(upbeat music) (projector clicking) - Have you ever wondered where the television signal you're watching is coming from?

♪ I love to go a wanderin' (projector clicking) ♪ along the mountain track - Welcome to True North.

(upbeat music) (mysterious music) - Good evening and welcome to Mainewatch (upbeat music) (projector clicking) Welcome to From the Vault, a celebration of 60 years of Maine Public Television.

On this episode, we commemorate some Maine veterans with several selections from over the years.

We will start in 2007 with an episode of the history series Maine Experience.

We will take an in-depth look at Maine's role in building Liberty ships during World War Two.

And we will profile D-Day veteran Charles Norman Shay of the Penobscot Nation.

Then we feature several shorts from 2008.

These were part of an ongoing series of profiles called Maine Stories from World War Two, in which several Mainers told of their experiences during wartime.

We then finish with two segments from a 2001 Memorial Day special hosted by Don Carrigan.

Our first story will be a visit to Harrington and the Worcester Wreath Company, who were just a few years into their effort to place wreaths on gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery to honor our country's veterans.

Now, 30 years later, they help provide hundreds of thousands of wreaths to over 1000 locations throughout the country to learn more about what they do and how you can be part of it visit wreathsacrossamerica.org.

Then we visit with a true hero as Don speaks with Ed Dahlgren of Mars Hill.

Who at the time was one of the few living Congressional Medal of Honor recipients in Maine.

Now, this program does contain descriptions.

experiences and language about the realities of war.

And while this is an important part of our history, it may have elements that can disturb some viewers The online version of this program does contain a couple extra segments featuring Mainers and their World War Two experiences.

To see the full program as well as other episodes, head to the From the Vault playlist at youtube.com/mainepublic.

This program also demonstrates the importance of recording our history.

Many of the people in these segments have passed away, but luckily we have their stories saved for posterity.

Perhaps it will encourage you to take the time to speak with others about their experiences and maybe even record them for future generations.

At the very least, I hope it gives you pause to recognize the sacrifices so many have made to veterans everywhere, thank you for your service.

Now let's begin back in 2007 with Maine Experience.

(inspiring music) (planes running) (dramatic music) (bombs exploding) (tank running) - [Narrator] By the summer of 1940, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France had all surrendered to Nazi Germany.

England itself lived in fear of imminent invasion.

Britain was suffering from the Great Blitz at the hands of the German Luftwaffe.

The island nation was bombarded from Scotland to Land's End.

Her Majesty's Navy was also losing the war at sea.

Vitally important shipping lanes for this island nation were cut off.

Food and other basic supplies were drying up.

German U-boats were sinking British ships faster than England could replace them.

5 million British tons per year were lost at the bottom of the Atlantic.

And the Nazis deliberate targeting of shipyards and dry docks only made matters worse.

(bombs exploding) Finding a reliable fleet of ships to replace its losses became a matter of survival for the British Isles.

(crowd cheering) - If we had kept together after the last war, if we had taken common measures for our safety, this renewal of the curse should never have fallen upon us.

- You had a a crisis.

You had the British yards working to capacity, ships being sunk faster than they were built.

Churchill hopes that the United States will come in on the side of the Allies.

Franklin Roosevelt believes that Germany is a threat to the security of the United States.

The overwhelming majority of American people are opposed to being involved in another European war.

- If Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will control the continents of Europe and Asia and Africa and Australasia and the high seas.

It is no exaggeration to say that all of us in the Americas would be living at the point of a gun.

- [Narrator] FDR and key members of Congress actively assisted the European allies in China by lending or leasing US military hardware without committing US troops to the war.

This strategy prepared the American public for the possibility of joining the war if necessary.

- Roosevelt was brilliant, you know?

He goes on the radio and he says, "If you're on neighbor's house was on fire and he asked to borrow your garden hose to put it out, would you say no?"

And that's what the allies are asking for.

- People of Europe who are defending themselves do not ask us to do their fighting.

They ask us for the implements of war.

The planes, the tanks, the guns and freighters, which will enable them to fight for their liberty and our security.

We must be the great arsenal of democracy.

For us, this is an emergency as serious as war itself.

- [Narrator] In early September, 1940, the British government requested permission to build two shipyards on US soil.

These yards would produce 10,000 ton supply ships to assist the beleaguered Royal Navy.

- [Eastman] They contracted with Bath Iron Works, who linked up with Todd Shipbuilding in New York.

And they contracted with Henry J Kaiser on the west coast to each build 30 what we call ocean class ships.

They carried troops, they carried supplies.

BIW was picked because it had a worldwide reputation for building ships, particularly destroyers, you know, the Maine work ethic and all of that.

And at that time they'd located a site near Spring Point in South Portland near Deepwater where they could build a yard.

- [Narrator] Construction began at the South Portland site in December of 1940.

Ships would again be launched in Portland Harbor, a site unseen on any scale of note since the 1850s.

(crowd cheering) - [Eastman] The British have a design.

In Britain, they built them, they riveted them and they were fairly complex to build.

So they changed the design to allow them to be welded, which requires less skilled workers.

So they make a lot of modifications to make it easier to build.

