43
Group digs into history of soldiers
STRUTHERS
It’s been a five-month process for team members of the Struthers Fallen Soldiers Project to collect names, dates, places and events for all Struthers soldiers who died in combat over the past 100 years.
The group started research after Memorial Day with a list of 48 Struthers soldiers listed on a plaque in Struthers High School.
But as the group continued research, they accumulated links to about 80 stories of Struthers soldiers who either died in war or had heroic stories returning from battle. Police Capt. Pat Bundy, founder of the group, said he’s not sure he sees an end in sight to the project.
“There were some real heroes from Struthers who lived, survived and came home,” he said. “These histories keep evolving. Even some of these men who weren’t killed, we still feel some of them have stories that got to be told.”
Bundy, along with Denise Collingwood, Dick Dale and Gary Mudryk, all of Struthers, meet on a weekly basis to research records of soldiers who died. Dale said the team searches through newspaper archives, libraries, funeral homes, genealogies and first-person accounts to get details on soldiers. He said he doubts any of the stories the team finds are exaggerated since the team makes sure each account is accurate before they post it online or in print.
Each member of the team said a different story they found captivated them.
Bundy said he’s been tied up in researching a Struthers man who was allegedly the last soldier left standing in the Battle of Heartbreak Ridge in the Korean War.
“This guy survived, became a Struthers teacher when he returned home and he recently died the last couple months,” Bundy said. “But he never talked about it — he lived a normal life, though he was a hero. The only survivor in the battle.”
Collingwood found a story within the last week that ties to a close family friend.
“It’s this story about a Struthers man who died on a train full of liberated soldiers from World War II,” she said. “Someone bombed it. And I’ve found some papers on the case, but some of them were so old they fell apart in an attic.”
Dale said what’s amazed him most “so far” — he said his favorites are constantly changing — is a story of a Struthers man who drowned on a merchant ship in World War II. He said the same man who drowned was Ohio’s discus champion in 1942, only two years before his death.
“These guys are more than just names,” Dale said. “Names on a plaque are abstract. But it’s the back-stories about these people that matter. We’re trying to give these guys their lives back, telling their history to Struthers.”
Bundy said he plans to keep complete records of these soldiers at the Struthers Historical Society on Elm Street when the project is near completion.
Collingwood said some of the stories have been posted online at http://www.struthersfallensoldiers.com, on the group’s Facebook page and in features in the Hometown Journal.