(slow orchestral music) - Many who lived through the struggle and sacrifice of World War II have been reluctant to share their experiences, even with family and close friends.

Linking Maryland generations together by passing on personal stories from one generation to the next is a treasure for all of us, for in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.

(slow orchestral music continues) Hello, and welcome to a special night of programming on Maryland Public Television, I'm Jeff Salkin.

Tonight, we're going to explore Maryland's unique role in World War II, and find out how generations of Maryland families are documenting and preserving their own family's oral history from this extraordinary era.

(slow orchestral music continues) - These are the people that make up the world, make up every day living.

These are the people, when they were young, under these circumstances, integrated their integrity with other young people to make the world safe.

- We all chipped in and helped how we could, the victory gardens and the saving of metal that could be converted into war machines.

Everybody felt it was important to get involved.

- We back home had to back them up.

We just had to back them up.

- You don't feel that it's a sacrifice if you feel it's a duty, and the more you can do to fulfill that duty, the more satisfying it is 'cause you have to do it.

- [Interviewer] Why?

- Because it's your country, it's your future.

It's the future of your children and possible grandchildren.

- That war particularly really defined who we are as a nation, what we were willing to do and what we were willing to sacrifice to achieve those goals.

- America's experience during World War II tends to come alive when told through the eyes of those who lived it.

Preserving these extraordinary stories for future generations is the goal of the Library of Congress' Veterans History Project.

MPT's Mindy Mintz has embarked on her own family's journey.

- Ready, up.

- [Mindy] The veteran being laid to rest with full military honors on this day was proud of his service to his country during World War II.

- [Man 1] Standing here in our national cemetery, we realize just how Harold and all those buried here sacrificed so much, willing to give their own life if necessary to protect and defend cherished liberties, beliefs, and freedoms for future generations.

- Aim, fire.

(guns firing) Ready, aim, fire.

(guns firing) (slow bugle music) - [Mindy] His burial at Arlington National Cemetery was his dying wish.

This veteran is my father.

Army Captain Harold Mintz landed at Utah Beach on D-Day with the Fourth Infantry Division.

His unit saw harsh combat, including the Battle of the Bulge in the Hurtgen Forest.

During a German raid on his company, he was wounded and awarded a Purple Heart.

I was able to capture just a small portion of my father's story in an audio interview in the 1980s.

A dentist, my father served as a medic.

- [Harold] Being burned was a daily thing.

We'd act as battalion surgeons, and we didn't do anything definitive, but it was a lot of emergency work.

But I guess most of us took for granted that sooner or later it was gonna happen to us.

- There are many questions about my father's experience in the war that are left unanswered, and it's a loss we appreciated too late.

Every day more than 1,000 veterans of World War II pass away and with them we lose their own individual stories of their experiences during the war.

Since 2000, the Library of Congress has been collecting the stories of those who served in its Veterans History Project, and the stories they seek are not just those of soldiers on the battlefield.

The stories of people like my mother, who supported the war effort by her work as a crane operator on the home front, are also being collected.

- To listen to an 80 some year-old person, you realize it's just not a print in a book.

It's a person that lived, and as the poem says, "Felt dawn, saw a sunset glow, loved and were loved," just like we are today.

- [Mindy] Since average citizens can be the historians in this project, my daughters and I were trained by a member of Congressman Gilchrest's staff on how to conduct an oral history for the Veterans History Project.

- You're introducing your grandmother to a world that never met her.

- What kind of questions should I ask her?

- What would you want to know about a woman crane operator?

And make a list of all the things you want to know about that, and then you've got your questions.

- [Mindy] Although helpful, training like this is not required.

The field guide with suggested questions and all the documents necessary are available online from the Veterans History Project.

- I hope that there's an epidemic after this Ken Burns special, of people wanting to know what their local barber did during the war.

I mean, you see people with gray hair a little differently.

I think your perspective is totally changed after you've interviewed one.

- [Mindy] We found out how easy the process can be when my daughters, ages eight and 11, did the necessary setup and much of the interviewing of my mother.

- Were you really afraid of operating a crane because were you afraid that you weren't strong enough?

- I never thought of it as a man's job.

I just thought it was my job, it needed to be done, and I was doing it.

- [Mindy] Not only was the process of gathering history for our nation's library interesting for the girls and me, it's providing something special for every member of our family, and for generations to come.

- To see such a great example of somebody who is related to them and how personal that'll be for them, as it is for me, setting such a wonderful example, being part of this culture-wide experience of pulling together.

- We've had several of our veterans pass away, and we get letters all the time from their family, how much they appreciated that piece of history.

So even after they're gone, they still can live and their story still lives on in our family, and that history is preserved.

("America the Beautiful") Many of them feel that they didn't really do much, and I tell them, it's not what you did as individuals, it's what collectively were the impact, which is in World War II specifically, I think they saved the world.

- [Mindy] I'm Mindy Mintz.

(slow orchestral music) - As the lights begin to dim on many who fought and supported the war, it becomes increasingly important for us all to become involved in saving and preserving those memories now.

MPT's Charles Robinson shows us how people like you are doing just that, as he visits a workshop in St. Michael's where family stories are being captured and recorded.

- This project is an open drawer, it's a container into which Americans are placing documents, very personal documents, their words, their images, their memorabilia and so forth, not to produce a single story of American veterans, but to provide multiple versions of that broad and ever-expanding narrative, restricted to- - [Charles R.] Charles Camp is a folklorist with the Library of Congress.

His job is simple, turn this group of history buffs into interviewers armed with microphones and video cameras.

This group's motivation is as varied as the stories they want to capture.

- The one person I would like to interview is a relative, and the significant story that he has told in World War II is the one that I have never forgotten, is that he was a tail gunner.

- In World War II, I enlisted when I was 17.

- The women that they classified as the Rosie the Riveter, we have some ladies that we found out this year that are in our Auxiliary Group that worked on the airplanes.

- I'm married to a veteran for the Saudi War.

Also, I have a father who's a veteran in World War II, and I have three brothers who are veterans from the Saudi War.

So, I want to find out how to interview family members and get this information to the necessary people.

- The more I talk to a lot of people, especially after bartending at the VFW off and on, there are so many minute little pieces of information, background, way in the background, it really is important to somebody who wants to study and this history project is great opportunity, and a number of people I'd like to know how to talk to and ask them about it.

- Well, what is the it that we're trying to cover here?

Well, it's not something so specific as the day-to-day experiences of an individual in uniform, but each of these interviews should contain some basic points in the story.

- Each individual gets a field guide kit.

It details what equipment to use, lays out how to conduct interviews, the paperwork for biographical data, release forms, and audio, and video logs of the interview.

So where do you find these stories?

Well, one place you might find them is at a VFW post just like this one, or maybe it's during a family outing, or maybe it's a picture that brings back a memory.

