Ohio War Stories: Share Your Memories

Perhaps the only thing worse than becoming a “Gold Star” family is the prolonged uncertainty that comes with hanging a missing soldier flag in the window. For the families of 78,000 soldiers, the end of the war in 1945 brought agonized waiting instead of joyous reunion with loved ones who never made it home. The Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office still works to recover and identify remains from as long ago as World War II. For one Ohio family, the long wait for their brother to return is finally over.

From WTOV-9, Steubenville, OH - Wheeling, WV

A 66-year-old mystery has finally been solved for three sisters from Belmont County, Ohio. According to the Spokane Spokesman-Register, the body of their brother, who vanished during World War II, has been positively identified. Airman Ernest “Glenn” Munn of Bridgeport disappeared when his plane went down in the Sierra Nevadas during a snow storm in 1942. Hikers found the remains of the plane and several sets of human remains in 2005, but those remains were proven to be from another airman. A second body was found near the crash site in August of 2007, but the soldier’s body was not definitively identified until Friday. That’s when Munn’s sisters were notified. Munn’s sisters plan a military funeral for their brother when his remains are released. That should happen in the next few weeks.

Viktor Schreckengost spent most of his life in northeastern Ohio, though he did venture as far as Moscow in the 1930s. A decade later would find him at the Battle of the Bulge with the U.S. Navy, repositioning radar equipment to help win the battle. He returned to Ohio after the war and made important, though largely quiet, contributions to American industrial design.

“Chances are that almost every adult in America has ridden in, drunk out of, eaten off of, mowed their lawns with, sat on, placed a call with, lit the night with, hid their hooch in or had an arm or leg replaced with something created by Viktor Schreckengost,” his stepson Chip Nowacek said in an interview in 2005. (Read more.)
He passed away January 26, 2008, at the age of 101. Like many World War II veterans, Schreckengost did not define his life by his military service. Though the war undoubtedly impacted him, when he returned home he simply went back to his work, designing objects from lawn chairs to truck cabs, for everyday consumers and Eleanor Roosevelt alike. Every veteran’s story is an exercise in these contrasts, and every one is worth telling.

During World War I, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, was called ’shell shock.’ During WWII, it was ‘combat fatigue.’ After the Vietnam War, it was often called the Post Vietnam Syndrome. Treatment and management of PTSD was described in literature by psychiatrist Dr. Eric Lindemann at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in 1940s.

The stigma remains. especially in WWII, with so much hanging in the balance, soldiers did not talk much about it. In a famous show of disdain, General Patton slapped two soldiers whom he accused of being cowards.

I feel compelled to bring all this up, a week after I finished watching Ken Burns’ “The War,” because there are stories still being told by children of soldiers. These children, now adults, are still haunted by their fathers’ post-war identity, which were forever scarred by sights, sounds, and sensations that they had difficulty expressing

It’s much easier to think about the war - all wars - as having neat, tidy endings. The bad guys win. Adversity builds character. Losses are equaled by a greater good. As one Marine pilot said in the documentary, WWII was a necessary war, but that doesn’t make it a good one. And V-J Day marked the beginning of the rest of the soldiers’ lives, some of whom who found life without war extremely challenging.

Contributor Peter Baird wrote:

My father grew up in Cleveland, graduated from Lakewood High School and Western Reserve University and went on to become a gifted surgeon who, as an army surgeon, was wounded during the Battle of Peleliu which was featured on the PBS Ken Burns series, “The War.” He returned from the war with a semi-claw for a left hand, a refusal to talk about the wound and a terrible case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, involving booze, rage, violence and depression. Not only did he damage himself and his immediate family, his demons got passed on to future generations.

I wrote about my father in The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Magazine and The Chicago Tribune Magazine and eventually wrote a novel, Beyond Peleliu (Ravenhawk Books), that was loosely based on his life, that focused on the generational impact of war and that concentrated on the importance of truth for understanding and forgiveness to occur. Keep reading…

Peter’s comment prompted this response:

My father was also in WW 2. He enlisted in the Navy and was sent to the Pacific Theater when he was just 17. When I read your post about your father, it reminded me of mine. My Dad was an alcoholic. He would go into very frightening rages. He was physically abusive to my mother, on many, many occasions. I have heard that for several years following the war… he had flashbacks.

Our father drove the landing craft, taking marines to shore, and bringing back wounded. He was assigned to a transport ship. My brother recently shared some info with me. He said he was a young kid he asked our Dad what he did during the war. His reply was that he “fed marines to the Japs”. How awful to think of it that way, to feel that. Yet I have no doubt that he felt that way.

I thought of Dad often while watching The War and shed many tears. Some for my family, but mostly for my Dad. He too had those demons he battled. Actually that is how I, for years, have referred to how my Dad was… that he had demons he battled and that he, and we, often lost. I wonder how different his life could have been? I find it very said just now to think of, all the others who ended up as my Dad did. Keep reading…

I’m not sure what sort of point I’m trying to put on any of this, besides remarking that these stories continue to blow me away. I’ll end this by posting a video of Bill Neal, a soldier who survived several campaigns, but then was poisoned by bad vodka on the day the war ended. The conflicting aspects of this story is heartbreaking, a blend of pride and misery.

William L. Montgomery submitted several terrific blog entries (most of which were lost in the server crash), along with a few nice photos of himself. His writing is simple, direct, and comes from the heart, the type of communication that helps me - a man of only 42 years - understand better how utterly tumultuous war is; not just combat, but the magnitude of service, and the struggle to re-integrate into non-war society, to stop being, as Ernie Pyle described it, …”cold-killing machines motivated by pure hate”

This is just a sample of Montgomery’s writing, which is the finest summation of service I’ve read:

Really, the story of my wartime service is no more heroic or compelling than anyone else’s story. There were those who suffered far more than I did; many giving their lives. Perhaps we were the “greatest generation”, but if so, it is only because we were faced with the greatest challenges. We all suffered whether you went overseas or stayed at home. So when someone asks me what I did during the war, I merely respond that I did my duty, nothing more, nothing less.

Originally posted August 23, 2007 by William Montgomery.