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- Hello.

Welcome to Illinois Stories.

I'm Mark McDonald in Pittsfield at the Pike County Military Heritage Museum with well, with a Humvee, which pretty much announces where you are.

This museum is in its second year of operation, and it was put together as a living history hands-on museum.

And usually this Humvee is inside with other vehicles.

Speaking of which let's go in and take a look.

Well, Denny Dodd, this is the latest, the third of the collection of museums here in Pike County Historical Society.

- Yes, it is.

- And you had enough military stuff at the other museum, and actually it was stuff that you wanted people to be able to get their hands on and see close up and mess around with.

- Absolutely.

- That you thought, well, when this building became available, we could use this as a third museum where kids and military aficionados could come in here and actually get a close up look.

- Yes.

- And the first thing you notice when you get in here - Are the vehicles.

- Is the vehicles because they're the biggest things in the room.

- Yes, they are.

- Well, let's take a look at the vehicles.

What's this first one?

- This first one is a Gama Goat.

It was the idea from Vietnam.

They felt like they needed an amphibious vehicle that could handle the wet jungles, the Delta area, where there's swampy and marsh are the mountainous areas.

And so they started with the idea of producing something was amphibious, but could go all-terrain.

- [Mark] Okay.

Now we're talking about Vietnam now, right?

- [Denny] The Vietnam era is when they came up with this idea.

They didn't actually get it into service until about the early seventies, as Vietnam was winding down.

I don't know if any of these actually ever made it to Vietnam.

- Now this particular one's an ambulance, isn't it?

- This one was set up as an ambulance.

- They were set up as ambulances and cargo carriers and troop carriers.

- [Mark] Okay.

- [Denny] So as an ambulance, the back was of course covered, and there was a heating unit back here and they had it set up for stretchers.

They had a stretcher on this side or a litter they call them.

The vehicle was so noisy that with the engine right between the driver and the ambulance portion that they had an Intercom set up.

And some buttons, flashing yellow buttons.

- [Mark] You're not gonna sneak up on anybody.

- [Denny] No, you're not gonna sneak up on anybody with this vehicle.

- [Mark] And this is one piece, right?

This is not a cab and a trailer.

- [Denny] It is all one piece.

It is six-wheel drive.

- [Mark] Yeah, wow.

That's a big, that's a big, big unit.

- It is a big unit.

They tried to lighten it by making it out of aluminum.

So it's all aluminum, but it's still a heavy, heavy unit.

I think somewhere around 7,900 pounds.

- [Mark] I would think this thing would bottom out, if you got into any deep water at all, would it?

- [Denny] Any, any mud or really soft areas, it would bottom out.

In the water.

It's only got about six inches of freeboard.

So you couldn't be in very much wavy water at all.

- Yeah.

What's this one here?

- This is a utility trailer that they used for different kinds of equipment that they wanted to keep out of the weather, but mainly for communications trailer.

- [Mark] Oh, okay.

- Where they would have wires in it.

They would have telephones in it.

They would use it for that kind of thing.

- [Mark] What would pull this?

What would pull this?

- This would be pulled by a three quarter ton or an M37, a pickup truck.

It could also be pulled by a Humvee.

It could also be pulled by a deuce and a half truck.

So about anything more than a quarter ton could pull this.

- Okay.

Now this Jeep, that could, it wouldn't be big enough to pull it, right ?

- No, this Jeep is a Vietnam era Jeep.

It was used exclusively in Vietnam before the Gama Goat that never made it to Vietnam.

This one is running, but we're in the process of cleaning it up a little bit.

The hood's off of it, the windshields off of it.

- [Mark] But you have all those parts to put back on.

- [Denny] We have all those parts available to put on it.

- [Mark] And what you like to do is you like to take these to parades, don't you?

- [Denny] We'll take this one, and the trailer to the parades this Fall.

We'll take the Humvee and this trailer to the parades.

And we may have a M37 and a trailer by this fall too.

So we can take several of these vehicles to parades and let the public know that we are a living history museum.

And as a living history museum, it's hands-on.

- [Mark] Talking about hands-on.

You also have school groups coming here and the kids love this thing, don't they?

- [Denny] We have.

We do have school groups in.

We had the Greensville Perry fifth grade classes in about two weeks ago.

And one of the real attractions, even though we don't have the rubber blades and the glass into it yet, which we will have at some point, they like to get into this, sit in the seat and really good to pretend to be a helicopter pilot.

(laughing) Move all the controls, and they did move all the controls.

- [Mark] And this would've been used for what?