No matter where you find them, the Library of Congress wants them, and they're hoping that you will do your part.

I'm Charles Robinson.

(slow orchestral music) - Serving those who served, thousands of Marylanders struggled and sacrifice for their country in World War II.

Some of them are now living at one of the largest veterans' homes in the state.

Charlotte Hall provides assisted living and long-term care for veterans and their families.

MPT's Lou Davis introduces us to some of the veterans there and their stories.

- [Lou] The 500 bed veterans' home is located in Charlotte Hall in St. Mary's County, Southern Maryland.

It's home for more than 360 Maryland veterans, the oldest from World War II.

But you don't have to be a wartime veteran to be eligible to live here.

Anyone who has ever served, if only for a short stint, and has been honorably discharged can move in.

Gilbert Wurzbacher moved here when he started having medical problems.

- They said, "You've gotta take the first opening there is," which was this.

And I was lucky this opening was still, you know, still an opening when I said that.

And I came down here, and this is a dream.

- [Lou] If folks come and visit you, it's not too far away.

- Well, about a two hour drive.

My daughter comes down here every week.

- [Lou] The men and women who fought in World War II sacrificed so much for this country.

Many gave their limbs and lost their health fighting for our freedom.

Most of them were gone for the duration of the war, and they came home years later having to start again.

Now they are in need of our help, and that's the reason for Charlotte Hall.

This home provides both assisted living care and nursing home facilities, including an Alzheimer's unit.

There's a fleet of mini buses to take the folks on field trips, or to the VA Hospital in Washington when necessary.

There are a 126 acres of land surrounding the home, including the courtyard of flags.

There are walking trails and picnic grounds.

Steve Wynn, also a veteran, is the administrator.

- And there's a camaraderie here, like in the military, there's a different family structure.

I mean, we all wore the uniform, we all understand the jargon, we all understand the mission, and they appreciate that.

- Well, I used to take bets on numbers, horses, baseball, football, anything you wanted to bet.

See Uncle Clarence.

- [Lou] Clarence Cassell was a bookie in Prince George's County, a lifetime bachelor.

Now, he works a few days in the home's general store.

- I was living in a basement apartment.

I've always been a bachelor, and I got tired of living alone.

And I saw somebody one day, he said, "Well, why don't you go to the Veteran's Home?

Are you eligible?"

So I come down here and talk to the people, and it was the best thing to happen to me.

Oh, the healthcare's wonderful.

They're giving me my medicine if I need it.

They have, like I said, they have nurses around the clock.

You can't miss.

I'd probably live forever here.

(laughs) I couldn't die if I wanted to.

- [Lou] The facility is open to any Maryland resident who has served in the armed forces.

The assisted living facility is based on a veteran's ability to pay.

The nursing home follows Medicare regulations for payment.

- We have some residents who pay as low as $400 a month, and we have some residents who pay for the entire cost of care, which could be up towards, around $2,700 a month to include medications.

So it's not a bad ideal.

- The Veteran's Home here at Charlotte Hall is unique.

It's the only state-funded veteran's home in Maryland, and therefore it serves men, women, and their spouses, veterans from all over the state.

I'm Lou Davis.

(slow orchestral music) - Some of the most disturbing stories American troops retell are what they found when they helped to liberate Nazi death camps.

Although the Holocaust is a shameful chapter in human history, the stories of heroism and the great will of the human spirit are still emerging.

Many of the survivors came to the United States to start over, and although it is difficult for them to talk about their time in the camps, they feel it is important to tell the story, to make sure people never forget so it will not happen again.

Leo Burkholtz escaped twice from the trains transporting millions to the death camps, using a wet towel to pry apart the bars.

- So we twisted it around the bars and started twisting, and twisting.

You know how we made it wet?

With the human waste that was collected on the floor of that cattle car.

There were 1,000 people in the cattle car.

Every car held 1,000, 50 cars, 20 each.

The 48 other people in our car and the others in the train went to Auschwitz.

We found shelter with a priest in the village.

There was a good Christian.

See, the church abandoned us.

The institution, the hierarchy, but individuals helped at moments when it was most needed.

- [Jeff] Rachel Bodner has only her old photos now to remember, she survived the Holocaust hidden away in a convent in her native Belgium, but she lost almost her entire family to the death camps.

- When the war ended, we all, as I said, for six months we went faithfully, almost every day, to the train station to wait for people to come back.

You just can't believe that we were so naive.

- [Jeff] It is now more than 60 years since American troops liberated those camps and saw the horrors for the first time.

Sol Goldstein was one of the first troops to enter Buchenwald.

- And there were bodies stacked, one on top of the other, just skeletons of bodies, just corpses.

And the stench was unbelievable, and we still are getting that horrible smell, and we told him, (speaking in foreign language) "What's the stink?"

So he pointed to the chimney, the crematorium, which was still smoking, smoke was coming out of it.

We had known that there were, that the Nazis were killing people, and killing Jews, especially, but we had no idea, we had no conception of what this was.

We had no idea that bodies would be stacked like that.

- [Jeff] Now, survivors and the liberators, haunted by those times, tell the stories as they see history repeating itself.

- People don't seem to get it, and I had someone say to me in a class, a young man, "Isn't this the way God thins out the overpopulation in the world?"

And I was aghast, I was amazed that this kind of comment would come from a child.

- Read your history and learn from history.

We have to connect the past with the present so that we can take it into the future, and I can tell students, without qualm, "It's in your hands."

(slow orchestral music) - The quest to save human life was all too real for American soldiers fighting overseas.

For many citizens at home, the fight was part of every day life, as well.

Now Mindy Mintz shares with us some of her mother's story, and that of other Maryland women who fought the war in their own way.

(upbeat jazzy music) - [Mindy] Rosie the Riveter was an icon of the war effort, a symbol of the three million women who filled the jobs left vacant by men in uniform defending their nation.

But she was actually a real person, a woman who worked as a riveter in a Michigan aircraft factory.

Rose Will Monroe was born in Kentucky in the early 1920s, and so was my mother, who was kind of a Rosie the Riveter in her own right.

At the age of 19, Eva Capps worked as a crane operator at a steel mill during the war.

- [Eva] I don't think you ever made a sound about even the crane operator.

(laughs) - [Announcer] Every woman who can possibly help is wanted.

Their country is calling them.

- The radio and everything was saying, "Go help the war effort," because the fellas were all going away, and we had to support the steel industry particularly because we had to really churn all the tanks and everything else out very quickly under the circumstances.

We all felt we had to do it, I mean, and so women crowded in droves.

- [Mindy] In Baltimore, 18-year-old Hazel Gresham really was a riveter at the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company.

- You were putting the top over the bottom where holes had previously been drilled, and they give you these hot rivets that you would have to shoot them with a gun, and when you shot them, they melted, and they held.