- [Narrator] Changing the ship design to speed up the process was one part to this ambitious plan of cranking out 30 ocean class ships in less than 24 months.

The other facet to this strategy was to change the design of the shipyard itself.

The combined engineering might of BIW and Todd Shipbuilding led to the construction of the first known basin shipyard, where the dry dock is moved out into the water.

- [Eastman] 'Cause of the size of the ship, they decided to go with a basin shipyard, meaning a shipyard below sea level.

There were huge gates that were put in place.

There was a pumping system so you pumped out the water and you laid the keyholes, built the ship.

There were derricks running down beside each of the births to lower the materials down in place.

And this was all welded.

The sub-assemblies were built offsite and then moved and just placed in position.

Then when you were ready to launch, all you did is flood that basin, remove the gates, float them out, and then move them to a big fitting out pier where the ship was finished.

When a ship is launched, it's nowhere near finished.

Usually a super structure is not on it.

But the basic ship is done and the innards are in there.

But then you move it to the fitting out pier, with more cranes and finished the rest of the ship.

- [Narrator] The site of seven ship building births constructed below sea level prompted one writer to remark "the assembly line has gone to sea at last.

You don't have to build your ships on an incline.

You need to spend weeks worrying whether your ship is going to slide down the ways on launching day or refuse to budge.

Forget about all the tons of grease.

All these problems vanish if you build your ships in a bathtub."

These ships were as unique as the shipyard that built them.

Ocean class vessels, as they were called, had to carry 10,000 tons, yet be narrow enough and displace as little water as possible to navigate the small out of the way British harbors spared by the German blitz.

(victorious music) And despite initial delays, Britain took delivery of all 30 ships in less than two years.

- Well the fascinating thing is, when they finished building those 30 ships, the British government turned the shipyard over to the United States, to the US Maritime Commission, as reversed land leased.

- [Narrator] After the US took control of the shipyard, in January, 1941 FDR announced an emergency ship building program.

In an effort to keep the US prepared for war, FDR placed an order for 200 ships based on the ocean class model designed by the British.

These US ships were dubbed Liberty ships after President Roosevelt famously said "They would bring liberty to all of Europe."

- [Eastman] The initial shipyard was small.

You know, it was for a limited contract.

They were only gonna build 30 ships.

When the US Maritime Commission came in and gave them a contract to build Liberty ships, they had to add a huge amount of territory.

- [Narrator] The new shipyard known as the West Yard required much more space.

A connecting railroad to deliver supplies was also needed.

The fishing hamlet known as Ferry Village was seized and residents were forced to move.

A new corporation emerged to manage the two growing yards: New England Shipbuilding.

And although the US was not yet in the war, a sentiment of sacrifice prevailed.

- [Reporter] This is the story of what is happening to the American small town in wartime.

The town is being invaded.

The invaders are not enemies, but friends.

Americans, people from the farms, the mountains, the far away cities and villages.

They pour into the town, washed through its streets and into its houses and churches and meeting places.

The town is flooded and overwhelmed.

It was meant to be a living space for 5,000 to 10,000 people.

20,000, 30,000, 40,000 people roll into it, double up in its houses, camp on its outskirts.

The new people have come here to work.

In the shipyards, in the machine shops and small factories.

- People were ecstatic about this because one thing we forget about is it wasn't the New Deals programs that ended the Great Depression.

It was the buildup for World War II that ended the Great Depression.

And so the newspaper's saying this news is the greatest thing that ever happened in Portland.

It's gonna bring good paying jobs, it's gonna stimulate the economy in all areas of it.

So they welcomed it.

- 'Cause we had a lot of workers that came from way up, way up country.

And they would come down here and work from Monday through Friday and then they'd go back home.

The draw was it was the best place to work and you could make big money.

We were all kids of depression.

So money was very, very important to us.

- Now by the time the second yard starts coming, Portland is being overwhelmed with, you know, think of 30,000 people.

Well they were running shifts around the clock.

So you got 10,000 people coming and going three times a day.

And those people have to have some place to eat and some place to sleep.

And so we have a housing shortage, we have traffic congestion.

Portland had these old laws where, you know, all the bars shut down at midnight on Saturday and also Portland becomes a naval base.

So you've got shipyard workers and sailors being kicked out of the bars at midnight.

And so there were riots.

So it was an exciting time in Portland.

- [Narrator] Overnight, Portland was transformed, the city population swelled and so did the number of people living in the surrounding towns.

Former farming communities like Scarborough and Westbrook exploded with people from rural Maine and those coming in from out of state.

People of different backgrounds and ethnicities were suddenly neighbors, pitching in for the security of the nation.

This sense of security was put to the test in December of 1941.

- [FDR] December 7th, 1941.

A date which will live in infamy.

- [Narrator] Pearl Harbor was the event that sent the American public over the edge to support joining World War II.

In May of 1942, just five months after the Japanese attack, Liberty ships were launching in South Portland.

A total of 50 shipyards from Maine to California built Liberties.

In each ship building community, the same patterns emerged.

Labor shortages due to the draft pressed women into the workforce.

