‘THE WAR’ Local WWII vets had their moment in the spotlight Thursday when PBS 45 & 49 aired the local documentary, ‘Northeast Ohio: The War,’ at The Butler Institute of

BY ANGIE SCHMITT

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

HE MEN AND WOMAN WHO
star in PBS 45 & 49’s minidocumentary “Northeast Ohio: The War” aren’t unlike the characters featured in Ken Burns’ soon-to-be-released World War II documentary “The War.”

From Austintown, Niles, Canton and Alliance, they were teenagers or young adults when the bombs fell over Pearl Harbor and their lives were forever changed.

Thanks to a regional effort to collect the stories of WWII veterans and their stateside supporters, Northeast Ohioians’ stories will be aired at 10:30 p.m. Oct. 2 alongside the anticipated seven-part epic documentary from Burns.

Sue Havanec, 54, of Austintown, first heard in early spring about the effort to collect the oral histories of local WWII veterans. She knew her father, John Bilas, 84, of Struthers, had to be involved.

“He always told all of us about these stories,” said Havanec. “I said, ‘You need to do this.’”

Bilas and other local WWII vets had their moment in the spotlight Thursday when PBS 45 & 49 aired the 36-minute local documentary for a small crowd at the Butler Institute of American Art. The showing followed a sneak preview of Burns’ film, which will begin airing on the network at 8 p.m. Sept. 23.

Local vets remember

Like the characters in Burns’ film, local veterans recall being ripped from ice cream parlors, school and jobs and sent to fight in what Burns calls “the greatest cataclysm in history.”

“We were just kids,” said Niles resident George Corado, in the video. “We didn’t know what to expect.”

Austintown resident Anthony Jacola recalls in the video the battle horrors he experienced as a young man.

“The first thing that really hurts is when you lose a close friend,” said Jacola. “Then you lose a few, you get numb or something.

“Anyone who tells you, they’re not scared, they’re lying.”

Daryl Duffett, 85, of Canfield, who goes by Jim, recalled enlisting in the Seabees, a construction battalion of the Navy. He then was busy building pontoon causeways in Africa and the Pacific.

Beginning in early spring, PBS 45 & 49 received 40 submissions, both long and short, said project coordinator Heidi Johnson.

“We got so many, and they were so long,” said Johnson. “Some were an hour and a half, two hours. Some were as short as 10 minutes.

X“Northeast Ohio: The War” will re-air on PBS 45 & 49 at 1:30 a.m. Oct. 3. It will also be permanently available from PBS 45 & 49’s Web site, pbs4549.org.