- [Mindy] Today, Hazel's photo hangs in the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History, a testament to her support of our airmen overseas.

- If they had that much fortitude to go, then we back home had to back them up.

We just had to back them up.

So that was my way of doing so.

- [Mindy] Not all of the work contributed by women on the home front was done in factories.

Nearly a million so-called government girls flocked to our nation's capital to handle an increasing federal workload.

- The streetcars and buses were just packed with young girls coming from all over the place.

We all felt close because we were all there for the same reasons.

Everybody wanted to help with the war effort.

- [Mindy] At the age of 18, Eleanor Leighton received a letter from J. Edgar Hoover himself, appointing her to a position in the numbering unit at FBI headquarters.

- I was astounded that he would write to me personally.

Bring something of the better part of you out of you when you have a cause to contribute to.

- [Announcer] You give us the scrap, we'll turn it into tanks.

- [Mindy] The folks at home were asked to do more than get to work as the war went on.

To address shortages, citizens saved scrap metal and planted victory gardens.

- We all chipped in and helped how we could, the victory gardens and the saving of metal that could be converted into war machines.

Everybody felt it was important to get involved.

- Everybody had a victory garden, and um...that helped out a lot.

- [Mindy] The gardens were a good supplement to a food supply that was rationed.

Each family could get a set amount of different diet staples each month.

♪ Oh, here's a plan that's fair and square ♪ ♪ Everybody gets their share ♪ ♪ No more griping anywhere ♪ - We had to use coupons to go down to the store and buy sugar and other things that you might need, and you were very careful with spending those because that was like money.

- With planning it wasn't a real hardship.

- [Mindy] Gasoline was also rationed, and rubber and leather were in short supply.

- There were no leather shoes, there was no leather.

The boys were wearing the leather shoes.

And we gave that up, you see, we gave up a lot of things.

- One of the hardest things was the fact that you couldn't get tires, and at that time, tires had inner tubes inside.

And (laughs) so you had to become very adept at patching inner tubes because you definitely, if you drove any place, you would almost for sure have a flat.

(explosions rumbling) - [Mindy] To these women, it felt as if the entire nation was behind the war effort, asked to give at every turn, and responding in kind.

- If you worked, you were asked to, and most people did, sign up to have so much money taken out of your check each time to buy war bonds.

- [Mindy] The war was a very personal experience for many Americans.

Even if they didn't have servicemen in their families, they feared losing something even greater.

- You just couldn't wait to get home to hear the news, what had happened that day.

- We would listen to those in the evening, the evening news, and they would tell us where the boys had been that day, and they would give the number of people who were killed, were killed that day, where they had gone or how they had moved.

- And it's a frightening thing, just a thought of losing what we have in this country, that until that time, chances are, most people, including me, had not fully appreciated just exactly what we did have until we were on the verge of possibly losing it.

(upbeat orchestral music) When it comes right down to the nitty gritty, it was a matter of survival.

- [Mindy] I'm Mindy Mintz.

(slow orchestral music) - The struggle and sacrifice of World War II touched the lives of most every family in most every town across Maryland.

It was a time when our communities prepared for the worst on the home front, and our boys became men on the battlefront.

In these extraordinary times, there were no ordinary lives.

(slow horn music) - [Narrator] Those who remember World War II know the horrors endured by millions of Depression-weary Americans who mobilized in the early 1940s to fight Nazi Germany and Japan.

In Maryland it was no different.

Throughout the state, thousands of young men and women, some barely out of high school or college, set aside their dreams to take on the enormous task of defending our country.

Some would serve overseas, some would serve stateside on the factory floor.

The attack of Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941, united America, and marked the beginning of a new generation.

Their accounts of those years bring to life the struggles and sacrifices of the war.

(slow orchestral music continues) (artillery rumbles) - We were put to sea on the fifth day of June to cross the English Channel.

It was so rough that day, they turned around, went back.

That following night that we set out to make a landing, it was still pretty rough, but the Navy put us in the water 12 miles out in the English Channel with DUKWs.

It was a pity to sit there and watch them be unloaded because most of those poor fellas had not been properly indoctrinated in how to run those things in rough seas, and they went off the ramps and went right down to the bottom.

- The situation at the beginning of the war was terrible.

In fact, in May of 1940, the President of the United States called the Chief of Staff of the Army and the Chief of Naval Operations into his office and said, "Invade the Azores."

He was afraid that the Germans would grab them as a U-boat base, and the Navy said, "Mr. President, we can't do it.

We do not have the ships to do that."

And the Chief of Staff of the Army said, "Sir, if the Portuguese Army fights, we have one day's supply of ammunition."

So this is pretty desperate stuff.

- You had to improvise a lot of things.

For example, some of the landing craft had been in use by the British in maneuvers in Scotland, and it was so badly beaten up that we had to put patches on the hull, or take the engines out and put some other engines in them to make them go, there was no question about that.

You did what you had, and that was it.

- [William] The Army was drilling with broomsticks.

They were using broomsticks for machine guns.

They were using flour bombs out of aircraft.

Remember, the Depression was going on, and while the Army was trying to expand, they were finding it very difficult to do so because there was no money.

(slow drumming) - By 1940, '41, funding finally began to increase in significant levels, and you had call ups of some of the National Guard divisions to include the 29th Division in 1941, and they reported for duty here at Ford Meade.

All told, there were three and a half million men and women passed through here during the war years, and if you consider, that's basically from December of '41 to summer of '45, it's not all that long a period of time.

And it reached a point during the Battle of the Bulge that the Army Ground Forces Replacement Depo, which is where infantry soldiers were being trained for replacement duties, the cots in those barracks were being slept in 24 hours a day.

You got an eight hour shift, and then the next guy came in.

They were used constantly.

The troops were out in the field all the time for infantry training, there was small arms ranges, hand grenade ranges, bayonet ranges, et cetera.

So out on the ranges, it was just any time you went out there, you would have seen units just covering all those range areas.

- [Edwin] We finally got close enough to the beach that when those Germans opened up with their firing power, we could use the flash of the guns to tell us where to go.

You have no idea how bad that was.

With these Germans up on the crescent of a hill, and you're down here, all they had to say, (speaking in foreign language) and bang, they had you.

That was June the 6th, 1944, what is called famous D-Day.

Yeah, and few of us alive these days remember that day.

I don't want to remember too much of it.

(artillery rumbles) (slow orchestral music) - [William] The 29th Division was as important as any single division that fought for the US Army.

They were the first division in on D-Day, on June 6th, they went ashore, and then fought their way across Northern Europe, and were there at the end.

(slow jazzy music) - Before the war, in 1940, life was very simple, communities were safe, young people were having a good time.

People were not even thinking of anything such as war.

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, that really shocked everybody, everybody was glued to the radio to know what was going to happen, and things started happening fast.

(slow orchestral music) - [Announcer] Women wanted for war production work in Baltimore, why?