- People came from all over the state, mostly older men and women because the young guys, unless they had a physical problem, were all off at war.

There weren't a lot of young men there.

I worked in the South Portland shipyards from 1943 to 1945.

I worked as what they called a weld cleaner.

We went down in the inner bottoms of the ship with an electric gun and cleaned off the weld to smooth it out after the welders had finished doing it.

We all looked the same, so there was no glamor at all.

And of course we wore coveralls and a kerchief 'cause you didn't have any hair showing and glasses and a mask, so, and your dinner box, and that was it.

It was the first time I had really been away from home.

There were piles of steel everywhere and there was all kinds of huge equipment.

It was very noisy.

It looked like its own little industrial world over there.

I started out on nights.

You couldn't be afraid of the dark, you couldn't be afraid of height.

So I had to walk down there 11 o'clock at night and get on the shipyard bus that was full of men.

And there weren't a lot of women on it, at least on the bus that I rode.

And I can remember getting on it the first night with my dinner box and my kerchief and my coveralls and having the guys say, "Come on honey, you can sit right here.

Come on sweetie."

And I (gasps) you know, I didn't know how that was going to work out, but it was fine.

You had to be able to climb up and you also had to be able to go down and it was pitch black down there.

All you had was this light.

And every once in a while they found that the guys would pull out our extension lights on us as a joke.

So they finally put the younger women on the day shift.

They thought it would maybe be safer that we'd have, there'd be more supervision.

Got so you knew people, and I think if they realized you were there to work and not, you know, fool around, they were fine.

- [Narrator] The 30,000 men and women working in the South Portland shipyards built 236 liberty ships by wars end in 1945.

Many of these ships were lost during the fighting.

Only one South Portland Liberty survives today, the Jeremiah O'Brien, built in 1943.

It lives on as a working national historic landmark in San Francisco Bay, serving as a reminder of the sacrifice and change endured by so many overseas and at home.

(film reel rolling) (jazz music) - [Speaker] Soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary force, you are about to embark upon the great crusade toward which we have driven these many months.

The eyes of the world are upon you.

The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.

In company with our brave allies and brothers in arms on other fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one.

Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle hardened.

The tide has turned.

The free men of the world are marching together to victory.

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle.

We will accept nothing less than full victory.

(cannons firing) - [Narrator] In June of 1944, the Allied Forces steamed across the English Channel towards France's Normandy coast.

It was the greatest sea invasion ever, marking the beginning of the end of World War II in Europe.

D-Day.

- We didn't sleep much because of the anxiety.

There was very little sleep.

To keep occupied while we were playing cards or playing dice, shooting dice, whatever.

And on this evening, a fellow Penobscot that I had known as a child, Melvin Neptune, knew that I was on this ship and he found me.

I was very happy to see him.

And we had a small talk, but we didn't talk about the mission that was ahead of us.

We always talked about home.

- [Narrator] During World War II, 85 Penobscot men and women served for the allies.

This is almost 20% of the entire population of 500 who lived on the Indian island reservation.

- [Shay] It was not a matter of being drafted or forced to go into the service.

Because of the situation on the reservation that we lived on, there was no employment for the young men.

Many of them went into the military service for the adventure and to get away from the reservation.

- [Narrator] Charles Norman Shay, a first infantry medic, shipped out in the very first hours of Tuesday, June 6th, 1944.

- [Shay] And we disembarked about 3:30 in the morning.

And once we got into a position where we could get to the Atlantic craft, we had to time ourselves to jump at the proper time.

Because the seas were so rough and so high, the Atlanticú craft were going up and down.

And you had to time yourself to jump into the boat when it was at its highest peak.

Well, I remember circling in the seas and the rough seas for about two or three hours.

About 5:30 we started heading for the beach.

The seasoned rough men were becoming seasick.

Obstacles had been placed in the water at low tide.

And this stuff they landed craft from getting too close to the beach.

All this time there was machine gun fire, rifle fire mortar shells going, exploding artillery.

Many of these land craft took direct hits.

And once the ramps went down, we had to jump in.

And when I jumped in, I landed in water up to my chest.

The men were loaded down with all sorts of equipment.

Some of them didn't even get off of the ramp.

They were cut down before they even were able to leave the ramp.

They landed in the water, they were dead already.

It was every man for himself because you couldn't expect help from anybody.

These obstacles that the Germans had put up to block the landing craft were sort of our godsend to us because in making our way to the beach, we were able to pause and hide behind some of these obstacles because they were made out of iron.

Bullets were flying every place and we could use this as cover, going from one obstacle to the next, until we finally made it to the beach.

Once we reached the beach and were out of the water, we had to make a dash for the embankment because that was the only protection that was there.

When I got to the embankment, of course being a medic, I assisted, I started treating the wounded that had made it to the embankment.

I started treating them, binding up their wounds and so forth.

I happened to look back to the water.

Men that had been wounded were loaded down with equipment and couldn't move because they were drowning there.

So I didn't stop to think about it.

It was just a reaction that I had to go and help them.

I returned to the water.

I don't know how I ever did it.

And I pulled several men up out of the water and to the safety of the beach.