- [Denny] This was a training helicopter from the late fifties through the sixties.

So virtually all of the Huey helicopter pilots took their primary training in this helicopter.

- [Mark] Oh, is that right?

Okay.

- [Denny] Fort Wolters, Texas.

- [Mark] In Fort Wolters, Texas.

And is that where you got it from?

- [Denny] We got it from Springfield, from the National Guard Museum in Springfield.

It's on loan from them.

- [Mark] And actually, that's a good number of your vehicles do come from there, don't they?

- [Denny] The Gama Goat came from there.

The M151 here has come from a private collection and the Humvee was donated by a local auto dealer.

So we're starting to accumulate vehicles from different places.

- Well, Jeff Snyder, you found a way to put your collection to good use, didn't you?

- Yes, I did.

- You had a lot we're gonna see a chronology of how war developed from the revolutionary war all the way to the present day in your museum here.

But, it gave you a collector, a real good opportunity, didn't it?

- Well, I'm not so much of a collector as I was involved with the colonial period in reenacting.

I've been down to Fort de Chartres since go to there twice a year, since 1976.

And other, those type of events around Missouri and Illinois and other states as well.

But so I had this stuff, this is my own personal gear, but it wasn't that much of a stretch to add to it.

And, of course, Denny and his sons did civil war reenacting.

So they had a lot of that stuff, but we wanted to make something where school kids or kids of, anybody really, could come in and not only look at this stuff, but get their hands on it.

- [Mark] That's great.

In fact, let's start with this uniform here.

- [Jeff] Okay.

- [Mark] Because this is a lot of people may never have seen one of these.

- [Jeff] Well, that's true.

- [Mark] This is from the Revolutionary War.

- Yes.

And this actually is not a uniform it's everyday dress.

And this represents a militia man, like a minute man, but also some of the a lot of the soldiers never got uniforms.

And only toward the end of the year of the war, did uniform become more common.

They were always short of clothing and supplies.

Always.

- The Brits had uniforms.

- Oh yes, they were well supplied.

- Our guys were using whatever they had.

- Yeah.

Our guys brought what they had from home.

And when they wore out, sometimes they got bits and pieces of uniforms, sometimes they didn't.

- Now the flag that we see on one of these stops that we're gonna make, these represent the enemy.

- [Jeff] Yes, they do.

- [Mark] In this particular war.

I don't know if they called it the Union Jack at that time, but this is the English flag, right?

- [Jeff] Yes.

This is the one that was in use during the Revolution.

It's actually two flags superimposed on each other.

The English flag was white with a red cross.

The Scottish flag was blue with a white X.

- Oh, Okay.

- St. Andrew's cross they called it.

So they superimposed them.

Now when they added Ireland in 1805, they came up with the flag that they use today, which we'll see here in a minute.

- Okay.

Show me the rifle.

Actually it's not even a rifle, is it, it's a musket.

- This again is a well, I should say a nine firing prop.

And this is the 1770 1777, I believe, Charleville musket that the French sent to us after they joined the war.

Well, actually they supplied us some before the war.

And it's a single shot, muzzleloader.

It's a flintlock.

And so would you like me to go do loading it real quick?

- [Mark] Sure.

Let's show some.

- All right.

Well, first of all, you would have a cartridge box.

And one of these cartridges contains the powder and the ball wrapped up in paper.

- [Mark] Okay.

- [Jeff] And a lot of times they use newspaper when they didn't have anything else.

Broadsides or newspapers.

So anyway, you would have that around here on your right side.

But the drill to fire was like this.

First of all, you would bring this back to half-cock, open the frizzen, reach in your cartridge box, get a cartridge, rip it open with your teeth.

And an infantryman had to have at least two teeth that matched up.

(laughing) That was one of the requirements.

- I'm sure.

How else are you going to get in there, right?

- Exactly.

- And they didn't all have teeth.

- No.

No, they didn't.

Okay.

Put a little in the pan, close it.

The rest goes down the barrel with the ball and the paper.

Everything goes down the barrel.

- And then you shove it in with the rod.

- You bring out the ramrod.

Shove it down.

- In the meantime, somebody's aiming at you.

- Oh yeah.

- And you're trying to get this ball in.

- Yes, exactly.

- Oh, man.

- They're doing it too.

- Yeah.

- And there we go.

What the heck?

Okay.

There we go.

- There she goes.

- Yeah.

- And now you're ready to shoot.

- Now you're ready to go.

And it was volley fire.

Everybody shoot at once, you know, boom.