- [Narrator] Before the war, most businesses were reluctant to hire women for any non-clerical jobs.

But as more and more men left Maryland for the war, it became apparent that discriminating against women was not a practical policy.

- [Announcer] And who can fill them?

You, you women, you are the ones who must fill them, who can give our boys what they need.

- Women had to come to work at these, in with these munitions and weapons and guns.

The men had to be replaced, and it was a necessity for the women to move into that, and many of them had two days of training.

And that was it, it was a fast pace, and the women were excited, even though they had never before done any of that kind of work, but they were willing, more than willing to learn and do the men's jobs.

Not to take the job away from them when they return, but they were needed.

- [Narrator] It seemed no job was too tough or demanding for Maryland's new workforce.

Women did nearly everything for the war effort.

Inspired by the well-known Rosie the Riveter, women worked as crane operators and welders.

Women nurses served close to the battlefield.

There was even a group of pilots called Fly Girls who deployed new military aircraft for male combat pilots.

And there was a particularly risky but vital job taken on by a group of civilian women at Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Grounds.

They were called the Women's Ordnance Workers, on the WOW women, for short.

Their jobs included the assembly, testing, and firing of munitions before they were used for battle.

It was dirty work that initially caused the women a 1940s workplace fashion dilemma.

- We had to work six days a week, 10 hours a day.

No one had the opportunity to go and buy clothes, work clothes and that sort of thing.

The idea came in to have a uniformed ordnance workers, and that's how the WOW uniform came into existence.

You didn't have to worry about what you're gonna wear to work the next day, everybody was ready, not just in office uniforms, they were in coveralls and grease monkey uniforms 'cause the women worked tanks, guns, munitions.

It was really an exciting time, as far as people together working together.

- [Narrator] Wearing their signature red bandanas, it was evident the WOW were not shy about keeping wartime morale up, or letting you know what they did for the war effort.

In fact, they even wrote a theme, inspired by the song "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" that spells it all out.

(slow piano music) - And the verse of that song is, "the gal behind the gunner is the WOW who packs a shell.

She's the gal who helps the gunner send the axis straight to, well, we are the WOWs and we help supply the guns to blow up the Japs, the (indistinct) and the Huns."

The women who worked in the munitions, even though they knew it was dangerous work, they were dedicated.

They want to do anything they could do.

They learned quickly and did a superb job, and to my knowledge, there were no serious accidents at Aberdeen Proving Ground.

They'll never forget the WOW organization.

(slow music) - [Narrator] During the war years, there were more jobs in Maryland than there were people to fill them.

As a result, jobs and income soared in Maryland, but not for all its citizens.

In the 1940s, Maryland was still a segregated state.

Jim Crow practices kept Blacks working in segregated factories, or in menial jobs.

Life on the home front appeared to be a reflection of life on the war front, where African Americans also fought in a segregated army for their rights and the respect of their country.

(upbeat orchestral music) - [Announcer] In July of 1941, five young Negroes made aviation history at Tuskegee, Alabama.

These five men were the first of their race to graduate under the Army Air Force's newly organized plan for training negro pilots.

From all parts of the country, these men have come to take the acid test.

- I heard about the 99th Arrow Squadron, at that time, as an experiment, to see if Blacks could fly a plane.

And remember the circumstances, as a background, at that particular time, was separate but equal meant that it was a segregated Air Force, just as it was segregated for all the other troops, as such.

To the shame of America, our blood plasma could not be interchanged.

So if something happened to one of us, we had to get Black blood, as opposed to have blood, period.

We had problems with the fact that no white officer would take orders or any commands from a Black officer, and that went up and down the line.

Separate but equal, unequal made the Army Air Force very inefficient, and they didn't want us to interfere in the war.

They didn't want Blacks involved in fighting at all, either on the ground or in the air.

And so that gave us extra training time.

We were set off someplace to fly, get ready, and we got ready, we got ready.

And by the time that we got to North Africa, and the time we got to Italy, we were ready, and of course, the Luftwaffe and the rest of them didn't have it.

- [Narrator] The main job of the 99th Pursuit Squadron was to escort and protect planes during bombing missions over Germany.

They fulfilled that job and went on to compile a record that was never surpassed.

- [Raymond] The record of the Tuskegee Airmen is that we did not lose a single bomber that we escorted, we took care of business.

And that was the reason why we compiled the record that we did, that's the record.

You can't do better than 100%.

- [Announcer] This is the man who couldn't master the tools of modern war, remember?

(airplane propellers whirring) - [Raymond] We considered it as a job well done.

We felt good about ourselves until we came back to America.

And then when we saw (indistinct), our condition of servitude or the mindset that Blacks were the servants of whites, came back into play, and we resumed our regular life with some bitterness.

(slow orchestral music) - Our Maryland Generation's journey continues with the state's remarkable transition and growth through the war years, and their impact then and now on some of its great political families.

We begin our story with a visit to historic Annapolis and the United States Naval Academy by MPT's own Lou Davis.

- [Lou] It was Sunday morning, December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

- [Announcer] Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.

- [Lou] At the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, the superintendent was having breakfast in his quarters with some midshipmen when he got word of the attack.

Historian Scott Harmon, the Director of the Naval Academy's Museum, says it was not a complete surprise.

- When we saw the war taking place in Europe, there was an expectation we would probably get into it.

There had been a bill to build up the Navy.

We were starting to build ships under Roosevelt's administration.

We had not built new naval vessels for 10, 15 years before that.

So we were starting to build the generation of ships that would fight through the latter part of the war.

- [Lou] Like the rest of the country, the Academy immediately went into a war footing.

That year, the seniors graduated early because officers were needed in the fleet.

- The classes were accelerated during the course of the war.

They spent three years here at the Academy.

I think the class of '41 graduated about six months earlier in December of '41, so about the time of Pearl Harbor, they were graduating, getting out to the fleet.

- [Lou] The Second World War would forever change the Navy.

The United States became a world power, a major force in the Pacific, and the Navy had to meet that challenge.

- You had to carry the war to the enemy, and the only way you could get to the enemy was over the water.

What you were doing is stepping, island by island, towards Japan, and you had to do this by taking island bases, clearing the enemy from behind your line so you could advance without being attacked.

So the Pacific War, I think was very important.

- [Lou] At the Naval Academy Museum, there's a large section dedicated to the war in the Pacific, with multimedia displays chronicling the battles, from Pearl Harbor to the surrender on the decks of the Battleship Missouri.

- The surrender fittingly was aboard the Missouri, and here at the museum, if I can put a plug in, we've got the table, the tablecloth, and the chair that were used in that surrender ceremony.

We had the uniform worn by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz in that ceremony, and the case has flooring of teak decking from the Missouri.

- [Lou] And in the Navy, the Second World War placed more emphasis on Naval aviation.

