First-hand accounts of hundreds of World War II veterans in the Mid-South will forever be preserved as part of the new Veterans Oral History Project at The University of Memphis.
The goal is to permanently record tales and perspectives from surviving war veterans, according to Charles Crawford, director of the Oral History Research Office.
Through the interviews, researchers find candid snapshots of a soldier's life. But, the records are not just for historians. The public, especially the veterans' families, can read or hear their relative's account of the war.
It is important to do this now as many of the veterans are now in their late 70s. Time to record their stories is diminishing and the stories will be gone if they are not recorded.
"One student went to a funeral of one of the people she interviewed. The members of the family came up to her and said 'Thank God. You got this down before he was gone,'" said Jan Sherman, chair of the history department.
The $120,000 project was funded primarily by the Assisi Foundation of Memphis with additional help from the Military Order of the World Wars.
The idea began with the Military Order. They had access to some money but no way to initiate the process, according to Sherman.
"The wonderful thing is that the interviewers are trained," she said. "They know about WWII. They do their homework on the position of the soldier before the interview, and it makes for great interviews."
Now graduate history students and a few other sources are scouring the area for WWII veterans of every kind.
"We want to interview men and women, people of all races, all campaigns, all areas of service, all aspects of the war," Crawford said.
They want a complete view of the war whether they were in the navy or the army or the coast guard, whether they were in Europe or the Pacific, he said.
In meeting all the veterans, the project will also record the diversity of jobs that soldiers had to carry out and the variety of people needed.
"Some were on the frontlines, some were way behind the lines," said Carl Brown, graduate history student.
"I interviewed one gentlemen who was in the Navy on a destroyer the day Pearl Harbor was attacked. Then I interviewed a dental assistant who was at Normandy in more of a support capacity."
Brown also believed that now is the ideal time to record these narratives.
"My father was in World War II. The last few years of his life he really opened up about his experiences in the war. I never got a chance to record his experiences and I will always regret that," he said.
But even an outsider with no ties to the war can learn things not seen in the movies.
"I have a greater understanding and appreciate these individuals who were in their teens and early 20s," said Reggie Ellis, another interviewer.
"In the end, they learned that the price of freedom was death."
Copies of the interviews will be kept at the Oral History Research Office, the Mississippi Valley Collection at the Ned McWherter Library and the Library of Congress.
"This will go on as long as we keep the money flowing," Sherman said. "Eventually, I would like to get to the veterans of all the American wars."
