Always Remember - World War II Through Veterans’ Eyes

Donald Chase understood that freedom isn’t free.  He defended his country in two wars, WW II and the Korean war, and in doing so received 4 purple hears and 2 bronze stars.  In both wars, soldiers often wished to receive a “million dollar wound” – a battlefield injury that would send the soldier back home away from fighting, but not one that was bad enough to kill them or leave them permanently ma...

A star athlete first at Aspinwall High School then at Waynesburg College in Pennsylvania, Richard V. Morgan felt the call to duty when his country was attacked at Pearl Harbor and joined the Marines.  Morgan fought in some of the Pacific’s bloodiest battles at Tarawa, Saipan, and Tinian Islands.  AT Tarawa he fought alongside Medal of Honor recipient Lt. Alexander Bonnyman Jr. supplying him with d...

Hattie Brantley never stopped tending to wounded GIs whether in the jungles of the Bataan peninsula, in the tunnels of Corregidor, or during her long imprisonment at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp.  As a POW for nearly three years, she didn’t let starvation, disease, lack of medical supplies, or the brutal treatment she received from Japanese guards stop her in caring for the young GI casualties...

Sick with malaria, on a 150-200 mile, three week forced march from one German POW camp to another, Edgar Kuhlow heard one German guard talking about him to another guard - Daah blibt heea in Deutschland leigen (He is going to stay laying here in Germany).  Having already survived brutal combat at Anzio and in southern France, as well as seven months of incarceration as a POW, Edgar Kuhlow was dete...

Jim Dorris displayed an equal measure of courage and compassion in WW 2.  His deep Catholic faith provided him with a moral compass that guided him through combat at the Battle of the Bulge, Ingolsheim, Wurzburg, Schweinfurt, and Furth.  He was a true light in the darkness of WW 2 resisting senseless cruelty whenever he saw it regardless of which side – be it the Nazis or the US GIs – who committe...

Jim Dorris displayed an equal measure of courage and compassion in WW 2.  His deep Catholic faith provided him with a moral compass that guided him through combat at the Battle of the Bulge, Ingolsheim, Wurzburg, Schweinfurt, and Furth.  He was a true light in the darkness of WW 2 resisting senseless cruelty whenever he saw it regardless of which side – be it the Nazis or the US GIs – who committe...

As a Jewish American, Murray Shapiro couldn’t wait to volunteer in WW 2.  He was well aware of the Nuremberg Laws and the racist treatment Jewish people received in Germany.  He lost his spot in officer school though because he objected to the racist views his Major Carvell held towards black people.  During the Battle of the Bulge, Shapiro would receive the Bronze Star for his actions organizing...

Colonel Lloyd G. Huggins landed on Omaha Beach three weeks after D-Day as the replacement officer for Easy Company’s Infantry Regiment.  They were in continuous combat for nearly one year fighting through France, the Siegfried Line, the Hurtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, across the Remagen Bridge, until VE Day.  No one had more respect for his infantry men than Huggins did.  Through it all,...

Following the unconditional surrender of Germany on VE Day and the unconditional surrender of Japan three months later on VJ Day, spontaneous celebrations swept across the US with tinker tape parades, dancing and singing.  In Times Square, an estimated two million people gathered to celebrate.  But not every veteran participated or received the warm welcome they expected upon returning home.  By t...

When Germany unconditionally surrendered and Victory in Europe or VE Day was announced on May 8, 1945, American GIs were in a mood to celebrate.  For Russell Darks in France and Charlie Toole in London, it was an unforgettable night of celebrations.  But, in Germany, Murray Shapiro found that German civilians had nothing to celebrate, and all was quiet.  Tom Carr wanted to celebrate, but he was re...

Having led his country through the most devastating and consequential war in world history, President Franklin D. Roosevelt died just as the war’s end seemed in sight.  For GIs like Roland Schump, Murray Shapiro, and Samuel Erlick, the loss of the only President they had ever really known, was as unsettling as it was shocking.  In the final weeks of the war, as Germany’s defeat seemed all but cert...

Adolph Hitler’s “Final Solution” was carried out in an estimated 44,000 concentration camps, ghettos, and forced labor camps spread out throughout Europe.  An estimated 15 to 20 million people were murdered in these camps including six million Jews. For the young American GIs who liberated them, the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps far outweighed anything they had experienced in war.  Alex...