I don't know where my strength came from, but I was able to save several lives.

- [Narrator] 2,500 US soldiers were killed in just a few short hours on that narrow strip of sand, known as Omaha Beach, where Charles Norman Shay carried critically wounded men to safety.

Private Shay won a silver star for his heroism on D-Day.

And he reenlisted for the next conflict, the Korean War.

- [Shay] The Native American has been active in all wars that have been fought in the United States, from the Revolutionary War, Civil War, on up to the present day war in Iraq.

And they've always participated in every war that the United States has ever fought, I guess out of patriotism I would say to the country.

(serene music) - I guess they'd hire anybody.

They hired me.

- [Narrator] When 22 year old Jean Dubois was laid off from her job at a dry cleaning shop, she applied at the shipyard in South Portland.

She landed a job working on the Liberty ship the Jeremiah O'Brien as a welder, and she was good at it.

- If they found air holes, then you had to do it over, they'd chip it out and we'd start over.

But I didn't have any.

I was lucky.

- [Narrator] Jean liked the work and the camaraderie at the shipyard.

She also liked the pay: $1.60 an hour, nearly twice what she'd made before.

One of her favorite memories from that time is when the O'Brien was taken on its test run and she and a friend stowed away.

- So we hid until they got going.

And I said, of course by then when the boss saw us, they couldn't do anything about it 'cause we'd stayed on.

He said, "What are you doing here?"

I said, "We didn't want to get off.

We worked on the ship and we wanted the ride on it."

So we did.

And then when we were coming back, I said to her, "Wouldn't it be funny if we were rammed right into the staging?"

Sure enough, bang, went right into the staging.

Course, didn't do any damage to the ship, but the staging didn't look very good.

- [Narrator] Jean Dubois-Robbins says, at the time, it was just a good job, but looking back, she is proud he was there.

You know, really, it was fascinating in a way.

You know, it's something that I never dreamed I would ever do, but you were more or less, you know, had to do it at the time.

And really, I'm glad I did it.

(dramatic music) - They had built the destroyers at the ironworks and they had to have a deep enough channel for all these destroyers to go out the Kennebec and go into the service.

- [Narrator] When Harold Grundy was 19 years old, he got a job with the company that had been hired to dredge the Kennebec.

He remembers that the Army course contract called for the river to be at least 31 feet deep at mean low water.

- All the way down, there's about seven or eight locations on the river where the ledge came down from the shore into the river and the ships couldn't go through it, it wasn't deep enough for their hull to go through.

So we had to blast out these ledges and make a deep channel at these different locations.

- [Narrator] Grundy was one of thousands of workers who came to Bath during the 1940s when the shipyards shifted from building yachts to building destroyers for the war.

At the height of the war effort, Bath Ironworks launched a new ship every 17 days.

- If I felt that we were doing something to help the country in some way, that's the way I felt.

I was just a young boy and I didn't realize what was going on, but I thought it was a good thing to be doing.

I just liked the water and I was young and I was adventurous.

- [Narrator] Shortly after Harold Grundy enlisted in the Merchant Marines, he was placed on a liberty ship and a convoy through the North Atlantic.

- You should see the rough weather, 80, 90 foot waves all the time up until there.

The ship would just be completely tipped over on.

And we had 10,000 tons of bombs on our ship for cargo.

- [Narrator] There were 148 ships in the convoy.

The ammunition ships, including Harold's, brought up the rear.

They called it Coffin Corner.

- One ammunition ship did get hit and there was just a puff of smoke than what it created.

There was nothing.

That's all you get.

There was nobody left from it.

- [Narrator] The convoy was headed towards Russia.

It never got there.

- Middle of the winter, boy, it was cold.

There was ice everywhere.

And the divebombers and torpedoes came out from Norway.

And when a convoy got attacked during the war, the commodore, there was a commodore for every convoy, and his orders are just break away.

You're on your own.

- [Narrator] Grundy's ship headed north, waited for orders and eventually docked in London where the crew endured nightly air raids.

- About 11 o'clock at night, the bombers used to come over.

First it'd be three or four reconnaissance planes would come and they'd circle the city.

Then he'd drop red and white flares in a big circle around the part that was gonna be bombed that night, and about 15, 20 minutes later, 75 or 100 German bombers came over and they had for that circle that was all lit up.

And we were right in the middle of that circle, unloading our ship with all those bombs on it.

And during the bombings and everything, you think about it, but you're so involved with what's going on and trying to protect yourself, you don't think much about it.

But usually the day after, it always all of a sudden starts hitting you how bad it really was.

- [Narrator] The crew managed to unload its explosive cargo safely.

And Harold Grundy would soon head to the Pacific.

- Well, they sent us to Australia.

They said, "Go down to Brisbane and await orders."

- Harold Grundy was serving in the Merchant Marines in 1944 when his ship, the SS Floridian, was ordered to Sydney Harbor.

- We used a tug boat both ways.

Pulled into the army docks in Sydney and they spent 32 days loading us up with a special cargo they had and they said they needed this big ship for this cargo.

