News-Info-Alerts

Re: Fort Devens Museum

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: June 12, 2003

Vigilis Salutis

"Museum at Devens still years away from reality
By PETER WARD, Sun Staff

DEVENS Steve Sugar never forgot a book he read about the Bataan Death March, the horrid World War II episode in which Japanese captors brutalized American prisoners-of-war.

"I was moved by the unique sacrifice of these soldiers," he said. "It moved me so much."

It moved Sugar to say "yes" when help was needed to launch a museum aimed at preserving the memory of Fort Devens, which closed in the 1990s.

The museum was officially dedicated in January of 2002 before several dignitaries, including U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, who was inducted into the Army and got his shots at Devens.

But that was 18 months ago and still the trio of former wood-built prisoner-of-war barracks near Robbins Pond that would house the museum remain in disrepair. Advocates now say a museum could open in two years at the earliest.

Sugar, who serves on the museum's board of directors, said he and Victor Normand, of the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, expect to complete a "business plan" next month that's deemed crucial to the museum's fate.

(MassDevelopment, which bought 4,400 post acres from the Army and leads its commercial redevelopment, agreed to provide $200,000 for the museum's design. Nearby Anheuser-Busch chipped in another $50,000. Officials estimate it will cost $600,000 or more to renovate the structures.)

"Basically the business plan is sort of a road map of where we want to go," said Sugar, vice president of Ayer-based North Middlesex Savings Bank.

By next January, the museum hopes to have an executive director "on board to lead the charge," Sugar said. "We have a volunteer board but you really need someone eight hours a day, 40 hours a week."

The director's duties will include raising money, managing an operating budget, and deciding how to interpret the fort's 80-year history.

Will the museum feature static displays, photos, or recorded oral accounts?

"That's for the executive director to work out. I'm not a historian or a curator," Sugar said.

The post opened as Camp Devens in 1917 on some 9,000 acres of farmland seized by the federal government. It served as a mobilization point for at least five wars and shut down as a cost-cutting measure. By Sugar's reckoning, more than 650,000 men and women passed through Devens' iron gates.

"Many of them married and had kids, so you figure Fort Devens impacted several generations. You're looking at millions of people who are part of the history," Sugar said.

After the post closed, officials hauled away numerous monuments, plaques and displays, many of which would have found a home at the Devens museum.

They may not be retrievable, but Frank Hartnett Sr., president of the museum's board of directors, believes the museum won't be lacking exhibits.

"I was with a friend recently who had a picture of his father at Devens in 1917. I think there's a lot of stuff out there," said Hartnett, who led many "Save Devens" campaigns when he served as publisher of nearby Nashoba Publications.

The museum, he said, will not only "preserve the history of and legacy of Fort Devens, but will also show how Fort Devens relates to the Nashoba Valley."

Peter Ward's e-mail address is pward@lowellsun.com .

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