service
The Ginzl family’s military tradition runs deep. Cpl. Ginzl’s father served in the Spanish-American War aboard the first ship to enter Havana Harbor. His twin brother, Joe Ginzl — who returned to Rhinelander after the war and lived there until his death in 1989 — served as a bombardier in the European theater. Their sister Wilma became a nurse in the area. Another sister, Forrest, served as an Army nurse as well. Bruce’s father was en route to serve when he was deemed too old, and was redirected to the Aleutian Islands to work on aircraft. The tradition has continued into younger generations, with Bruce’s brother Harry serving in the Air Force and Air National Guard, and Harry’s son serving in the Navy.
And yet, for all of that service, the family spoke little of it. Joe Ginzl, when asked about his wartime experiences, would only say they had flown mission after mission — refueled, reloaded and back in the air — and that they had been sworn to secrecy about their operations.
“He said, ‘So that’s all I’m going to tell you,’” Bruce recalled.
The silence about Jackie was similarly complete — born, Bruce believes, from a grief so intense it couldn’t be put into words.
“They were pretty private people,” he said of his grandparents. “I can understand why nobody talked about it.”
“Now you have the story”
What the family does know now is that Jackie Ginzl was, by every measure, a remarkable man. A standout athlete at Rhinelander High School, he endured the Bataan Death March, survived years of brutal captivity, and in the postcards he was permitted — and required — to send home, told his parents not to worry.
“The Japanese made them send those back and tell them how well they were treated,” Bruce noted quietly. “To save face.”
The full weight of what Jack and thousands like him endured — in the Philippines, on the hell ships, in the mass graves of Formosa — is a history not often mentioned.
Saturday’s service is a chance to change that, if only for a moment.
Cpl. Ginzl’s remains are expected to arrive in Milwaukee by Friday, escorted by members of the Patriot Guard motorcycle group, before making their final journey north. The family — some 24 members and growing — will gather Thursday evening in Rhinelander for a fish fry, a family dinner at Holiday Acres, and a reunion long in coming. After the Sunday service, Pizza Haven will open its doors for the family.
Eighty-six years after he left, Jackie Ginzl is coming home for good.
The memorial service for Cpl. John James “Jack” Ginzl will be held Sunday, May 24, at Rhinelander High School. Visitation runs from noon to 1:45 p.m., followed by a memorial service with full military honors. The service is open to the public. Streaming information will be available through Hildebrand Funeral Home.