It was such a big cargo and it was a pre-fabricated knockdown army field hospital, a whole unit for a hospital for 3000 men, to take care of 3000 people.

They wanted this whole unit on this one ship.

They had 500 hospital corpsmen went with us when we finally sailed after 32 days.

- [Narrator] All loaded the ship, then steamed for New Guinea and waited for more than two months.

It was eventually sent to Manus Island for fuel.

- And when we got into the harbor in Manus Island, there was hundreds of Navy ships waiting in there.

The biggest Navy fleet you ever saw.

Battleships, cruisers, submarines, everything you can think of.

- [Narrator] It was there Grundy learned that General Douglas MacArthur was preparing for the invasion of the Philippines.

The Floridian was ordered to Laity Harbor and immediately began to unload.

- [Grundy] For seven, seven and a half days and nights, we was unloading that ship, getting the hospital ashore while the evasion was going on and the kamikaze was coming over day and night.

We never ever took our clothes off.

- The SS Floridian survived the attacks and later typhoons, but many merchant ships did not.

Harold Grundy wants people to understand that the Merchant Marines were right there, supplying every US invasion of the war and that the sacrifice was great.

- We lost more men percentage wise than any of the other armed forces in Second World War.

(gentle rousing music) - We were in the Philippines, February of 1941.

Pearl Harbor was December 7th, 1941.

- [Lynne] Sam Hamilton was 11 years old when his family moved to Manila.

His father had been transferred there by his employer, an American bank.

Shortly after the Japanese invaded the Philippines, Hamilton's family was taken to an internment camp.

- They told us to bring just enough food and clothing for three days, and it ends up three years and a month.

- [Lynne] The main building at the University of Santo Tomas housed 3,700 internees.

About halfway through their internment, Hamilton's family managed to build a shanty and move out of the main building.

But life soon got worse.

With each American victory, the Japanese imposed more restrictions and cut rations.

- [Sam] At the end, starvation was the worst part of the whole thing.

My mother, who weighed probably about 150 when we went in was down to about 86 pounds, and Dad was down to about 95.

They gave us a lot of their food, I think, that's why these things make me think that they just were really great parents.

This plane came by and dropped a set of goggles with a message on it.

"There's gonna be a big time in the town tonight."

- [Lynne] On February 3rd, 1945, 14 year old, Sam Hamilton was living in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila with his family.

There, internees were starving.

The Japanese officers had been cracking down with brutal force.

But that night, American tanks finally crashed through the gates.

Sam ran to greet them.

- I remember falling into this mud puddle and didn't bother me a bit.

- [Lynne] Hundreds of internees rushed out to the main plaza to join the American forces.

Sam Hamilton refers to his notes what he has written about that day, and the site of the American soldiers after three long years.

- Mother says, who then weighed about 85 pounds.

She told us they would be big and beautiful.

And they were, avenging angels bigger than life and generous beyond belief, giving us their rations and raising us up in their arms.

But it was, it's just so exciting.

It really was.

(gentle rousing music) - And I always felt I wanted to fly and had a few airplane rides.

So I thought, well, maybe here's a chance I can be a pilot.

- [Lynne] During World War II, 19-year-old Second Lieutenant Fred Kelly flew special planes for the OSS.

Stripped down black, painted B-24 bombers that took off from England by night and dropped supplies to the French Underground.

On his fifth mission, Kelly's plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire.

- [Fred] First off, the bombardier up in the nose was screaming, "Pull up, pull up!"

And we could feel trees, we're brushing tree tops.

And I had my safety harness off and everything.

Just dying to bail out.

Oh, I wanted to bail out so badly.

- [Lynne] The plane stalled, then crashed on a hill.

Kelly was thrown part way out the cockpit window.

- [Fred] A lot of flames all around, the burning gas and everything, and I unbuckled my harness here.

But I was hung up trying to get through the window, and the two gunners had gone up and was screeching and hollering, "Hey, this way, this way."

But I was punchy, you know, I've been knocked out for a few seconds and I was punchy.

I thought, "Gee, I just want to go to sleep."

Crazy.

- [Lynne] Encouraged by his crew mates, he climbed out, burned but alive.

Most of his crew survived.

- So of our eight man crew, one was dead, four of us were on the uphill side.

The radio operator, navigator, and bombardier were on the downhill side each thinking the rest of the crew was dead because the plane was burning and the ammunition was cooking on.

So we separated, each thinking the other half was dead, and no way any of us could have gone back into the plane.

Got a further away from the plane as we could and into the woods and slept in a ravine in the snow.

The next morning we were shaking with fright.

It was a delayed reaction.

We finally realized how close we'd come to being killed.

But up until then, it hadn't registered in you.

And this young girl was around with a basket, I think, collecting eggs or something.

- [Lynne] Fred Kelly and three crew mates were hiding in a barn in occupied France.

- The girl got close and, you know, we grabbed her and she just about faded, scared stiff.

And says, "Look, look, we're not gonna harm you.

We're American airmen, we just need help."

- [Lynne] Their plane had been shot down.

They now had to survive behind enemy lines.

- [Fred] My two gunners would hide in the bushes.

I'd go ahead and ask for food and shelter.