- And the carriers became the dominant battleship of the time, and I think that changed, and we still emphasize aircraft carriers in today's Navy.

- It's been more than 60 years now since that document of surrender was signed on the USS Missouri, ending World War II.

That war changed the United States, the Navy, and the Naval Academy, and now our country faces a different kind of a threat, a War on Terrorism.

I'm Lou Davis.

(slow orchestral music) - From sea power to air power, Maryland generations have shaped American history.

Before and during World War II, the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company produced the B-10 and B-26 bombers, the China Clipper, and many others.

MPT's Charles Robinson.

- Pleased to have the Science Center representation here to look at one of the very early pioneers in aviation, namely the Glenn L. Martin.

- [Charles R.] As these youngsters absorb the information, they are literally walking in the footsteps of a Maryland institution that helped chart the future of aviation and assist in winning the war.

The Glenn L. Martin Company said as much in this corporate film.

- [Announcer] On a plot of over 1,000 acres, located 12 miles northeast of Baltimore, are the huge manufacturing facilities and airport of the company.

Five million square feet of floor space are utilized by 20,000 skilled engineers and craftsmen to design and build the advanced weapons needed by our armed forces to help keep the security we all want so much.

- [Charles R.] Marv Merriman literally had a front seat at the Martin Company.

He started in 1941, prior to the war.

He joined those early pilots who flew bombing missions in North Africa and Sicily.

He remembers the first time, he encountered a plane from his former company.

- While, we were up there in Sicily, I ran across the South African Air Force group, and they were on the same field with us and they flew with us, and they were flying Martin Baltimores.

And I had never been in a Martin Baltimore, so I said, "Gee, I'd like to see that."

So this fella, Deak Walters, said, "Go ahead and fly it."

- [Charles R.] Merriman would return after the war and join the aircraft manufacturer as an inspector.

He's since retired.

- It's kind of like thinking about a departed relative.

The old company's dead and been buried, and the new Martin, although successful, has very little to do with airplanes.

- [Charles R.] While Merriman was in the war theater, Jack King was stateside, working as a test pilot.

- Martin had a lot of firsts in developing.

We had some good design people, and of course, Mr. Martin was at the head of it, and he had a lot to do with it, too.

- [Charles R.] King would know, he was a test pilot for Martin, and also working with the engineers.

- [Jack] We lived the best part of aviation, I think, back during those days, really.

And during the pioneering of aviation, and I think, I wouldn't mind flying it in the left seat in command, but they've come a long ways from the piston airplanes to the jet, you had turbo prop, and then into the jets.

Now I've got some experience in all of them.

- [Charles R.] The aviation experience wasn't just limited to men, in fact, women became an essential part of the workforce.

They were known as Rosie the Riveters.

Lavert Via left her farm in Virginia and became a finisher at Martin's.

- When you turned around and you sent all the boys overseas to fight the war, then the women had to get out and work, or they wouldn't have been able to make planes and stuff for the war.

- [Charles R.] The airplane manufacturing division all but disappeared with the merger with Lockheed, but the groundwork for the work they do now was laid right here in Maryland.

I'm Charles Robinson.

(slow orchestral music) - What role did Maryland newspapers play during World War II?

As the largest newspaper in the state, then and now, the "Baltimore Sun" delivered critical information to Marylanders several times a day during the war.

Now MPT's Yolanda Vasquez takes us back in time.

- [Woman 1] People were very much interested in what was happening in Europe when the war started in September of '39.

- [Yolanda] And they could read about it on the front pages of the "Baltimore Sun."

More than a dozen war correspondents were stationed in battle zones, from Naples to Normandy.

They witnessed historic moments, and shared their firsthand accounts with readers who kept track of their every move.

- [Woman 1] And this was just to tell the public where our correspondents were and where they were going.

The "Sun" was always good at that.

- [Yolanda] The paper also kept readers abreast of Maryland soldiers' activities, from little snippets of every day life to the throes of military action.

Reporter Lee McCardell traveled with the 29th Infantry Division during their time abroad.

- [Woman 1] He covered their living conditions, life in London, life in England, which was foreign to most Marylanders.

- [Yolanda] Additional stories focused on the 29th's training and preparation.

Headlines tell how these brave soldiers were involved in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II.

Correspondent Holbrook Bradley was with the division during the Normandy landing.

- It was a cataclysmic event.

They had I don't know how many battle wagons out there.

They were firing round after round, and we figured, nobody could survive that, but they did.

- [Yolanda] At 91 years old, Bradley remembers being in the midst of battle.

He was the type of reporter who covered stories from the front lines.

- I'd go down to the war room five o'clock every morning to find out where the action was.

Then I'd go to the mortar pool, get a jeep, and go there.

- [Yolanda] Back then, war correspondents wore uniforms and were considered a part of the military.

This badge was the only thing that separated them from soldiers.

Their striking resemblance to the real thing meant they were vulnerable to enemy fire.

- They were very much close to the action.

They were very much at risk.

- [Yolanda] "Sun" reporter Howard Norton, seen here with his arm in a sling, was wounded on a sub chaser in Guam, and Bradley was laid up for a month after a mortar shell nearly ended his career.

- And the next thing I knew, it was right over my head and went off, and it felt like a baseball bat had hit my thigh or my leg, and I went down, I couldn't stand up, I couldn't move.

- [Yolanda] Bradley talks about his injury in his new book, "War Correspondent: From D-Day to the Elbe."

- And I ended up at an aid station, and I remember the doctor said, it was in a cellar of a bombed-out house, and he said, "Hey, you just got yourself a Purple Heart."

(laughs) I said, "Thanks a lot, buddy."

And at that point, I passed out.

- [Yolanda] Other honors bestowed on "Sun" war correspondents include a Pulitzer Prize.

Mark Watson, a veteran reporter from World War I, received the prestigious award in 1945 for his reports from Sicily, Italy, and France.

- He was very good at explaining why Americans did what they did, why did they attack Italy, why did we go through North Africa before, why didn't we just go to Berlin?

- [Yolanda] To help educate readers, the "Sun" provided detailed maps of various geographic locations.

These drawings, along with photos, help tell the story of the war abroad.

Each Sunday, Marylanders looked forward to seeing their native sons and daughters in a section called the Brown Pages.

- It worked well because a lot of people thought that was the best part of the paper.

(laughs) - [Paul] We have tons of pictures of World War II.

- [Yolanda] These days, those photos are filed away in alphabetized folders.

- [Paul] These are mostly from wire sources, but these were published in the paper, and it shows destruction in parts of Europe.

- [Yolanda] In the basement of the "Baltimore Sun's" office on Calvert Street, researcher Paul McCardell says the paper has tens of thousands of photos from the war, and he knows how to find every single one of them.

- I think the way my mind works that things stick with me, and I think that's a gift, and that helps me a lot in my job.