But they weren't accurate because the ball fit loosely.

- Yeah.

- And so it was an acceptable acceptable losses.

- If you had enough, people firing at the same time, you could sort of scatter shoot, right?

- [Jeff] Exactly.

- [Mark] Yeah.

And this is a real good collection of some of the items a soldier would carry.

- [Jeff] Now we have a rifle from the time period.

This is reproduction.

It does fire.

And it's one of my own personal guns.

But this is the type of Kentucky rifle that was used during the Revolution.

It's a little shorter than what came later.

A little heavier.

All the gear, a lot of gear, mess gear and everything that the soldiers would carry.

And that the Rifleman's uniform is here.

They were best used as scouts and snipers.

- [Mark] Wow.

- And most of them, they brought their rifles from home.

- [Mark] Now, many people know the war of 1812 is the second Revolutionary War.

- [Jeff] Yes, it was, they called it the second revolution.

And we have one of the uniforms of the army here.

This is the 1808 uniform, I believe.

Then they had another one in 1812.

Got rid of the red cuffs.

And then the 1814 uniform was completely blue.

So they changed several times.

- Here's the sabers.

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- Would've been used at that time.

- [Jeff] These were used through the Civil War.

They didn't change a whole lot.

- [Mark] Yeah.

A saber's a saber, right?

- [Jeff] Yeah.

- [Mark] Not much technology involved in that.

- [Jeff] No.

No.

Get up close and whack them.

- [Mark] The tee cap.

- [Jeff] Yes.

When they were on work duty or something, then they didn't wear the shako.

It was rather hard to uncomfortable to work in.

And this is the 1813, what they called the Belgian shako, Belgian style.

They weren't in battle, but for work duties they preferred something more comfortable.

- We did go through several decades without without any more war, but then the Mexican War occurred.

- The Mexican War, 1840s.

1846 to 1848.

- The Mexican flag.

- Yup.

Now this is a Dragoon jacket or a cavalry jacket from the Mexican War that was worn with the light blue pants and the 1840 forage cap, which we'll see in a minute.

The infantry uniform, which we'll see in a minute, it was all light blue.

So you got a shelter half.

This was two men teamed up together.

Each guy had two parts of one tent pole, half the stakes, half the ropes, half the tent.

And he had a ground cloth.

This also has a head hole, so you could stick it over your head, use it as a poncho.

And that thing alone weighs - [Mark] Oh, that's heavy.

- Five or six pounds.

This type of pack was used through the Civil War, which is basically two envelopes.

And your bed roll to your great coat you could tie on top.

The Cavalry of course could tie theirs on behind behind the saddle.

- They had help carrying.

They didn't have to carry everything on foot.

- Yes.

Well, a cavalryman could not weigh over 140 pounds because they figured his gear weighed 60 pounds, and any more weight than that and the horse would wear out.

And they rode their horses one day, they rested them one day.

In other words, they rode, they'd travel along, but with no load for a day.

And then the next day they'd ride again.

- They'd walk their horse or the horses would walk with them.

- They would walk it or they would just follow behind.

- And this again is still part of the Mexican - Yes.

This is the infantry uniform.

- [Mark] Wow.

- And there's a haversack for personal gear.

Canteen.

Of course he has the cartridge box, just like, the musket was still about the same thing.

Although in the Mexican War, you started to see progression into the percussion guns as well.

Some of the guys had flintlocks still, some had percussion.

Otherwise it was still a single shot weapon.

Civil War, of course, this is the cavalry uniform.

And we have the infantry over here.

- [Mark] This is the infantry here.

- [Jeff] That's the infantry, yeah.

And some of the weaponry.

- [Mark] This has changed now.

This has changed a lot.

- [Jeff] Oh, yes.

Yes, absolutely.

- [Mark] The technology has gotten a lot better.

- [Jeff] The top one here is the 1861 Springfield.

It's a single shot, but it is percussion.

The middle one there, the lower one, it's a Sharps carbine.

That's what the cavalry would carry.

a carbine was shorter, and it could be used on horseback a lot easier.

And this is a breechloader.

That's one of the first breechloaders.

In fact, the term sharpshooter, coming from this rifle.

- [Mark] From the Sharps rifle.

- [Jeff] Yes.

- [Mark] Huh.

Okay.

- [Jeff] Yes.

In the Civil War, a man named Berdan, Colonel Berdan, formed a unit of the best shots in the union army.

He gave them green uniforms exactly like that.

And they fought as a unit and they was called Berdan sharpshooters because they shot the Sharps rifle and it stuck.

