One Tank Trip /Eldred, Pa.
A museum to salute WWII veterans
Published: November 08, 2009, 12:30 am
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ELDRED, Pa.—The man shuffles along quietly, studying the neatly framed photos on the Mitchell Paige Wall of Fame, his shoulders carrying the weight of the world for much too long.
“It’s a good thing they do here,” he says softly to me and my husband. “When we came back, they spit on us.”
We are at the World War II Museum in Eldred, Pa. The “good thing” the visitor is referring to is this comprehensive and well-done collection of memorabilia that commemorates what is now known as “The Greatest Generation,” a term journalist Tom Brokaw coined to describe the men and women, soldiers and civilians, who sacrificed everything from daily goods to their lives during the stormy period of World War II.
It was a time when Americans proudly rallied to overcome shortages and hardships, echoing slogans such as “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without,” around the country.
We know, immediately, that the man was a Vietnam veteran, who served during a controversial conflict that tore the nation apart. After commiserating with the man, we thank him for his service and move on. We have three floors to cover. The Eldred Museum, which opened in 1996 with just a few artifacts in a tiny room, since then has amassed a compilation of historically significant items that now fill an 8,500-volume research library, automated dioramas and interactive displays. There are award-winning videos, a 15-minute film and thousands of WWII artifacts to tell the story of a conflict that shocked the world with genocide and nuclear bombs.
That’s why the World War II Museum is also a learning center. A banner quoting American philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” greets every visitor. Schoolchildren soak up historical information as they follow promotions director Steve Appleby, a 27-year Army veteran, who was also a Green Beret in a Special Forces Unit. The scope of the war unfolds in wall-size maps that represent the European and Pacific theaters, ranging over mountains and deserts through countries and across continents in one long assault on humanity.
Appleby, a World War II history buff, is a bundle of energy. It is easy to see he is on a mission to honor soldiers and educate children. He tells us how this tiny town of less than 1,000 people was the site of a British and American munitions plant during the war. We learn that from January 1942 to May 1945, 1,500 people (95 percent of them women) worked around the clock to produce 8 million bombs and mortar shells to support the Allied effort. Statues dressed in “Rosie the Riveter” garb stand in the foyer, representing these selfless women workers, and we now understand how a WWII museum came to be in this little Pennsylvania town.
Appleby also tells us that the facility concentrates on collecting soldiers’ stories, serving also as an oral history center.
“If a veteran walks in, we immediately sit him down to record his story,” Appleby says. He then tells us about Col. Mitchell Paige, a Medal of Honor recipient from Charleroi, Pa., credited with stopping the Japanese forces at the Battle of Guadalcanal almost single-handedly when all of his men were killed or wounded. A platoon sergeant at the time, Paige fired ceaselessly against the enemy, charging with a bayonet when he ran out of bullets, ultimately preventing a breakthrough in American lines until reinforcements arrived, and helping to maintain the Allied foothold in the South Pacific.
The young Marine’s actions earned him a promotion and lifelong fame. In 1975, Paige wrote his autobiography, “A Marine Named Mitch,” and in 1977, a GI Joe doll was named after him.
Before he died in 2003, Paige donated all of his World War II memorabilia to the museum, where a bronze statue of him now stands sentry.
Another group of schoolchildren arrive, and I am impressed by their attentiveness as we enter the Anderson Library to watch a short film on Adolf Hitler’s push into Europe and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The strains of Glen Miller’s “Moonlight Sonata” set the mood, transporting us to another time and place.
After the movie, the children head to “Tank Mountain,” where they can operate the machines around a replica battlefield via remote control. We wander past them into a garage- like room filled with more youngsters working a genuine submarine periscope donated by the U. S. Navy.
There’s so much to see here. Everywhere we look, we find memorabilia from Germany, America and Japan. Victory pins carefully framed and mounted on black velvet hang on the walls of most rooms. Copies of the award-winning, military newspaper Stars and Stripes are neatly stacked on a table on the second floor of the Anderson Library. Downstairs, we find a room filled with wall-mounted WWII rifles and other guns suspended over rows of glass cases filled with photographs, letters, lighters and soldiers’ Bibles.
Dioramas of the Russian front bring this battle that raged across Eastern Europe to life. One third of all those who died in WWII perished in this territory. When it’s time to leave, our hearts and heads are filled with images of battlefields and heroes.
Appleby recommends a dining spot, telling us we are only 10 minutes from Sprague’s Maple Farms, which features a gift shop, year-round nature trails that lead to an authentic Indian tepee, and a 13,000-square-foot Maple Center with a Pancake House and Restaurant, appropriately described as “a beautiful work of country architecture.”
Long the dream of Randy Sprague to create a “Maple Syrup Wonderland,” the restaurant offers a full menu of breakfast, lunch and dinner items that include many pure maple products and farm-raised, free-range turkeys. It’s the perfect ending to a day in the country.
If You Go:
The WWII Museum is 75 miles south of Buffalo. 210 Main St., Eldred, Pa.
Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a. m. to 4 p. m.; Sunday, 1 to 4
p. m..
Admission: Adults, $5; students and children, free; e-mail, info@eldredwwiimuseum.net;www.worldwariimuseum.org . Sprague’s Maple Farms, 1048 Route 305, Porterville,
N. Y.; www.spraguesmaplefarms.com
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