Well, they'd feed us, but they didn't want us in the property cuz if we were caught on the property, they'd get shot.

So they'd feed us, but you gotta keep going.

- [Lynne] They made their way across France with fake IDs, dressed as civilians.

- [Fred] We get on a train from Amiens into Paris where we had to change trains, and we were spread out 'cause it's a group.

We looked too obvious.

While I was bringing up the tail end, and as we were getting into the subway to go across Paris, the subway door started to close.

So without thinking, I've put my hands out and says, "Whoa, there" in English.

And immediately the French looked up, Oh, and they guessed right away.

They started brushing by and patting me, bonne chance.

It's, "Good luck, good luck."

They guessed right away that I'm, but they didn't give me away.

- [Lynne] In the end, Fred Kelly made it over the Pyrenees, spent time in Pamplona and ended up in Gibraltar.

For him, it was an enormous adventure.

- Or I wouldn't have missed it for anything.

But if I had to do it over again, I'd be frightened witless.

(chuckling) (gentle rousing music) - [Franklin] December 7th, 1941.

A date which will live in infamy.

- I just felt that I wanted to be in an outfit that would go back and pay them back.

- [Franklin] Deliberately attacked.

- [Roy] When you join the Marines, you know you're gonna be in the battle.

As much as I saw, as much as I did, I was never sorry ever that I joined the marines.

I've been asked, "Weren't you afraid or weren't you scared?"

And I say, "No, not really scared, concerned maybe."

But you were thinking, "Okay, now we've gotta get ashore.

We have so much to do.

Where are we supposed to go?"

And so on, and you talk to the guys there about it on the way in.

Then when you get closer, everybody is quiet, silent until that ramp goes down.

Once that ramp hits the beach, you're off.

You go off there just fast as you can get off.

By December, we were board a ship again and we were on our way to Iwo.

We didn't know where we were going.

We had no idea.

- [Lynne] By the time marine Private 1st Class Roy Earl was on his way to Iwo Jima, he had already taken part in three other invasions.

On board ship, the officers told the Marines that the next mission would be an easy one.

- It should take you maybe five days, five six days.

It should be all done.

- [Lynne] Earle was in the third assault wave on Iwo Jima which came in under heavy fire.

- And we'd always hear people hollering, "Get off the beach!

Get off the beach!"

Because the next wave was coming in and there's five minutes between waves.

We were getting ready to go up, and we heard a shell, and we turned around and the ship we had come in on, that little boat, the Ocean BP, they hit it right smack in the middle and we saw it just falling apart.

I never saw the coxswain motor mech again.

- [Lynne] The fourth marine division would lose 55% of its man at Iwo Jima.

Earl's battalion was spared the worst of it and moved up from the beach to an airfield.

Two weeks after the assault, the fighting continued.

- [Roy] You know, we'd lose track of time.

We have no idea what day it is or what month it is or anything.

But just so happened that somebody mentioned, "Today is the 5th of march, no kidding."

And I said, "5th of March, it's my birthday."

And they were all kidding me and everything, you know.

But that night I was laying there, and I was in the foxhole and I'm thinking, 5th of March a birthday.

Look at this, bombs bursting overhead.

They were bullets whizzing on both sides.

(laughs) What a way to celebrate your 21st birthday.

(rousing music) - I knew he was gonna come back.

I just knew he was.

- [Lynne] Adelaide Poland and Conrad Ray met as teenagers.

Her family spent summers at a retreat in Hartford, Maine.

He was a boy from Canton.

In 1941, Conrad joined the Army Air Corps and was stationed in Mississippi.

They were married in Mississippi on November 20th.

Two weeks later, on December 7th, the newlyweds went to the zoo, then settled in to listen to a concert on the radio.

(upbeat music) - [Adelaide] And they interrupted the concert to announce about Pearl Harbor.

- [News Caster] We interrupt this broadcast to bringing this important bulletin from the United Press "Flash Washington."

That White House- - And it was really a shock' cause you know he's already in uniform and all that, you know, he's gonna go, and that's where we hear of that.

And it was the next morning, he went in to report at the base and he came back and said, "Well, I'm off."

- [Lynne] Conrad kept a diary.

Adelaide preserved it.

- "December 7th, the United States is again at war.

It was by the radio that we learned the Japs that attacked Pearl Harbor."

Now you noticed, "Japs"?

"As I listened to those words, a chill run down my back.

It means that we are no longer free to live our lives as we wish.

This stab in the back was extremely well planned.

And all the times, their ambassadors were in our capital, making a false peace, beaten us there."

See?

- [Lynne] Conrad Ray spent 15 months flying missions in the Pacific Theater and came home unharmed.

What Adelaide remembers most about the time he was gone was the spirit on the home front.

- [Adelaide] When people needed help, Why?

Everybody who knew about it would help.

It sounds sort of idealistic and all that, but it almost felt that way to me.

Not then, but as I look back, it's a different time.

And I'm not sorry I lived through it.

- [Lynne] Adelaide Ray still has the letters she received from her husband, Conrad, more than 60 years ago when he served as a bomber pilot in World War II.

- Hang on.