It stuck.

So after that, anybody was a crack shot, was a sharpshooter.

- Let's go a little further down here.

- [Jeff] Yep.

This is the Spanish American War.

- Yeah, people don't know much about that.

We didn't learn much about that in school.

- [Jeff] Well, it was short.

It only lasted five months.

However, they fought for the next 15, 16 years in the Philippines.

- Spain and the US, you mean.

- No, the natives, the Filipinos, and the Moros, who were a Muslim group.

It seems that they, the Filipinos, thought that when we threw the Spanish out, maybe they'd get, they would get their independence.

Well, we decided our leaders decided that no, it's too good of a Naval base, we're gonna hang onto it.

They didn't the Filipinos didn't like that.

- They didn't care for that.

- No, I don't blame them.

- Yeah.

- So anyway, first they fought the Philippine rebels and that was over in two or three years.

And then they had to go island to island fighting these Moros they called them.

They were Muslim tribesmen.

And I think General Pershing even did a stint over there against them.

But that went on for another 15 years or so.

And we lost more guys in the Philippines than we did even fighting the Spanish in the Spanish American War.

- Is that right?

- [Jeff] Yeah.

It was probably our first gird of war other than the Indian wars.

- Denny, let's pick it up at World War I.

- Okay.

- Okay.

This case here.

It's very interesting.

Now I do like this too.

Again, you've got these things out, so if kids want to pick them up and take a look at them and actually see the label - Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Canned goods.

- [Mark] Actually, this feels like there actually is corn beef in here.

And I think there probably is.

- [Denny] There actually is food in these.

The labels have come from reproductions, from World War I labels.

- [Mark] And these would've been what the men would've had these in the field, right?

- [Denny] Issued in the field.

Absolutely.

Issued in the field.

- [Mark] This is fascinating though when you look at the products that they had and they carried.

Look at that bread tin.

That would've been hardtack or crackers or something like that.

- [Denny] Well, that indeed is a hard bread tin.

They had it in the tin so that it wouldn't get contaminated with the mustard gas or the chlorine gases that they used.

- [Mark] Oh, is that right?

So it wasn't just to keep it fresh, it was to keep it from being contaminated.

- Keep it from being contaminated, yes, it was.

- That gas was a nightmare, wasn't it?

- It was.

It would've been over here, of course, we've got the gas mask.

This is the French gas mask.

And I can't imagine that that would help much.

The English gas mask was a little bit better, but still would've been very, very difficult to use, I think, in battle.

It has a nose clip on the inside to pinch your nose off so you don't inadvertently breathe in the gases, the mustard gas or the chlorine gas.

And then the filter was down here.

- [Mark] Oh man.

- [Denny] Still, all your exposed skin was subject to contamination by the mustard gas.

So, it would've been very, very difficult, I think.

- I can handle this one?

- Absolutely.

That's what all of this is for.

- You know, this is fascinating too.

I've never seen one of these, but it's called a grenade vest.

- [Denny] Grenade vest.

- Each soldier could carry two, four, a dozen grenades.

- [Denny] Twelve grenades you could carry in this.

- Oh my goodness.

- [Denny] And they weigh about a pound plus, each.

And so you're, you're carrying maybe 12 to 15 pounds worth of grenades there.

And most of this we have out here is reproduction stuff.

- Yeah.

- So that primarily the the school kids that come through, but even adults can feel the weight of the wool uniforms.

Over here we carry on with World War I.

Some of the equipment, the campaign hat, the pickaxe, that every fourth person carried a pickaxe.

- [Mark] Every fourth person?

- [Denny] Every fourth person would carry a pickaxe.

The other three would be carrying the shovel.

This is the 1903 Springfield rifle.

This is a simply a reproduction that anybody can pick up and handle.

It has the same weight and the same feel, but of course, since it is a reproduction, it's inert.

- [Mark] You know, this is an interesting way this is put together here.

This would be the backpack?

- [Denny] The backpack.

- [Mark] This is it looks like a tent.

- [Denny] Yeah, that is a tent shelter half.

Each soldier would carry half of the tent and half of the stakes and one of the tent poles.

And then they would get together with another soldier and put the two halves together with the full rig of tent poles and stakes.

- So if your buddy doesn't make it, you're kind of outta luck then too, aren't you?

(laughing) - You have to find somebody that has the other half.

- Yeah, you have to find somebody else, that's tough.

- If you're going to use the shelter half, yes.

- [Mark] I like the way you have this table set up, because this is this half here is World War II, right?

