Wendell fertig biography of mahatma

Colorado School of Mines
Hometown:  La Junta, CO
Inducted November 2010

Colonel Wendell W. Fertig attended both the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Colorado School of Mines, but graduated from neither institution.  However, at his Army retirement ceremony in 1950, he received an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree from the Colorado School of Mines.  Upon leaving the engineering school in 1924, he accepted a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Reserve.

Colonel Fertig served as a civil engineer with a number of mining companies in the United States and the Philippine Islands.  When America entered World War II, he was recalled to active duty as a Lieutenant Colonel with the U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers to help fortify the Philippines against an attack by the Japanese.  Colonel Fertig was deep in the jungle of Mindanao when American forces in the islands surrendered.  He chose to fight rather than surrender.  Colonel Fertig, Wendell W. Fertig - Veteran Tributes KUQ