Veterans revisit memories on sightseeing tour

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When World War II broke out, there was no question in Curtis Hamlett’s mind.

He was going to join the armed forces.

“I love my country. I wanted to go and serve it,” said Hamlett, now 83 and living in Brookneal. “I thought it was my place to go.”

He tried to join for the first time in 1943, when he was 17 years old, but his parents wouldn’t sign the papers to let him go.

So at 18, Hamlett was drafted into the Army with the hope of becoming a combat engineer, something he wanted to pursue in civilian life after the war.

Instead, he wound up in the infantry. A year later, during a mission into enemy territory, he was captured by the Germans and spent the next six months in four different POW camps.

“Two platoons had been chosen to drive into German lines and find out what we were up against,” said Hamlett, who was a staff sergeant at the time. “They didn’t want to send infantry in alone. That’s suicide, any time you send infantry to fight armor. It’s like a fly fighting an elephant.”

His German captors never beat him, but Hamlett said he came closer to starving and freezing to death than he’d ever imagined possible.

“It was a hunger I can’t describe,” he said. “You never had enough to satisfy you.”

By the time he was released, about seven miles from Berlin, Hamlett’s fingers, feet and the skin around his mouth, nose and ears were severely frostbitten. His feet were so swollen he couldn’t get his boots over them, and he was in such pain that the only relief came from sticking his bare feet into the snow.

“I would’ve rather been in combat.”

Hamlett recalled his wartime experience on Wednesday during a bus trip to the National Museum of the Marine Corps at Quantico, the Arlington National Cemetery and the World War II Memorial in Washington.

He was among 70 mostly local World War II veterans who took the trip, which was organized by the Exchange Club of Lynchburg at no cost to the veterans (the club raised the roughly $13,500 through donations from its members, businesses and individuals, said board member Eugene Wingfield).

“World War II veterans are really vanishing,” Wingfield said. “They’re such a humble group of people, and you think about how they had to fight back then, right on the front lines.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that World War II vets are dying at a rate of 1,000 a day.

Wingfield said that some of our local vets just don’t have the ability, financially or transportation-wise, to get to Washington to see the monuments.

“A few of them said it was a dream come true for them, and that’s what it’s all about.”

Hamlett’s son, Henry, heard about the trip and immediately signed them both up. Each veteran could bring a guest along, and most did.

“I jumped on the phone then because I wanted Daddy to see the World War II Memorial,” he said, adding that the veterans’ stories need to be heard — and remembered — by younger generations.

“It’s a group of people that when they’re gone, the history is gone with it.”

Wednesday was a day for remembering that history.

New friends were made, like when Edward Mason stopped to greet fellow former Marine Willie Clark III at the Marine Corps Museum.

“You’re a Marine?” he asked, extending his hand.

“Semper Fi,” Clark responded with a nod and warm handshake.Later, Mason said it was important for him to make the trip.

“At our age, we don’t have a lot of years left,” he said. “We have to take the opportunities we can.”

The bus pulled out of Lynchburg at around 6 a.m. and made its first stop at the Marine Corps Museum, where the veterans toured the building while groups of children with clipboards ran around, completing a scavenger hunt to learn about the history these men actually lived.Most of the men donned hats — provided by the Exchange Club — that read “WWII Veteran” in large yellow letters.

Many had cameras hanging from their necks, ready to document the day’s events, which included watching the Changing of the Guard at Arlington National Cemetery.

After a bus tour of the cemetery, the group headed to the World War II Memorial, which stands between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

As a light rain began to fall, the men took pictures in front of the monument’s pillars (56 in all, to represent U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia). Some were even stopped by strangers, who wanted to shake their hands and thank them for their service.“These guys are like second graders going to the zoo, and I was as excited as them,” said Ed Sulzbach, a member of the Exchange Club. “I couldn’t sleep last night.

“There must be 70 stories here.”

Like those of John Scruggs, who served in the Navy from 1942 to 1972 and remembers watching through binoculars as the Japanese surrendered at Tokyo Bay in 1945. Or James Staples, who was horrified to find rooms full of dead bodies after the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp.

Former Marine Clark joined the service in 1945, just as the war was coming to an end, and never saw any combat.

He entered the draft at 18 and watched as, one by one, each soldier was asked what branch he wanted to serve in.

“I was one of those smart-alecks,” Clark said, laughing. “With everybody ahead of me, I noticed that if they asked for Army, they got Navy. And if they asked for Navy, they got Army. So I asked for Army to get Navy, and I got the Marines.”

Charles “Buster” Shaeff was right in the thick of it on D-Day as an engineer on a Higgins Boat, a barge-like craft that could ferry soldiers from their ships to the shore.

As part of a four-man crew, he made three trips transporting troops to Omaha Beach that day.“The water was rough. It was noisy,” he said. “We were fortunate. We tore up several boats, but we made it through without any extra holes in us.”

Shaeff, 83, served in the Navy from 1943 to 1946, or “33 months, 1 hour and 41 minutes.”As the day wore on, there weren’t many visible displays of emotion from the veterans; perhaps a sign of a generation that isn’t known for wearing its heart on its sleeve.

For Hamlett, it was simply the fact that not much could compare to the things he saw in combat.

“There’s nothing over there that could disturb me,” he said.

“When you see a person tore up every way they can be tore up, it’s something that stays with you all the days of your life.”