And this is World War I.

- [Denny] This is World War I.

Yes, it is.

And a lot of the objects, a lot of the equipment from World War I carried into World War II.

The shovel, as an example.

The Marines used the World War I shovel.

The Marines used the O Springfield and some of the army at the onset of World War II.

Then as they got more into World War II, then they were issued the M1 Garand.

The M1 Garand and the other entrenching tool and the other field equipment.

- If you would, show us how the action on this.

- Well, this being an M1 Garand, and this again is a duplicate gun, it's a dummy gun, but the action opens like that, and the kids can use it.

The trigger will actually click.

But it cannot be loaded.

No ammunition can be put in there.

- [Mark] That's great.

- And so they can get the feel of the gun.

Also the mess kit.

The mess kit was used in World War II, but it was still being used in Vietnam.

- [Mark] Let's step back and take a look at some of this other stuff back here.

- Sure.

- [Mark] Now what you've done here is so that you know who the enemy was, you at every war you have the appropriate flag.

So up here's the Japanese flag.

- [Denny] Yes, the Japanese flag and the Nazi flag.

These of course are reproductions, but these are actual cutouts.

- [Mark] Is that right?

- A lot of the soldiers would, instead of bringing back the entire flag, they would just cut the Nazi symbol out of the middle of it and bring it back.

This is some of the equipment and the C-Rations and K-Rations.

(clearing throat) Excuse me.

From World War II.

- [Mark] Now, those of us who aren't familiar what's the difference between a C and a K-Ration?

- [Denny] Well, the (clearing throat) excuse me, the C-Rations are in cans.

So canned rations are C-Rations and the dried rations are K-Rations.

- [Mark] Okay.

And there's some D-Rations in here too.

- [Denny] No, the D-Rations, you got me on that one.

- [Mark] Okay.

(laughing) - [Denny] You can see that they have Camels and Chesterfield cigarettes.

Over here they have Hershey chocolate, tropical chocolate, so it didn't melt.

Here's the pineapple grenade and the - [Mark] That pineapple grenade would've been similar to what they were carrying in their vest.

- [Denny] Yes.

It would've been the ones that they were carrying in their vest, particularly during World War II.

They used that cast iron pineapple grenade, and as it exploded, the fragments of the cast iron went everywhere.

- [Mark] Oh, goodness.

So this is some of the other equipment.

Some of the uniforms from World War I and World War II.

- [Mark] This is II, right?

- [Denny] Yes, this would be the Marine Corps World War II.

This is the 1943 field jacket with a wool shirt that they wore under it.

This is what they would've gone to the field with in both Europe and in the Pacific War, in World War II.

Early in the war, and we think of all of the troops in World War II is wearing the boots like the jump boots, but an awful lot of them had low brogans.

And they would wear these leggings or spats that would connect through to their low boots and cover their legs up that tuck in their trousers inside.

- [Mark] And you can see why you might need that.

Look at the weather that they were, they were fighting with in Europe.

- [Denny] That was in the Battle of the Bulge and no equipment was good enough for the Battle of the Bulge.

- [Mark] That was a bad few months there.

- [Denny] It really was.

It really was.

And here's some more stuff.

This is some of the German rations and some of the Japanese rations.

- [Mark] You know, I think what we, what we neglect a lot of times is, we're talking about the rations now that these different armies would've had.

What we neglect the day to day stuff that the soldiers had to put up with and the way they had to get through the day.

How they slept, how they ate, how they traveled.

And, you know, where we, where we focus on the battles, you know, but this day to day drudgery and hard work that it would've been to get through.

- [Denny] Yes, it's been said that that a soldier's life is hours and days of monotony and boredom spiked with intense trauma during the, during the battle.

But yes, most of the time they weren't actually in battle.

Most of the time they were just traveling or surviving.

- [Mark] Trying to get through the day.

- Yeah.

Trying to get through the day.

Yep.

There was just the rations that they had.

Now, they had some hot meals that were brought in from time to time, but an awful lot of time in the field, particularly if they were near the battlefront, would've been just what they carried, the rations that they carried.

- A visit to the Military Heritage Museum also includes items from the Vietnam War, and, more recently, the desert wars, including, you know, as you can see uniforms and other items of interest here.

You can visit starting May 1st, when they open, or if your group wants to make an appointment, you can do it at their Facebook site, or by giving them a phone call.

With another Illinois Story in Pittsfield, I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(closing music) - [Host] Illinois Stories is brought to you by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the supportive viewers like you.

Thank you.