Published: Saturday, August 11, 2007
PBS will air interviews with local WWII vets
The snippets will supplement 'The War,' a World War II
documentary.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
CANFIELD — World War II made Clara Blumetti a widow at the age of 22.
"When I hear about casualties in Iraq on television it brings everything back," said Blumetti, of Canfield.
She was eight months pregnant when she received the telegram, delivered by an elderly man, telling her that her husband, Lawrence Snovak, went missing in action June 6, 1944, D-Day, the first day of the Allied invasion at Normandy, France.
"I realize what those families are going through today," said Blumetti, now 85.
Her husband's sister worked at The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., at the time and saw her brother's name on a casualty list confirming his death. Blumetti, however, was not told until three days after the birth of her daughter, Mary, on Aug. 12, 1944.
It was nearly a year after his death before an Army warrant officer came to her house on Pearl Street on Youngstown's East Side, where she lived with her mother, and told her how her husband had died. A paratrooper with the Army's 82nd Airborne, Snovak had made it safely to the ground behind German lines, but was killed that same day by a sniper.
Sharing her story
Blumetti married her second husband, Paul Blumetti, when Mary, now Mary O'Brien of Canfield, was about 5. The couple, who lived in Hubbard and Youngstown's West Side for many years, had two more daughters: Jeanette Lynn of Boardman and Paula Michaud of Westlake. Mary's son, Air Force Lt. Col. John O'Brien, is an A-10 pilot in Iraq.
One of her daughters urged Mary to tell her story "so people today can better understand the sacrifices made then."
Blumetti is one of about 10 area World War II veterans and family members whom PBS 45&49 videotaped Thursday talking about their wartime experiences.
PBS 45&49 plans to broadcast parts of some of the snippets to bring a local flavor to the showing of Ken Burns' 14-hour WWII documentary, "The War," over two weeks beginning at 8 p.m. Sept. 23. The local interviews also will be archived in the Library of Congress as part of the Veterans History Project.
"The War" tells the story of World War II through the personal accounts of nearly 50 men and women from four representative American towns and cities — Mobile, Ala.; Sacramento, Calif.; Waterbury, Conn.; and Luverne, Minn.
Remembering Normandy
Another local veteran interviewed was Donald R. Kirk, 88, of Canfield, also a member of the 82nd Airborne in a paratroop artillery unit that participated in the invasion at Normandy.
Kirk said because of a snafu made by a panicked jump master, his unit jumped 8 miles off the jump zone.
"It took us eight days to get back to American lines," he said.
Kirk saw combat in Africa, Italy and France and the Battle of the Bulge, fought from Dec. 16, 1944, to Jan. 25, 1945, in which 19,000 American military personnel were killed.
"We captured a German position and spent the night in their bunker. When we came out in the morning, our truck was in shreds from the shelling. We celebrated Christmas Eve with some German beer we liberated," he said with a smile.
Kirk did not smile, however, when he talked about helping to liberate Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen, German concentration camps.
"We were not allowed to stop or give the prisoners anything to eat. If we had given them a candy bar or something, they were so starved it might have killed them," he said.
Kirk said he wanted to share his World War II experience "so it would be remembered. I have never had any recognition for being in the Army. I could sit here and talk all day," he said.
Kirk and his wife, Virginia, now deceased, have six children: Phillip of Canfield; Linda Duganne of Boardman; Robert of Canfield; Ellen Aven in Michigan; Kathleen Rudinsky in Indiana; and Saundra Martz of Canfield.
Navy Seabees
Letting people know the role that Navy Seabees played in World War II was part of the reason Daryl Duffett of Canfield wanted to tell his story.
Duffett, 85, was living on Mahoning Avenue in Austintown and worked in construction before he enlisted in the Navy Seabees on Jan. 4, 1943. In the Navy, he built roads and runways and pontoon bridges and ramps to get men and materials ashore. He participated in battles in the Pacific Theater with familiar names such as Iwo Jima, Philippines and Okinawa.
He said he saw the place where Ernie Pyle, famous journalist and war correspondent, was killed on Iejima, an island off Okinawa; and also saw from his ship the American flag after it had been raised on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.
"When we saw that flag, we cheered and said, 'We're winning.' The guys on the front lines took a hell of a beating."
"I read that in Iraq they want to crucify soldiers for killing. When I went, we were told that the Japanese and Germans and Italians were our enemies and it was either kill them or they would kill us," Duffett said.
"I was slated for the invasion of Japan, and I thank Harry Truman every day [for dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima]. If he hadn't, I might not be here today. It worked to save both American and Japanese lives," he said.
He and his wife, Louise, now deceased, have two children: Jayne Boucherle of Canfield and James in Illinois.
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