News-Info-Alerts

Re: Preserving the Past for the Future

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: July 26, 2003

"Preserving History Project Aims To Record War Stories

BY RANDY DOCKENDORF

VERMILLION -- Ray Hofman, Leonard Bruguier and Rick Mesmer find themselves racing against time.

As part of the Veterans History Project, the three Vietnam-era servicemen are interviewing fellow vets for the Library of Congress. At first, they are emphasizing World War II veterans, who are dying nationally at the rate of more than 1,000 a day.

The Vermillion men have so far talked to a Pearl Harbor survivor, a prisoner of war and a soldier who liberated the Dachau concentration camp, Hofman said.

"We want to get as many vets as we can," he said. "They are telling incredible stories."

Many stories are almost beyond imagination, even when veterans provide photographs or other documentation, Hofman said.

"(Veteran) Ken Lane had pictures of some gruesome stuff at Dachau," he said. "They were 20 miles away from the camp and could smell the bodies. When they got to the camp, everyone was gone. But they had bodies stacked up."

Lane and his friends bought and shared a Brownie camera so they could capture the places and events of 1945 Europe, including the concentration camps and Hitler's chalet, Mesmer said.

"But Ken has daughters who still believe the Holocaust never happened, even though he had pictures of the death camps," he said.

Another veteran, Darrel Christopherson, survived Pearl Harbor and was the first veteran interviewed for the project.

"We asked Darrel how far he was from the USS Arizona when it being bombed, and he was said from here to the wall," Mesmer said, pointing a few feet away. "The Arizona was burning and you could feel the heat. The bodies were incinerated."

A third veteran, Sam Kniffen, was held as a prisoner of war. He parachuted from a burning plane, landed in a tree and suffered a broken back and legs. He was captured and taken to a British hospital in Germany.

"Sam said they wondered how a British hospital got in Germany, but the British unit was captured in North Africa and brought to Germany," Hofman said.

During their captivity, the POWs were subject to starvation and bugs, he said. After the prisoners were liberated, they were deloused on the plane and had their clothes taken from them. When the former prisoners arrived at their new camp, they found a two-mile line waiting for new clothes.

"Sam walked to the head of the line and was told it would be two days before they got clothes. The camp wasn't expecting that many prisoners of war," Hofman said. "The other prisoners were huddling together to stay warm, but Sam found medical tents. He warmed up a thermometer with a kerosene lamp and sent to a hospital for 30 days while the others waiting in line for clothes."

Because of the veterans' ages, the interviews have been limited to an hour. Follow-up interviews are scheduled for them, and other veterans are being lined up for interviews.

The interviews are audio taped and two copies are made: one for the state Oral History Center on the University of South Dakota campus and the other copy for the veteran and his or her family. The Library of Congress can tap into the Oral History Center's archives.

The Veterans History Project provides a natural extension of the pictures of 592 Clay County veterans hanging in the courthouse, Hofman said. As the Clay County veterans service officer, Hofman has solicited the veterans' pictures for his office. The response has become so great that all of the walls are covered and Hofman has set up dividers in his office to handle the additional pictures.

"When I looked all of the pictures hanging on the wall, I wondered about the story behind each face," Hofman said. "Now, I am learning more about the lives of these people that I have known for years."

The project has found a natural home with the Oral History Center, housed at the Institute for American Indian Studies (IAIS). Bruguier, the IAIS director, said the center has already taped and compiled about 2,200 Indian interviews and about 3,600 non-Indian interviews.

"This has worked so perfectly for us because we have a data base," Bruguier said. "The interviews are a little tribute and a piece of history that we can hang onto and pass on."

Congress unanimously approved creation of the Veterans History Project on Oct. 27, 2000. However, a funding problem kept the project from starting locally. The project was included in the IAIS budget, and Bruguier and Mesmer pooled the resources of the Oral History Center and Mesmer's recording studio.

The two men incorporated the help of Hofman, who deals with veterans on a daily basis. Hofman received the blessing of the Clay County Commissioners for his involvement with the project.

"We are starting with Clay County but welcome veterans from Yankton or other towns in our area," Bruguier said. "We want this eventually to become a state project with at least two interviews from every county."

Hofman has found veterans very willing to share their stories. "When we talk about what happened to them during the war, I ask if they would like to be involved with the history project," he said.

The veterans have more than stories to share. Many of them have also brought back war souvenirs which could eventually be housed at W.H. Over Museum in Vermillion or in a state museum, Mesmer said.

While the national project focuses on veterans, Bruguier said he wants to broaden the project at the state level.

"Our idea is to include soldiers' families and war workers. We want to learn more about the home front, and that can include the rationing and war industries," he said.

"When the railroad cars pulled into Mitchell, the townspeople greeted them with homemade bread and cakes. They would hand out the goodies to the soldiers being transported to war."

Bruguier said he sees tremendous potential for the interviews, particularly in learning more about women's wartime contributions. "This will be an endless project," he said.

Even with the most extensive interviews, the soldiers can only relate what they actually experienced, Bruguier said. "I was a Marine in Vietnam, and I never knew what was going on with the entire war, just in my little bitty space," he said.

The Veterans History Project builds upon the book "The Greatest Generation" by NBC News anchor and Yankton native Tom Brokaw, Bruguier said.

"Brokaw touched so well on most of this," Bruguier said. "That (World War II) generation moved the nation a quantum leap. The built this country on a handshake, where your word was your bond."

Hofman said he hoped the interviews would become like a spider web, "where we reach out and add more people in all directions all the time."

Future interviews could be captured on video tape and even CD-ROM and the Internet, Mesmer said. For him, the interviews represent a return to his childhood when he heard veterans gather and tell war stories.

Any veterans or families wanting to participate can contact Hofman weekday at his office number (605) 677-7145.

"These interviews help the community bond together," Bruguier said. "This Veteran's Day, I think we will have a larger turnout than normal at the celebrations because of this project."

In the meantime, the clock keeps ticking as Hofman, Bruguier and Mesmer continue their race against time.

"The elderly veterans are dying very fast, and their war experiences will not always be with us," Bruguier said.

Contact Randy Dockendorf at 665-7811 (ext. 133) or randy.dockendorf@yankton.net.

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