Remembering the sacrifices of war

PRIME November 2012

Holyoke project preserves World War II news, registers Purple Heart veterans

By Debbie Gardner debbieg@thereminder.com It started out as personal research into some family history. It's become an avocation to help preserve a piece of his home city's service in war, and ensure deserving veterans get their due. Holyoke resident Jim Bronson didn't set out to become volunteer archivist for the Holyoke Public Library, nor a Purple Heart medal researcher; he just wanted to fill in the blanks about his dad. But a little knowledge can become a tantalizing thing and for Bronson, his quest for knowledge has made him part of a larger mission to preserve pieces of history before it's too late. Bronson said he didn't know very much about his dad, Frederick C. Bronson's, service in World War I. His father had passed away in 1958 at the age of 40 when Jim was a young lad. His mother didn't talk much about his dad's service while he was growing up, so it came as a surprise to Bronson when he found, by reading army discharge papers he inherited when an older sister died, that his father had been gassed in France on Oct. 12, 1918. "Folks back then didn't talk much about what had happened," Bronson said of society's reaction to the outcome of what has been called the "Great War." Curious about his dad's right to receive any kind of recognition for his injury, Bronson looked up the address of the military's National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Mo., and sent a letter of inquiry, including a copy of his dad's discharge papers. He got back a letter of apology that the Center couldn't give him a complete record of his dad's service – a fire on July 12, 1973, destroyed much of the paper records for Army military personnel who had served between 1912 and 1958 – but they could verify the awards his father was due. He learned his dad was entitled to a Purple Heart, a World War I Victory Medal with battle clasps for service in the Meuse-Argonne and St. Mihiel sectors in France, and a silver World War I Victory Button to acknowledge his being wounded in battle. The U.S. Army Tank Automotive and Armaments Command shipped him his father's medals posthumously. Bronson said he believed "neither mother or dad knew he was entitled to one," referring to the Purple Heart. Interest in the medal – and Holyoke's involvement in World War I – led Bronson to the Holyoke Public Library, where then-archivist James Massery, introduced Bronson to several men, including John Murphy of East Longmeadow and Patrick Woods of Holyoke, involved in a volunteer-staffed project to preserve the city's growing collection of historical documents and artifacts. Among those artifacts were boxes of yellowing newspaper clippings about area residents' war service. Bronson started leafing through some of the clippings, and was immediately hooked on the project. A part-time outside sales associate at Northeast Aerial Advertising, he began donating a few of his free hours each week to the preservation project, and soon became fascinated with the stories of Holyoke's men and women who served not in World War I like his dad, but in World War II. Massery also gave Bronson information about the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor in New Windsor, N.Y., a state-operated museum located near the site of George Washington's last Revolutionary War encampment. Since its founding in 2006, the Hall has been actively recording the histories of the nation's Purple Heart medal recipients from the Civil War through the conflict in Afghanistan. Washington is credited with awarding the first version of the Purple Heart to his men in the Revolutionary War – an embroidered patch bearing the word "merit" in recognition not of their having been wounded, but having served in the conflict. The award was revived in 1932 as recognition of wounding or loss of life in battle and was awarded that year to living veterans, including 14 from the Civil War, according to Pete Bedrossian, program director for the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor. The medal has been awarded to wounded and deceased service personnel ever since. Bronson said once he learned about the Hall of Honor, he contacted the museum and collected the necessary documentation to have his father enrolled as a Purple Heart recipient from World War I. The experience led back to his work with fellow volunteer Jim Ubertalli – who is working from the letter "Z" backward through the Holyoke Library's six paper ream sized boxes of neatly alphabetized World War II clippings (Bronson started with "A" two years ago and is now up to "F") – and the number of references they have both come across to Holyoke residents who were wounded or killed from Dec. 7, 1941 through Sept. 5, 1945. Bronson said he began adding a step to the preservation process, which involves removing the yellowed clippings – anywhere from one to six in each 3-by-5-inch brown envelope – photocopying the material and arranging it alphabetically in plastic sleeves in three ring binders. He started looking up the names of some of the wounded or deceased service men and women, to see if they were listed in the Hall of Honor's online database. "I just feel that you should not get shot up and be forgotten," Bronson told PRIME during a visit to the Holyoke Library's temporary Local History Room, located in the Donoghue Building at Holyoke Community College while the public library undergoes renovations. He soon learned from the Hall of Honor that a newspaper clipping noting a family received a telegram about a death or wounding was not enough to get a service man or woman listed. There had to be an actual date and mention of a conflict where the awarding of a medal took place. Bronson cited the example of 1st Lt. Frances P. Farley. In newspaper clippings Bronson has preserved, there was an account of Farley having been wounded in North Africa on Sept. 11, 1943. That alone, Bronson noted, would not have been enough to get Farley's name enrolled in the Hall of Honor. However, a later clipping from a 1948 newspaper indicated Farley had returned home a Purple Heart veteran. That last newspaper account "will get him in," according to Bronson. "If it says [in the clipping] the actual words 'awarded the Purple Heart,' the Hall of Honor will accept these contemporaneous clippings," Bronson said. In general, the Hall prefers to have information about the Purple Heart from the applicant's formal discharge papers, he added. Bronson, who also volunteers as a hospice aid at the Holyoke Soldiers' Home, started trying to track down any remaining local family ties for some of the World War II veterans he's uncovered who are not yet enrolled but deserve to be part of the Hall of Honor. He's had success locating the necessary documentation for one veteran from the Soldiers' Home, and 30 from the newspaper archives. He's also got 100 more names for which he has incomplete documentation. Bronson said Vietnam veteran James Parnell would be assisting him in filling out the Hall of Honor applications for those service men and women for whom he has enough documentation. He noted Holyoke's Library Director Maria G. Pagan "has a list of 6,000 names" of Holyoke individuals whom she knows served during World War II. Woven among the stories of enlistments and battles, engagements and incidents in the clippings are information about Purple Hearts, and so much more, Bronson said. Flipping the pages of an already-completed preservation book for PRIME, he noted the letters home – many that contained graphic and gristly details of conflicts – that were printed by the days' newspapers, something that would likely not happen today. "These are great little stories," Bronson said of the letters and the clippings. "I guess you call them the human investment [in war]." In the end, it's the history that drives him to keep pouring through and preserving the clippings – and searching for Purple Heart recipients, Bronson said, adding that the work is homage to his dad and three brothers who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. "It's our duty to remember who we were," he said. "These are real things that these people did, it's not all hero movies." Western Massachusetts residents who might have documenting information about a Holyoke resident who received a Purple Heart, but is not yet listed in the Hall of Honor, can contact Bronson by email at vetregistry@gmail.com. "It's spelled that way intentionally," he said. "If I spelled it right, I couldn't get the address." Preserving the history of World War II is a daunting undertaking, but one that Bronson said he feels is important to do for future generations. "I'd like to finish this," he said.