(chuckling) "I'm coming home soon.

I'm going to give you plenty of time to get used to the idea."

- [Lynne] She received this letter July 10th, 1943.

- "I am happy as a fool about it, (chuckling) and afraid the waiting will be too much for me.

Now you have some new material for your dreams.

Don't get too impatient.

That should be a news enough for one letter.

I will close and go to bed.

Time always passes quickly there.

Take care of yourself, darling, until I can see you.

I love you.

Conrad."

- [Lynne] Conrad Ray did not return home until February of the next year.

Adelaide calls their reunion the happiest day of her life.

(gentle rousing music) - I was at a rest camp in northern India, and one morning we heard the news of the bombing of Hiroshima.

And all around me, there was celebrating and whooping and so forth.

But I wasn't whooping, I wasn't celebrating.

All I could think of was here up to now, United States has had the reputation for being not only the most powerful, but the most moral nation in the world.

And now that we have done this horrific thing, we've made it possible for the same to be done over and over across the world.

And I thought it was terrible.

And so, we dropped the bomb and we dropped another bomb, It was over.

It seemed like everybody was happy except me.

- But I think in some ways, the atomic bomb, even though it's a terrible weapon, it did save some lives.

Had they hadn't take Japan, island by island, by island, by island, they would've lost many more people, both sides.

How was that for rationalizing?

- Maine's legacy of leadership isn't limited to elected office.

Over the decades, there have been a great many Mainers who have served in governments, the military business, even the media.

People who have lived and worked in the shadow of the US capital but who always considered home to be Maine.

Many of them get together and celebrate their roots through the Maine State Society in Washington.

And lately, they have found a perfect way to connect with home and bring a little bit of Maine to a place that deserves it.

Here's Lynne McGhee.

- The Maine people have long been known for their sense of giving and selflessness.

I've been fortunate enough lately to be part of a project that takes us from a small town in Harrington, Maine, all the way to Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1993, Morrill Worcester had a number of holiday wreaths left over from his family business, the Worcester Wreath company in Harrington.

He decided to send the wreaths to Washington DC to decorate the veteran's graves at Arlington National Cemetery.

- I called up Olympia Snowe's office and told her what or told her people what we wanted to do, and they got right on the ball and made the arrangements.

And then I, you know, I got thinking of who am I gonna get to haul these things down there?

- [Lynne] Jimmy Prout, owner of the Bluebird Ranch has donated a truck and helped load it for the past six years.

- It's rarely does stuff to your heart when you look at the pictures when they came back with all the colorful wreaths.

(upbeat music) - [Lynne] Every December, volunteers from local VFW posts, friends, family, and employees gather on a Sunday morning at Worcester Wreath, with one common goal, to decorate and pack over 4,000 wreaths bound for Arlington National Cemetery.

(upbeat music) - Now what's the secret here?

- How do we do this?

- We gotta find the wire.

- Find the wire.

- See the wire?

- Yep, yep.

- Okay, and then you put it down.

Put it down in there.

- Oh, I see.

- So, that holds it.

- Mm-hmm.

(upbeat music) I can do this without sticking my finger.

(laughs) (upbeat rousing music) You do this every year?

- Nope, this is first year.

- What do you think of it so far?

It's a worthwhile cause.

(laughs) - It really is, isn't it?

- [Lynne] Every year, Morrill follows the truck with several friends and family members for a unique honor.

- Usually the ones that I take down with me are involved in the wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and which is a tremendous experience.

- A lot.

Come.

- [Veteran] With this- - [Volunteer] Uh-oh.

♪ Doo Doo Doo Doo - [Baby Speaker] Lower.

- [Volunteer] Lower?

♪ Comin' in on a wing and a prayer ♪ ♪ Comin' in on a wing and a prayer ♪ ♪ Though there's one motor gone ♪ ♪ We can still carry on - [Lynne] Once in Washington the Maine State Society of Washington DC take over the task of placing the wreaths.

Hugh Dwelley, the coordinator of the event, looks forward to organizing the volunteers each year.

- [Hugh] When you see that truck with Bluebird Ranch on the side of it coming up through the cemetery, I think they're all looking forward with the expectation to just what we're going to do.

- [Lynne] Hugh, a native of Little Cranberry Island, has been involved with the wreath laying project from the beginning and is proud of the work the Maine State Society of Washington does.

- [Hugh] It was organized in 1894, and it provides an opportunity for Mainers to get together.

We call ourselves Displaced Mainers and do social activities and also for activities which benefit the state.

You know, obviously this wreath project is one of those.

- [Lynne] I spoke with Jack Metzler, a wreath laying volunteer, and the superintendent of Arlington National Cemetery.

- [Jack] I've been working in cemeteries and doing this type of work for 25 years.

And I've never seen a group that volunteer like this that not only will produce the product, bring it downs, you know, five, 600 miles, whatever the distance is from Maine, and then place the individual wreaths out and be happy about it.

(people chattering) - [Hugh] There are people from the military, people from the congressional staffs.

I think we all get a lot of satisfaction from being able to do this at the cemetery for the people who were buried there.

