Published: September 07, 2008 12:29 am         

Local tribute: WWII heroes

Organizers hear stories, collect artifacts from veterans and their families

CUMBERLAND — Word is getting out about Cumberland Goes to War, a 10-day, intensive show of support and romantic rally around what is commonly referred to as the Greatest Generation.

As the message of the event scheduled for Nov. 6 through 16 spreads throughout the greater Cumberland area, the door to the historic firehouse on Greene Street can’t stay shut.

“The stories we’ve heard in this office (are) awe-inspiring in many ways,” said Becky McClarran, of McClarran & Williams, the Cumberland marketing firm that came up with the idea through a brainstorming session of finding ways to increase ridership on the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. “We can’t lose these stories. They’re so valuable to our history. We’ve had veterans of World War II hand me things that are valuable to them.”

There’s Col. Randolph Millholland, an Army Ranger whose family contributed a scrapbook full of photos of him and his troops while in Germany, with the original telegram sent stateside when Millholland was wounded.

“Every page tells a story nobody but people very close to him or served with him ever knew,” Dave Williams said in an e-mail to stakeholders in the project. “This book is absolutely priceless as an archival document.”

“My father was my hero and I don’t want him ever to be forgotten,” said Millholland’s daughter Ginnie Schry. Schry and her sister, Harlan Smith, donated the scrapbook and a collection of weapons that Millholland acquired from captured enemy combatants. “I hope there are still people out there who remember who he was and what he did during the war,” she said.

It is but one of many facets to be on display during the celebration and recognition of Cumberland’s war effort, both on the battlefront and the home front.

The Celanese Fibers Corp. turned out material for airborne paratroopers. The Kelly-Springfield Tire Co. helped create ammunition. And inside each home, personal sacrifices were made while loved ones fought valiantly overseas.

The event might have started out as a lone daffodil but has bloomed into a full-fledged garden of hands-on exhibits, living history and helpful ways in which family members can find more information on soldiers who served.

George Metz fought in the Battle of Okinawa in Japan and loaned photos of captured Japanese prisoners. The Third Geneva Convention protecting prisoners of war and preventing photos of prisoners did not occur until 1949.

As Americans left Okinawa, they were simply throwing away bulletins and other war-related items. Metz picked some up and brought them home.

“He’s got maybe one-of-a-kind pieces,” McClarran said.

There have been some surprises along the way. One man wrote McClarran telling her about his father, who had kept a diary while held as a POW. It’s on loan now to a museum in Ohio but excerpts from it are “utterly fascinating,” McClarran said.

She also learned of Red Cross efforts to help American POWs escape by hiding maps inside Monopoly boards and inserting real currency into the game’s pile of fake money. Knowing a way out — and being able to grease the skids along the way — proved critical in successful escapes.

“The Germans never caught on,” McClarran said.

Cumberland Goes to War is a collaborative effort of local veterans of World War II and the Korean War, historians, re-enactors and others in the Mid-Atlantic region who have come to learn of the event.

While the object is to honor and recognize — and retain — the lessons learned from that time period by those who lived it, there’s room for the younger generation, too.

“We hope that this project can be an educational project as well,” McClarran said. “There are history lessons right there. I’m always a little saddened students don’t appreciate the history of where they live. The history of America ... a lot of it happened right here. It does come alive.”

She plans to talk with local school officials to help determine ways students can use the living history environment to their advantage and take those lessons back to the classroom.

A working version of the event Web site is viewable at www.cumberlandgoestowar.com. It’s far from a finished product. With donations of downloadable video and audio tapes, it might never be complete, McClarran said, but offers a detailed daily schedule of events and locations.

Contact Kevin Spradlin at kspradlin@times-news.com.