Lionized in recent best-selling books by big-name authors, the veterans of World War II continue to die at the rate of 1,100 per day. That means Bob Freeman is running out of time.
He and co-researcher Dennis Wright are trying to gather the stories of a select group from that era: Latter-day Saints who served their country and who have memories to share, either verbally or in the form of journals, histories, pictures or other documents. And ironic though it may seem, the two Brigham Young University professors are sometimes the only people these veterans have ever shared their experiences with — because they're the only ones who apparently cared enough to ask.
Recently, a man traveled from Burley, Idaho, to bring Freeman some 200 images he had shot with a little Brownie camera during the liberation of a small French town. "There was a little photo shop there, and he had taken a photo class at BYU so he knew what to do" to develop the images.
While they are not exceptionally high quality, the man was obviously proud of his work. "He had gone to the effort of having a professional Internet journal company capture all his images and preserve them." Yet he didn't have anyone to share them with until Freeman came along. "My kids just aren't interested," the man told him.
It was a familiar tale. "When we talk with them about what they have and whether we can take a copy, a lot of them will say, 'No one ever asked me about this before. I don't want you to make copies. I'm willing to give you the material if you will preserve it.' "
Though their children may not be interested, there's no doubt future historians will. The project will result in more than a book by the two researchers, because every photo, journal and oral history they collect for their "Saints at War" research project will be maintained in BYU's Special Collections library.
While they know they won't gather information on every LDS veteran, even a small percentage of those stories could overwhelm the two men and their small core of volunteers. More than 100,000 Latter-day Saints served in the military during those years — meaning a full 10 percent of all church members worldwide at that time were involved in the conflict, Freeman said.
Yet precious little archival material that tells the LDS view of the war exists anywhere but on dusty closet shelves, in old metal trunks, or in the minds of those who still live to tell about it. To date, the duo have collected and compiled more than 400 files — and the end is nowhere in sight.
"We want to tell a distinctively LDS perspective on the story. This will be what (LDS Church) President (Gordon B.) Hinckley has talked about as the 'silver lining' element to the conflict. For instance, the war was the reason the church was introduced for the first time in a number of countries. In fact, Elder (Ezra Taft) Benson (then a member of the church's Quorum of the Twelve) said just after the war that we had an army of missionaries, they were just in a different uniform."
Indeed, by the end of the war, Freeman said, LDS proselyting efforts had hit what by today's standard seems an unthinkable low point — just under 500 full-time missionaries, who served in the United States and Hawaii only.
The reduction in formal proselyting certainly wasn't the only impact on the church or its members. During a recent stroll through BYU's Wilkinson Center with his sons, Freeman said they noticed there were no portraits of homecoming queens during the war years. And "there were so few boys even on campus then. These stories just touch all facets of living."
Realizing that women have their own stories to tell, Freeman said he frequently asks the wives of those he interviews what they were doing during the war. "I've found some were off working in a coal mine, others were nurses treating the wounded. Those are stories we'd like to hear more about, too."
Another element that makes the LDS story unique is the fact that there were church members on both sides of the conflict.
"We had a significant membership in Germany back then. It was third in the world in membership at that time behind the U.S. and Canada. Hundreds of LDS boys wore the uniform of the Nazis and died in that war."
Still others resisted Hitler's madness, and some paid with their lives for doing so.
"It's pretty insightful to look at a man like Elder Enzio Busche (now an emeritus member of the church's First Quorum of the Seventy) who at the age of 14 near the end of the war is given a gun and told by German leadership go out and fight. He could never fire the gun. He doesn't join the church until later, but to see his life unfold" after the conflict is a piece of history, Freeman said.
A recent discussion with Elder Robert Oaks, a retired four-star Air Force general, reminded Freeman of another element to the LDS war stories: the ability of many to reconcile their feelings about their former enemies. "He told of the respect the pilots had for each other, even when they were on opposite sides. When they'd see one perform an intricate maneuver, they'd sometimes salute" from the cockpit.
Carl Schnebbe, a young German during the Hitler years, stood up to the Third Reich, and his friend was beheaded in prison. Now a Salt Lake Temple worker, Schnebbe "paid a great price for standing up trying to tell the truth about the Nazis. After the war he was taken by the Russians and put into a labor camp for five years. But his whole thing is that he has forgiven all of that."
Several members of the LDS Church's First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve are World War II veterans, Freeman said, pointing to stories they've told in sermons about the war years and the challenges they and their friends faced. "I think it's illustrative of that generation. Everybody was somehow affected, and if you didn't have a medical release or serve in a specialized area, you were in the war."
As the clock ticks, the two researchers are hopeful they'll boost the numbers of vets they've been in contact with. They've established an Internet site at reled.byu.edu/ldsvets to provide information and are asking vets or their family members to contact them by calling 1-801-378-2484, by e-mail at Robert_Freeman@byu.edu or by writing to: Saints at War Project, 375 Joseph Smith Building, BYU, Provo, UT 84602.
"We just feel such an urgency because of the fact that we're losing these people so fast. There's one man we know who goes to the funeral of each vet he hears about. He's played 'Taps' and been part of the flag-folding ceremony for 77 vets just in Utah Valley this year. They're going quick."
E-mail: carrie@desnews.com