(bell dinging) - [Lynne] Later, the group meets Jane Muskie and her family to honor Maine's senator, Edmund Muskie.

(gentle music) - [Hugh] Well, I think it's important to focus on who is buried there, and perhaps what state they came from.

And just give a little thought and realize that they gave their life for the country.

(gentle morose music) - [Lynne] Hugh makes a special trip to visit First Lieutenant Steven Ramsey, an Islesford native killed in Vietnam.

I visit someone very special to me, my father-in-law, Air Force Major John McGee, Jr. Dad flew over 200 combat missions in World War II and Korea earning four Air Medals, seven Battle Stars, two Purple Hearts, and the distinguished Flying Cross.

He's an excellent example of the thousands of brave men and women who proudly serve their country and now rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

(gentle morose music) (gentle ceremonious music) (bell dinging) - All those who have served in uniform deserve our praise and thanks.

Flags and flowers seem the least we can do.

But there's a select group that has earned much more.

Those courageous few who get to wear the modest badge and stars of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Only a handful of living Mainers are Medal of Honor recipients.

One of them is Ed Dahlgren of Mars Hill.

A few years ago I asked Ed to tell us his story, and what a story it is.

- [Edward] I remember very vividly, and you wonder why, like myself, why I was spared when all these people, good friends of mine were killed or wounded there.

- [Don] Ed Dahlgren grew up in a Aroostok County and left high school to go to work.

He ended up as a machinist in Massachusetts.

The war was on then.

And Dahlgren received draft deferments because he was building equipment for the military.

- [Don] So you could have stayed out.

- I could have stayed.

I was off another deferment, yeah.

But I didn't want any.

I don't know how many more I could have got, but my friends were all leaving, going, and I was the last one deferred.

And then I went and my deferment run up.

I said, "That's it."

So, I get drafted.

- [Don] Dahlgren went into the army and shipped off to Italy.

Dahlgren was wounded in the arm, sent to the hospital to recover, and then back to his unit.

He was promoted to Sergeant.

After D-Day, his unit landed in southern France and battled North to link up with other allied forces.

- [Edward] So, you expected it.

You're expected to get hit, yeah.

- [Don] Did you expect to survive?

- Well, yeah, I was hoping to survive.

- [Don] 'Cause that had to go through your mind.

- Oh yeah, yeah.

I remember one time in France, we were in combat, my company, for 131 days and there's 250 men in a company, and at the end of that there's less than 50 left.

- [Don] And then, in February of 1945, Ed Dahlgren and his third platoon came to small town of Oberhoffen, France.

- [Representative] The Medal of Honor to Dahlgren Edward C. Citation: He led the third platoon to the rescue of a similar unit, which had been surrounded in an enemy counter attack at Oberhoffen, France.

As he advanced along- - [Edward] Oberhoffen France is a town about big as Myers Hill and here in Blaine together, probably.

But it was at that intersection, highway intersection, and the Germans were in this town.

And I always had the third platoon, and the second platoon, we got caught off.

It got cut off from us.

And the Germans had them surrounded, which then we had to try to make contact with them.

- [Don] You were on a rescue mission.

- Yeah.

Oh, they- - [Representative] Running into a barn.

He took up a position in a window and swept the hostile troops with submachine gun fire killing six, wounding the others.

- Germans coming across this field, come in behind us, see?

And I opened fire with a Tommy gun and that ended that deal.

- [Representative] In the face of machine pistol and rifle fire, he ran toward the building, hurled a grenade through the door, (grenade bangs) blasted his way inside with his gun.

This aggressive attack so rattled the Germans that all eight men who held the strong point immediately surrendered.

- And I couldn't have done this all along, you know?

I had boys that were helping me too.

But it took about all day to get in contact with the second platoon.

- [Representative] He secured rifle grenades, stepped to an exposed position and calmly launched his missiles from a difficult angle until he had destroyed the machine gun and killed its two operators.

- [Don] Sounds like you were a pretty cool customer.

- Oh, I was pretty good that day.

(chuckling) No, I, yeah, this killing people, you know, that bothers me too.

But it's either more or less self defense.

- [Representative] Throwing a grenade into the structure, he rushed the position, firing his weapon as he ran.

Within, he overwhelmed five Germans.

- But part of me getting through this just plain luck, so.

- [Representative] Sergeant Dahlgren entered the building, kicked open the cellar door, and firing several bursts down the stairway, called for the trapped enemy to surrender.

16 soldiers filed out with their hands in the air.

- Because about several times in, I'd run from one building to another, and it might be two, three maybe men with me, and one of of them would get knocked off.

And then why?

You know, I mean.

- [Don] Why you and not them?

- Yeah, yeah.

- [Don] Six months later in Washington, President Harry Truman presented Ed Dahlgren with the Medal of Honor.

When you were given the award, did President Truman say anything to you?

- Oh yeah, that he'd like rather have that and be president.

I think they might have those fingers crossed.

(laughs) - So remember then, Ed Dahlgren and all the others who have served us in uniform, and to those who have served in other ways and who continue to serve, all of them, they have made Maine proud.

I'm Don Carrigan.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat rousing music)