Here’s an e-mail message from a St. Peter resident which adds still another dimension to my article about Albert Lea’s former courthouse cannons, plus the two big guns still on display in Northwood, Iowa. This message says:

&uot; … Yesterday May 8, as is my custom when traveling through Albert Lea on my way to Mason City to see relatives, I purchased a copy of the Tribune and was enthralled by your article on the Northwood Civil War pieces and also the missing Albert Lea cannons.

&uot;I am an avid amateur historian, specially interested in military issues. When looking at the photos of the scrapped World War I guns formerly in Albert Lea, I knew that those were not French 75-mm pieces. I seemed to recall that this was a German model, but could not remember much else.

&uot;Alas, the wonders of the Internet! A quick Google search took me to a site with many good photographs that clearly identified the guns in question: these were German made 7.7 am Feldkanone 16 produced since 1916. Please see link below:

&uot;I can guess that, after Germany’s defeat in 1918 and the limitations imposed by the Allies on her military, as well as the needs to pay reparations, the Germans sold or gave away the great majority of their artillery. I know that many ex-German guns found their way into private arms dealers who sold them to smaller countries in Latin America and the Balkans, and also for scrap.

&uot;It is ironic to consider that perhaps some of the metal from these German guns was used on making US weapons employed against the Germans in World War II!&uot;

Thanks

to the 1940 photo of the Kortz brothers standing next to a cannon, plus the 1942 photo of the three local cannons, the St. Peter reader was able to get a very good view of these artillery pieces in the Lifestyles article.

I might add here that the identification I made of those two cannons being French was based on an Oct. 1, 1942, article. Why the cannons came to the U.S. from Europe in the 1920s was based on my personal guesswork.

The man from St. Peter provided a nice follow-up for part of the article about old cannons. Now, I’m hoping someone else can furnish more answers regarding the two cannons in Northwood. Were these big guns actually cast at a local foundry in the early 1860s, shipped east for Civil War service, and sent back to Iowa in the 1920s?

Also, further information about the Northwood Foundry Co. would be appreciated.

The comment by the man from St. Peter abut the two World War I German artillery guns being recast as newer military hardware and possibly used against German forces during World War II reminded me of a sad situation in the Pacific Northwest during the 1930s.

In that era scrap iron dealers in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and other states were collecting old cars and wrecks, unused farm implements, and obsolete railroad and mining equipment and shipping the materials to Portland and Seattle. There this alleged junk was loaded onto Japanese ships and sent overseas.

The Japanese were then involved in a brutal war with China. They needed

this scrap iron so it could be converted into military equipment.

On several occasions Chinese-Americans would protest against the shipments of this material to Japan. Some folks felt they were obstructing fair business practices. After all, the Japanese were paying good cash for this American junk.

Starting on Dec. 7, 1941, and all during World War II, this former scrap iron was returned to the Americans in a vicious and deadly way.

For years there were hard feelings against the scrap iron dealers who made money with this venture involving the Japanese.

Those Chinese-American protesters were right after all.

(Feature writer Ed Shannon’s column appears each Friday.)