"The Greatest Generation" Lives Here Too!

"The Greatest Generation" Lives Here Too!

Submitted by Dr. Paul Loatman, City Historian

The recent illness of a close friend and the continual presence of two books about World War II on the New York Times best-seller list reminded me of something we haven't quite forgotten but maybe take too much for granted: the lives and contributions of what Tom Brokaw calls "The Greatest Generation." Our culture is to blame for our amnesia in a number of ways: we are obsessed with anything new and rush to abandon the old. Young people have little knowledge of our past, and many of them may agree with what Henry Ford said: "History is more or less bunk."

In Russia, things are different. The country is dotted with war memorials everywhere, and young and old alike serve as honor guards at the sites throughout the year. Of course, some of the worst battles in human history took place on Russian soil during World War II, and it would be hard to forget. In our society, some communities have sought to bridge the historical gap between groups by sponsoring intergenerational "proms" bringing today's teens and war veterans together for an evening of "swing." At the same time, we may not have memorials as the Russians do all around us, but there are living ones present in Mechanicville all of the time, though you would never know it. That man standing next to you in the Price Chopper line may be one of them, but to all appearances, you'd never be able to tell and he'd be the last one to let on to the fact if you asked.

For thirty years I have taught high school and college courses focused on the era of World War II. I "consulted all of the literature" as the saying in academia goes in preparing my courses, and frankly, reading about so much death and destruction was a depressing experience. Knowledge of the 1941 - 1945 era was something people my age grew up with because the central experience of our parents' lives was "the war." However, despite our general familiarity with it, there was a lot we didn't know. My father was a physicist at the Naval Research Lab in Washington D.C., while his two brothers served their country more directly, the older one following Patton's tanks through North Africa, Sicily, and Italy; the younger one, after landing in France a couple of months after D-Day, was among the first Americans to cross the Elbe into Germany. I attributed my father's reticence about what he did during the war to the fact that his work was labeled "secret" by the military. His older brother I rarely saw while I was growing up because he spent the last thirty years of his life in the VA Hospital in Montrose. My younger uncle related one story to me about his unit being forced to race through a minefield to escape capture, but other than that, he said little about his experience. My father and his brothers have been dead for some time, so there is nothing more they can tell me.

I have become friends with many people of my parents' generation over the years. Among those who are most memorable is a Jewish woman who survived the brutality of four concentration camps, and late in life, she responded to the prods from a number of people to relate her experiences to high school and college students throughout the Northeast. She commands the attention of an audience in a manner unmatched by any other speaker I have ever heard. My other "most memorable" person, now deceased, was an Augustinian priest who served here and who once talked to me extensively in a quiet way about his years serving out the war in Japanese prisoner of war camps. He survived the ordeal, but his health was never the same again, and yet as a man of God, he had forgiven his captors. He concluded relating his saga to me by declaring with a wry smile that he hoped his tormentors all reached Heaven some day - as the last in line.

Other men I count among my friends here have dropped their reserve long enough to talk about their time served during "the war." (To people whom lived through World War II, there was only one war and you didn't need to identify it further with capital letters or Roman numerals.) At times, they revealed details which they are surprised that I remember many years later. One served in a unit that contained a future member of baseball's Hall of Fame. Another rode out the war aboard an aircraft carrier in the Pacific, dodging kamikaze attacks in 1945. One was a "hump-pilot" who flew over, around, and through the high Himalayas to supply Chiang Kai Shek and to keep the Chinese in the war against the Japanese invaders. Another experienced a "miraculous" rescue in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, during which resurgent German armies shot American captives in the back rather than take them as prisoners of war who would slow down their final desperate offensive. Others saw the worst of it in the South Pacific, making island-hopping attacks on heavily fortified positions manned by desperate Japanese who would fight to the last man and commit suicide before surrendering. Others simply dismiss their experiences by saying, "I was just in the Navy and it wasn't too bad." I respect their reticence and do not ask them to probe memories they have long ago buried in their subconscious.

All of them left Mechanicville as innocent young men. Many came back, battle-hardened, scarred by their experiences, but happy to get on with their lives by returning to work at the paper mill or railroad, or taking advantage of the GI Bill, by resuming the education they had abandoned to serve their country. Many of them have been blessed with longevity. None of them would count themselves among the list of "heroes." It is almost cliche, but they will all tell you that the real heroes are the brothers they left behind on the battlefields.

The Saratoga Board of Supervisors is planning to erect a monument honoring veterans from all wars who were killed, mortally wounded, or died in enemy prisons, at the National Veterans Cemetery. Veterans groups throughout the county have helped to compile the list of those to be enshrined, and local historians have been enlisted to ensure that no one who is eligible to be included on the monument is overlooked. Presently, the list includes 856 names for all wars from the Revolution though the Gulf War. It has been estimated that as many as 1200 veterans should be listed, so the search for names continues. In my own case, I have uncovered the names of two, and possibly three Mechanicville men killed in action in World War I, previously overlooked, who will now be included on the list.

The forty-eight men listed below are Mechanicville veterans who died during World War II, and whose names will be included on the monument to be erected in their honor. They made the ultimate sacrifice, and they should never be forgotten. If anyone knows of the names of other local men who should be so honored, please contact me.