Adolph Hitler’s “Final Solution” was carried out in 42,400 concentration camps, ghettos, and forced labor camps spread out throughout Europe.  An estimated 15 to 20 million people were murdered in these camps including six million Jews. For the young American GIs who liberated them, the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps far outweighed anything they had experienced in war.  When Barney Zylka...

Adolph Hitler’s “Final Solution” was carried out in 42,400 concentration camps, ghettos, and forced labor camps spread out throughout Europe.  An estimated 15 to 20 million people were murdered in these camps including six million Jews. For the young American GIs who liberated them, the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps far outweighed anything they had experienced in war.  Tasked with the we...

The Siegfried Line which spread from the Netherlands to Switzerland was Nazi Germany’s 400 mile westernwall, a heavily fortified defensive line that took the Allies six months to pierce.  David Saltman remembered the Siegfried Line as a formidable opponent in itself.  Robert Maxwell  regained consciousness after throwing himself on a grenade to save his buddies only to find himself alone in an aba...

The final battle before the anticipated invasion of mainland Japan, Okinawa became the deadliest battle for US forces in the Pacific with savage fighting on land, air, and especially sea.  Nicknamed the Typhoon of Steel because of its intense artillery fire and bombardments on land, air and sea, the battle for Okinawa cost 49,000 US casualties including more than 12,000 deaths.  For the Japanese s...

Millions of Allied and Axis soldiers became POWs in WW II.  His weight down to 90 pounds, sick with malaria, Edgar Kuhlow overheard two German guards talking about his condition – “He is going to stay laying here in Germany.”  Forced to work in railyards 2 – 3 times a week in Munich, William Ledeker knew he was better off than the concentration camp prisoners he would occasionally see from nearby...

With the Germans seemingly on the run everywhere in Europe, the Allies had hoped WW 2 would be done by year’s end 1944.  Those hopes were shattered when the Germans launched their largest counter offensive on the western front, the Battle of the Bulge.  A frustrated Tom Carr, who served as a scout, had warned his officers for weeks that the ermans appeared to be preparing a sneak attack, only to b...

As the Allies embarked on their island hopping campaign growing ever closer to the Japanese mainland, they soon discovered that their enemy in the Pacific was adept at presenting new challenges on every island.  Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Peleliu, Leyte would all forever be ingrained in WW 2 veterans memories - and in their nightmares.  Richard V. Morgan remembers Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman,, who...

The African Americans who served on the USS Mason destroyer had already endured 90 mph winds and 60 foot waves that split the Mason's deck as they shepherded convoys to safety in the Atlantic when their beloved Captain Blackford was replaced with a racist captain who claimed the African Americans sailors he led smelled, couldn’t swim, and were hard to educate .  1st Lieutenant Vernon Baker, also a...

Bloody Omaha Beach bore the brunt of D-Day’s savage fighting with more casualties than all of the other D-Day beaches combined.  Aware that the men he led in one of the first waves to land on Bloody Omaha Beach had no prior combat experience, Staff Sergeant Walter Ehlers single handedly took out several German machine gun nests even while he was in their crossfire.  Ehlers was at first elated when...

From landing on Utah beach amidst floating bodies in life preservers to a combat glider landing aboard one of the "flying coffins" at Operation Market Garden. Robert Bowen saw a lot of action in World War II before he was badly injured and taken prisoner of war at the Battle of the Bulge.  As a POW a badly injured Bowen was nearly strangled by an enraged German doctor as Bowen lay on his operating...

While Winston Churchill believed an Allied invasion of Italy would find it the soft underbelly of the Axis, most GIs agreed with General Mark Clark's description of it as "One Tough Gut" as they faced ferocious fighting at Salerno and along the Gustav Line at Mt. Sammucro, Monte Cassino and Anzio.  Episode 6 begins with Helen Callentine, a US Army Nurse whose hospital ship was bombed before she ev...

Arnold "Dutch" Nagel volunteered to be a paratrooper in WW 2 because of the extra $50 per month jump pay paratroopers received and the distinctive uniforms they wore.  By war's end, he had participated in 4 combat jumps - Sicily, Maiori, Italy, Operation Market Garden in Holland, and on D-Day at Sainte Mere Eglise, France - and had fought in the invasion of Sicily, the liberation of Naples, Italy,...

In August 1942 the US launched its first major amphibious landing of WW 2 in the Solomon Islands.  The battle became a bitter war of attrition as both sides fought feverishly for months on land, sea and air for the strategically important islands.  Jefferson DeBlanc became a fighter ace in just one day as he shot down six Japanese fighters before DeBlanc himself was shot down.  With his back, arms...