[ Announcer: ] Utah World War II Stories was made possible in part by: George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation, Stephen G. and Susan E. Denkers Family Foundation. Additional funding was made possible by C. Comstock Clayton Foundation, Kennecott Corporation, University of Utah, ...and the support of the continuing members of KUED.


[ Ernie Mettenet: ] I was on the front in Western Europe as infantry. I never really, never related that kind of a story to my family, to my grandchildren. And about three or four years ago, they kept asking me questions, and usually I deferred without much detail.

[ Max Gollaher: ] I never was able to say anything to anybody. I just thought, well, if you're a GI, you're a GI and you went through the same thing I did.

[ Douglas Howard: ] It took a good 50 years before I could talk to my kids or to anyone about the experiences of the war, and many of it I'm still not talking about very much. But the kids would look at some of the pictures and ask me what happened here and what happened...They were pictures that I had and briefly would talk about, but that's it.

[ Louis:Slama ] Uh, my kid says, "Dad, you know, you have to leave a legacy for your grandkids too," so when I started actually talking about my experiences, my load started to drop. I felt like all those years, you know, I couldn't talk about it because...The other guys talked about; I just joined in with something else.

[ Ernie Mettenet: ] We were young--17, 18, 19 years old. Uh, didn't think too much of the past; concentrated more on future.

[ Richard Burt: ] I'd do anything I can now to get the word out, and I wish...I hope other people would be doing the same, but... Let's face it--we're dying at a thousand a day now. We're just not gonna be here very long.

[ Rick Randle: ] There's not just one story of World War II. There are as many stories as there were men and women to fight. More than 3,600 never returned to Utah to tell their stories. These are some of the 67,000 that did.

[Rick Randle: ] I was just six years old on December 7, 1941,when America was suddenly attacked at Pearl Harbor. I remember vividly the concern of my parents, and several months later, my mother weeping uncontrollably at the Rio Grande station in Salt Lake as my two brothers left for the Navy and a very uncertain future. Hello, I'm Rick Randle. I have made a life-long study of World War II, and I'm convinced that winning that war has done more to improve our lives than anything else in the last century. We live today in a land blessed with freedom and opportunity. We have one of the highest standards of living on the planet, and are the envy of many nations of the world. In many respects, we owe this legacy to a generation of Americans born within five years either side of 1920. Their sacrifice and example have given us the life we enjoy today. Many grew up in poverty and endured the Great Depression in their early teen years. They established values of honesty and hard work that we hope would be embraced by future generations. But most of all, they were called up and went willingly to serve in the Second World War. They made great sacrifices in order to achieve victory. Tonight, KUED proudly presents "The Struggle" Utah veteran stories from the first difficult months of World War II, a time when the outcome was in no way certain.


[ Art Buell: ] It was 1935 and the depression and there was...unemployment was impossible at that time, so many of the young folks, like me, had their eye on the service--the Army or the Navy.

[ Ken Potts: ] I don't know, I'd seen pictures or something of the Coast Guard, and I thought, man, that looks like an exciting life. So I went down to sign up and they wasn't taking any, but they were taking 'em for the Navy, so I signed up for the Navy, and that was in 1939.

[ Art Buell: ] Honolulu was always a nice town. It was a mid-size town about the size of Salt Lake City. Pearl Harbor was about six miles from town.We'd spend some time renting bicycles and swimming and laying on the beach and it was nice.

[ Rick Randle: ] Tell us just what you were doing on infamous December 7th.

[ Art Buell: ] That's quite vivid. I was lying in my cot. I was awake. It was around 7:30 or something like that in the morning.

[ Ken Potts: ] To the best of my knowledge, I was doing nothing. They were setting up for the church.


[ Art Buell: ] I could hear a noise. It sounded like explosions, so I looked out the porthole and I saw smoke rising. My first thought was, God, it must be the Army holding maneuvers because there was nothing scheduled.

[ Ken Potts: ] On the starboard side is the 5th Division, and that's where I was at, which is the opposite side of where the torpedoes came in. Torpedoes only make a noise when they hit and explode. The strafing--you could hear the strafing once they started in. People that was outside spotted the rising sun on 'em and started hollering that they was Japs, and they was telling me they was throwing potatoes at 'em and everything else off of the fan tail.

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