MARYSVILLE — Memories of folks who served in or were associated with World War II are being sought for an oral history project being launched by Sno-Isle Libraries.
The war moved the United States away from an isolationist foreign policy and into the forefront of international affairs. The country assembled a huge war machine and fought in the Pacific, Europe and other fronts.
“That was really the point in time the United States was thrust onto the world stage,” said the library’s Mary Kelly, community relations manager. “To be able to gather the memories of people of that time could be invaluable not only now but 50 years from now.”
The library system hopes service members, their spouses, and other family members who have stories to share about the time will come to one of four sessions starting Wednesday. Other sessions are scheduled for Oct. 17 and 18.
They will be held at four libraries in Snohomish, Oak Harbor, Edmonds and Marysville.
The project follows on the heels of the airing of Ken Burns’ documentary “The War,” which uses video recordings of World War vets discussing what they went through.
“There’s a lot of buzz right now about World War II and how we protect history,” Kelly said.
Some of the recordings may be submitted to the Veterans History Project under way by the Library of Congress in partnership with some other organizations.
The Library of Congress is collecting stories of all wartime vets with an emphasis now on those who served in World War II, spokesman Jeff Lofton said.
The project depends on groups such as the Sno-Isle Libraries to interview and collect video or audio recordings. They records will be stored at the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress American Folklife Center, Lofton said. In addition to recording stories, the Library of Congress also is collecting historical documents, journals and the like to broaden the historical perspective.
Historians and others can come to the Library of Congress for access to 50,000 recordings already available. About 4,000 of them are at www.loc.gov/vets, Lofton said.
All these memories are very important, said John Bridgman, University of Washington professor emeritus who specializes in modern history. He still teaches classes on World War I and World War II.
“More and more histories are written from the standpoint of individuals,” Bridgman said. A compilation of memories of the time could put together a mosaic of that time, he said.
“If these aren’t preserved now, in 15 or 20 years there will be nothing to preserve,” he said.
Lofton said there’s an estimated 2.9 million World War II vests still alive, but the nation is losing roughly 1,000 a day.
Care must be used in reviewing the accounts because memories fade and accounts and be skewed, “but not to have them would be a great mistake,” Bridgman said.
The commander of Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson American Legion Post 6 in Everett applauds the oral history effort and says he thinks a lot of local vets will participate.
The people need to know what these young boys did during World War II,” said commander George Brown. “There are many heroes that you never heard about … We have many veterans in our post who saw it all.”
Kelly said her group is interested in interviews with anyone who had an association with the war, “anyone who had an experience and is willing to share it with us.”
Kelly has contacted heads of local veteran groups in hopes that the word will be passed on to members, who can call and make an appointment for one of the four days.
The experiences of those who served in combat are invaluable from the standpoint of history, Bridgman said.
“Somebody who went through those experiences, particularly in combat, no historian later can recreate what it was like,” Bridgman said. “They had the experience.”
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or jhaley@heraldnet.com.
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