New Richmond post office will bear name of half-brothers killed in WWII

Mary Divine, Pioneer Press
·1 min read

The U.S. Post Office in New Richmond, Wis., will be dedicated this month in honor of a pair of World War II veterans who happened to be half-brothers.

The dedication ceremony will be 11 a.m. Aug. 25 at the post office building at 430 S. Knowles Ave. in New Richmond. The post office will be named after Capt. Robert Harmon and Pvt. John Peirson, who were killed a year apart during the war.

Harmon was shot down on his 51st bombing mission over German-occupied France in 1944, a week before the D-Day invasion of Normandy. He received the Air Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Purple Heart and 11 Oak Leaf Clusters.

Peirson was mortally wounded during an Easter Day assault in Okinawa, Japan, in 1945, and he died the next day. Peirson was married and a father of young boys.

It took four years to repatriate the brothers’ remains back to Wisconsin in 1949; they are buried side by side at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis.

A bipartisan bill to rename the post office “Captain Robert C. Harmon and Private John R. Peirson Post Office Building” in honor of the two men was introduced last year and signed into law by President Joe Biden.

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