- [Yolanda] A longtime history buff, McCardell is intent on preserving the past.

He, like Bradley, believes too many people have forgotten the sacrifices Marylanders made during World War II, and how their altruistic efforts helped save our great nation.

- The country was in peril, the country was at risk, and the world was.

I think we contributed something very strongly to that.

(slow orchestral music) - It's one of the most modern healthcare facilities in the country.

The Baltimore VA Medical Center offers Maryland's veterans state-of-the-art medical technology, clinical services, and research programs.

(artillery rumbles) - [Alan] World War II is really the first mechanized war.

You had troops scattered over large areas of ground, people moving long distances sometimes.

And so one of the struggles was to have the hospitals actually keep up with the soldiers.

- [Yolanda] Despite a fluid battlefield, the US Military had an organized system in place for the evacuation and treatment of wounded soldiers.

- [Alan] The first person that's gonna treat you is the medic.

- [Yolanda] His job was to administer first aid and move soldiers out of harm's way.

- [Alan] He would look at you, stabilize you as much as possible, applying bandages, whatever, sometimes injecting a little bit of morphine.

He'd load you onto an ambulance.

The ambulance would take you to a battalion aid station.

[Yolanda] Ground transportation was the only way to go.

It took several hours to move a soldier from a frontline foxhole to a field hospital.

- If you're wounded during World War II, it could take you up to between nine and 11 hours before you actually were on the surgery operating table.

- [Yolanda] To help speed up the process, helicopters were brought in for medical evacuation.

- One of the innovations of World War II is you started seeing aircraft being used as ambulances on a routine basis.

Mostly that was in the China Burma India theater, that's where you saw that happening.

- [Yolanda] While efforts were being made to hasten the speed of medical treatment, combat medics still struggled with a rudimentary supply of drugs.

One of them was Sulfanilamide.

It came in a powder form and was sprinkled on wounds to prevent infection.

- Well, there was a couple problems with it.

The first thing they discovered is the body didn't treat it as a way to disinfect the wound, it actually treated it as a foreign body.

So it actually hampered healing.

- [Yolanda] By the early to mid '40s, sulfa powder had taken a backseat to the wonder drug penicillin.

It was now being used to treat wounded soldiers on D-Day.

- Penicillin was really the first effective antibiotic, and it was a huge help on treating people who were infected with bacterial infections.

- And as you know, penicillin is now an antibiotic whose usefulness, although it was great then, is waning.

- [Yolanda] Dr. Dorothy Snow says some of the medication and procedures used during World War II were still in their infancy.

- There was just not these technologies that we now have today to keep people from dying on the battlefield.

- [Yolanda] Another life-saving drug was Atabrine.

Soldiers took it to help fight malaria.

- Atabrine is an interesting drug.

It's actually a dye, it's a yellow dye, so if you take enough of it, you begin to turn yellow.

- And even before I got malaria, they would give you Atabrine at the end of every mess hall.

- [Yolanda] World War II vet and Baltimore native John Meyers was just a teenager when he was forced to swallow the bitter pill.

- And as you went by, you had to open your mouth, and he would throw it in, and the worst (indistinct) is, it would get on your tongue and it was like eating sulfur, and I mean to tell you, it was bad.

- [Yolanda] Medical technology has advanced rapidly since World War II.

Notable developments include products such as quick clot and the HemCon bandage.

Both are designed to stop heavy, uncontrolled bleeding.

Another life saving device is this self-contained portable intensive care unit called LSTAT.

It's currently being used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

- Well, what this does is this allows a very seriously wounded soldier to get all the advanced care that he can get sooner.

- [Yolanda] Treatment within the golden hour is critical, as well as follow up care in a hospital setting.

Dr. Dorothy Snow overseas patient care for the VA Maryland Healthcare System.

- The mission of the VA is serving those who have served, and we strive to provide excellent clinical care for veterans.

- [Yolanda] Snow points to a number of advancements within the VA, including computerized medical records, filmless radiology, and a barcoded medication dispensation system.

- The patient's ID band is scanned, and then the medication is scanned, and the computer link lets us know that we're giving the right dose to the right patient at the right time.

- [Yolanda] As the VA continues to stay on the cutting edge of technology, Snow focuses on the healthcare needs of her patients.

Her commitment to provide quality care is a way of honoring the spirit and sacrifice of those World War II vets whom she describes as.

- [Dorothy] Courageous, very, very hardworking, tenacious, and as we say, a remarkable generation.

(slow orchestral music) - They are some of the most recognizable names in Maryland politics.

MPT's Lou Davis sits down and talks with two generations of Maryland governors about the impact of the war on their families, then and now.

-[Lou] Before he was comptroller or governor or mayor, William Donald Schaeffer was in the US Army.

He was in charge of a medical unit in Britain during World War II.

- We opened up the hospital, it was 750 beds.

Well, when D-Day came, within 24 hours, we had 1,500 casualties, and I mean, I had never seen casualties like that in my life.

- [Lou] Schaeffer was drafted during the early days of the war and was shipped to England where he commanded an Army hospital.

- It was an experience that you never would forget, but the people that I thought were so great were the frontline men.

When they came back, they were wounded, shot all up, arms, legs.

This is one that I can't forget, just sliced the whole skin off of his belly, and you could look inside him, and I remember that one.

- [Lou] Fifty years later, the governor went to Normandy on the anniversary of D-Day.

- And I looked out over the ocean, and I thought, they can't come in here, they can't make it.

It's impossible, they just can't do it.

And then all of a sudden, and the invasion came, and they were killing people like (indistinct).

They lost 10,000 men, they never broadcast that very much during the first period, but 10,000 of them lost their life on that beach.

- My father enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps about two days after he graduated from high school, and he flew 33 missions over Japan in a B-24 Liberator and was an eyewitness to Hiroshima.

- [Lou] Governor O'Malley spoke with us about his father's part in World War II.

He said there were many conversations about the war.

- [Martin] He was proud that he answered the call and that he served his country, and really the world at a very scary time in history.

But he did not wear it on his sleeve.

He was one of those people that felt like he did what was asked of him in his time.

- [Lou] Thomas O'Malley joined his son when the Veteran's Plaza was rededicated in Baltimore.

- When we rededicated that Veteran's Plaza in front of City Hall, I asked my father if he'd come up and be there.

He wasn't doing too well health-wise, and he said, "I'll come, but only under one condition.

I don't want to be recognized, and I just want to sit with my brothers."

And I think that kind of summed up the attitude that many of those World War II veterans had.

- [Lou] It's been more than 60 years now since the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but Governor O'Malley says the lessons he learned from his father and the war still guide him today.

- We have a obligation as a revolutionary people to future generations, that was something I think that was deeply felt by those World War II veterans.

