Friday, May 22, 2015

Some Gave All: Memorial Day 2015

The grave of John Daum, 82nd Airborne, in Normandy. Photo by Bill Nation, whose uncle, a captain in the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was killed in the Battle of the Bulge.

   Every Memorial Day I give some special thought to the interviews I've done in which veterans talk about members of their unit they were close to who never got the chance to come home from the war, or who came home in a casket years later. Here are some audio clips of veterans, and in one case a sibling, talking about those who went off to World War II and made the ultimate sacrifice.


The family of Wil Goertzen at Ed Forrest's grave. Goertzen teaches history at Carbooncollege, a school in the Netherlands which "adopted" Ed's grave in the American cemetery at Margraten.


Erlyn Jensen, left, and Linda Dewey of the Kassel Mission Historical Society.

Erlyn Jensen on her brother, Don McCoy (From "The Kassel Conversations)
 
Karnig Thomasian with some of his artwork.





Ed Stuever



Tim Dyas


Tim Dyas on visiting the father of a POW who died (From POW! Right in the Keister)
Sam Cropanese on Lt. George Tarr (From "The Tanker Tapes)
Joe Bernardino
  
Chuck Hurlbut
 D-Day veteran Chuck Hurlbut on Tom Legacy (From "The D-Day Tapes)  








1 comment:

  1. Thank you for posting these oral histories and keeping the memory of these men alive. My family and I have grown attached to John Daum ever since we first visited the American Cemetery in Normandy in 2011. Since then I've had the honor of returning to John's grave with two of his nephews (Thomas and Charles Stumpner).

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