I think, you know, the camaraderie that they had, the loyalty that they had to one another, and the awareness that they had a tremendous responsibility to safeguard the freedom of the human spirit, the individual liberty, the dignity of the individual against fascism and imperialism, that was not a small thing that those men and women did for us.

- [Lou] Governor O'Malley's father often talked to his son about the war years.

The governor said it was a matter of pride for his father to have answered the call during a, quote, "scary time in history."

Former governor Schaeffer stayed in the reserves for 29 years after he was discharged from the Army.

He retired as a lieutenant colonel.

I'm Lou Davis.

- Fort Meade opened its Maryland doors back in 1917, and during World War II, more than 200 units and over three million men used the facility as a training center.

Now, it's one of the largest employers in the state and about to expand.

Our Lou Davis explains.

- [Lou] BRAC, the Base Alignment and Closure Commission, means a major expansion for both Fort Meade and the Aberdeen Proving Grounds.

Fort Meade will (indistinct) almost 6,000 new positions at the Arundel base, which dates back to before World War II.

Between 1942 and 1946, Fort Meade was home to more than 7,000 personnel.

It was a major training center, with millions of troops going through basic training and advanced training here.

World War II veteran, retired Colonel Charles Thomand, remembers Fort Meade during World War II.

- Fort Meade had, of course, been a training camp during World War I, and there was still a number of buildings there.

So they had to enlarge the facility greatly, and they had to because of the range of the weapons, of course, enlarge the firing ranges, as well.

There were three million soldiers, went through Fort Meade during World War II, and it being a close embarkation area to Baltimore and other places made it very handy.

- [Lou] Fort Meade met the challenge of World War II.

Now, because of BRAC, the base is once again gearing up for major expansion.

- BRAC means growth for Fort Meade.

Luckily when BRAC, 2005, when they were first starting to collect data, we were able to pitch our master plan.

This time around, BRAC, we're getting approximately 5,600 jobs.

Most of those jobs are civilian, and only about 12% are military.

(slow marching band music) - [Lou] You can see that the transition because of BRAC has already begun.

Fort Meade has already become a joint installation facility, as we saw during this change of command ceremony for the Navy Information Operational Command.

The expansion will continue with the base slated to add thousands of high paying jobs, most of them involved with computer technology.

- They're mostly civilians, and they'll be in the local areas, they'll be (indistinct).

Some of them will come... and that's why we say jobs, 5,600 jobs, 'cause we don't know how many people are actually gonna relocate here yet.

- [Lou] For Maryland, BRAC, the expansion at Meade and Aberdeen will present a challenge, a total of 60,000 new jobs are added to the state's economy, but those jobs will bring problems, as the influx of people will mean new schools, new roads, new housing.

Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown has been given the task of coordinating the state's response to the challenges of BRAC.

He's been holding a series of meetings around the region to map out a strategy.

- We've got jobs coming to Maryland that cannot be outsourced somewhere halfway around the globe.

These are important strategic jobs, defense communications, information technology.

They're coming to Maryland, they'll stay in Maryland if we do our job and make sure that we prepare for the arrival.

It's really important, these are important jobs, and Maryland has a real responsibility.

- Fort Meade has gone through a lot of changes since World War II.

This year, the base celebrates its 90th anniversary, and by the time it reaches its centennial year, this round of BRAC will be completed, and the military will probably be bracing for the next round.

I'm Lou Davis.

(slow orchestral music) - In the early 1940s, the state of Maryland slowly changing from the reconstruction era of the late 1800s, was suddenly thrust onto the center stage of the American war machine that eventually drove the Allies' victory in World War II.

In these extraordinary times, there were no ordinary lives.

(slow music) - Maryland occupies a unique geographic area.

It's very close to a lot of raw material, coal out in the western part of Maryland and Pennsylvania, oil from Western Pennsylvania.

We've also got the bay, and it was protected against shipping attacks.

- [Narrator] Ships were the lifeline of the war effort.

There was no other way to transport the huge quantity of troops, munitions, jeeps, tanks, food, and supplies of all kinds to our military and allies in Europe.

In the late 1930s, President Roosevelt instituted the largest cargo ship building program ever undertaken.

Eighteen shipyards around the country immediately went to work building the Liberty cargo ships.

- The ship building industry was very, very important.

Remember, the U-boats are sinking ships at a tremendous rate, so down here in Baltimore, they were able to build the Liberty ship, which was a new concept in shipping.

It had never been done before.

Up until this time, ships had been riveted.

They took steel, they bore holes in it, they put a rivet in there, and they drove that rivet in and sealed it.

That was very, very time consuming.

Down here in Baltimore, they didn't do that.

They welded it, which was a new way to build ships, and it worked.

And you'll see today, Liberty ships.

The John Brown down in Baltimore was built that way.

They were mass produced, something which no one ever thought we could do, the Germans had no idea, we could do that.

So we literally out-produced them.

We could build more ships than they could sink, and that won World War II.

[Announcer] A bottle of champagne crashes against the bow, and another ship slides gracefully down the waves.

Launchings are frequent and gala occasions in Baltimore, where ship building is a tradition.

- [Narrator] Between 1941 and 1945, more than 2,700 Liberty ships were built nationwide.

Baltimore's Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard built 384, the most built by any single yard.

(jet engines roaring) Military aircraft were also greatly needed to fight the war.

Fortunately for us, the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company, located here in Maryland, was already well established as a major aircraft builder.

In the 1930s, Martin built the flying boats for the Navy, and the world-famous China Clipper used by Pan Am Airways.

But it was the B-26 Marauder that was Martin's first big wartime winner.

An astonishing 5,266 of these state-of-the-art bombers were eventually built for service in both the European and the Pacific wars.

However, when it first debuted in 1941, early pilot reactions to the plane were not flattering.

- During World War II, the Marauder, which the crews called "the Baltimore whore," because it had very short wings and therefore it had no visible means of support, so it was the Baltimore whore.

And it had a bad reputation, in that if you lost an engine on takeoff, well, you killed the crew.

[Narrator] Since airplanes were more expendable than pilots, immediate modifications to the B-26 were made, restoring crew confidence.

The B-29 went onto earn a solid reputation as a formidable military aircraft.

(slow jazzy music) In the late 1930s, a little-known aircraft company in Western Maryland was also earning a solid reputation for building small planes for the civilian market, but World War II changed all that.

Suddenly the small Fairchild Aircraft Company was brought into the war in a very big way.

- I'm Alan Clopper.

I was in the flight test engineering department at Fairchild in 1942, when the aftereffects of Pearl Harbor were being felt.

President Roosevelt issued an order, he wanted to have 50,000 pilots by the end of 1942.

- [Narrator] The urgent need for new pilots also created a need for a great many training aircraft that could quickly turn out new pilots.

- The PT-19 was a logical choice, it was the best trainer because it fit the need for beginning pilots.

(airplane engine roars) - This was already a proven airplane by the time Pearl Harbor happened, and the military wanted it, they saw it as the airplane that would fill the niche for an airplane that would train pilots and be an easy stepping stone towards more advanced airplanes.

- [Narrator] But the story about the PT-19 has less to do with its performance and reputation than it does with the Maryland community that worked together to build it for the war.

- Suddenly the military needed many, many more, and the factory space here was not nearly big enough to handle that capacity.

So what Fairchild came up with was actually to utilize the businesses and the warehouses within the community of Hagerstown and within Washington County, actually, to build and pieces and parts for the airplane, bring them all together, and assemble them at the factory.

We had industries such as the MP Miller Pipe Organ Company, Brandt Cabinet Works, Stratton Furniture Company, and machine companies, as well, throughout town, that really aided and helped.

So what it really alleviated was the need for this giant factory to be built, which there was no time to do.

(airplane engine roars) - [Narrator] One of the big problems during World War II was poor antiaircraft fire accuracy, missing the targets.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and Aberdeen Proving Grounds worked feverishly during the war to solve this problem.

- And what they came up with was something called the variable time, VT fuse, or proximity fuse, and here it is.

This is the proximity fuse, and the way it works is this.

It has inside a transmitter.

Remember, this is tube technology.

This is old radio technology, and what it does, it broadcasts a signal, and that signal comes out, and when it gets a return off the target, it initiates this fuse, which then initiates the round, which explodes.

And consequently, the rate of kill went way, way, way up.

- [Narrator] The VT fuse proved very effective during the Battle of the Bulge and in the Battle of Okinawa against deadly kamikaze suicide bombers.

The technology developed in Maryland is credited with playing a huge role in the winning of World War II.

(slow piano music) - When I was deployed, I had no idea where New Guinea was.

We were on a ship, the USS Sea Snipe, and I used to say that it floated, but that's about the best it could do.

So we went unescorted, the longest possible way you could get to New Guinea, and I surmise it was around the Hawaii, all along the Christmas Islands.

It took us 30 days to get there, and I'll never forget as long as I live, I was seasick 30 days.

In New Guinea, it was absolutely a shock.

There were no street lights, there were no sidewalk, no roads, no hot and cold running water.

It was a shock to many of us, and the isolation took its toll.

My very own commanding officer, my battalion commanding officer could not stand the stress of the isolation and had to be shipped home as incompatible with the service of the environment, and he and others likewise, it's isolation.

The enemy, we were not concerned about the enemy.

We were concerned about the conditions.

It was a shock to many of us.

The monsoon season, it rained for three months.

It was absolutely one of the most frightening experiences of our life because everything got moldy, everything was wet, and then you have constant concern about malaria.

The mosquitoes were in great force, but over and above that, more concerning to many of the troops was the fact that you could get jungle rot.

Jungle rot was something that was an infection of the skin that was not treatable at the time.

They gave you a lot of purple fluid, and you'd swab yourself with that, and if it helped, fine, if it didn't, they sent you home.

So we had lots to be concerned about, well, being in New Guinea.

MacArthur had bypassed islands, we had a lot of Japanese stragglers in the jungle.

They would come out at night looking for food.

That didn't bother us, but we worked three shifts day and night, and it was really a very tough ordeal.

The enemy was not a problem at that time.

(slow orchestral music) (guns firing) (artillery rumbles) - During the period of time we were in combat, unfortunately, you do kill.

And I stepped into a fire lane in the woods, and there was a German soldier there.

And I had a submachine gun hanging from the shoulder with my hand on the trigger guard.

We looked at each other, and I guess my mind was working, "Now, this is the fellow you're supposed to shoot because he's the enemy."

And he began to raise his rifle, and as he did, my finger squeezed the trigger.

I didn't, training squeezed that trigger, and I pulled a picture out of this man's pocket, and it was of a woman and two kids, two little girls.

And it's amazing to me how that has stayed with me.

All I could think of, I killed this woman's husband, and I killed their father.

And it's interesting how things like that, you just never get away from it.

The next morning at 0530, the shelling started, and I'll tell you, it was quite intense.

I was lucky, I had found a hunting lodge on the edge of the woods, so we were always undercover.

I had two outposts and the lads would pull a night on outpost and then relax back in the hunting lodge, but when the thing hit, I sent them all out to the outpost and I stayed by the radio and telephone.

Well, the phone went out immediately, and they started, the house started getting hit.

That's when I had my first cigarette.

(slow horn music) (guns firing) - For many years, I lived with some concern that I may live this life and not have the opportunity to say thank you to all the Americans who gave their all during World War II, and I am proud to be an American.

(crowd cheers) (slow orchestral music) - [Jeff] For more information, go to our website, mpt.org/thewar.

There you can share your own World War II stories, check out in-depth profiles of local veterans, and learn more about Maryland's role in the war.

(slow orchestral music continues) - [Announcer] Ken Burns' "The War" on MPT is made possible by our members and the following.

In times of need, AAA has always stood ready to help.

During World War II, we provided maps to the troops, training in motor mechanics, collected metal, and more.

AAA's commitment to community has never wavered, not then, not now.

Hello, I'm David Scheffenacker, President and CEO of Preston Partners, and a proud supporter of MPT.

Over the years, we've come to expect quality programming on MPT, and this presentation of Ken Burns' "The War" is no different.

It's truly TV worth watching.

- A veteran is.

- Somebody who is in.

- The Army and the Navy.

- And who fought in the war.

- World War II.

- One.

- Korean, Vietnam.

- They're still alive, so they're a veteran.

- They try to help the country.

- [Announcer] Remember America's veterans.

- I'm Buddy Roogow, Director of the Maryland State Lottery.

We're proud to support MPT's broadcast of Ken Burns' latest film, "The War," and we salute Maryland's veterans and their families.

Thank you for your service and your sacrifice.

(slow orchestral music) (dramatic orchestral music) - [Announcer] In extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.

- I was in the last plane of the flight, and the next to last paratrooper.

Out of the 17, there was only about two together after we got on ground.

I jumped with TNT on each leg, detonate caps on each leg.

Did I lose any buddies?

Yes, I lost quite a few of them.

We were right next to each other, about shoulder to shoulder, really, and I heard this thud and I said, "Uh-oh."

He fell forward, and I checked him, he was dead.

- [Announcer] To hear more about this veteran's story, or to learn how to preserve your own stories, visit mpt.org/thewar.

(slow orchestral music) In extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.

- We built the road starting in April, 1942, 1,522 miles.

In eight months, that road was completed.

The Alaskan Highway was one of the routes that made it possible for Russia to end the war in Europe by devastating Hitler and his army.

You thank God that you're alive to see it.

I didn't think in terms of what was right or what was wrong.

I was just glad it was over with.

- [Announcer] To hear more about this veteran's story, or to learn how to preserve your own stories, visit mpt.org/thewar.