Veterans' stories featured at Tarentum Pearl Harbor program
Excerpts from the Pearl Harbor edition of “Duty, Courage, Honor: Southwestern Pennsylvania Goes to War” will be shown at the Allegheny-Kiski Valley Historical Museum in Tarentum on Saturday.
Saturday — Dec. 7 — is the 78th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 that propelled the United States into World War II.
Videographer John Bailey’s documentary features firsthand accounts of wartime service from Valley veterans of various conflicts. It premiered at the museum in 2013.
Bailey, an Arnold native and retired radio broadcaster, now lives in New Kensington and is expected to attend.
Saturday’s program includes Chuck Booth recalling his brush with death as a B-24 pilot in 1944, and a segment on an East Deer man’s service as a B-17 bombardier before and after being shot down over Germany and held captive.
Another man, Fred Uphoff from Pittsburgh’s Brookline neighborhood, talks about being held in a German prisoner-of-war camp with his older brother’s high school classmate. The brothers learned after the war that they both had been held prisoner at the same time.
The late Steve Jager of New Kensington tells of seeing the faces of Japanese pilots during the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The hourlong program will start at 2 p.m. Museum admission will be free, but donations will be accepted.
The first 15 military veterans with identification will receive a free set of three DVDs of interviews with veterans who served in World War II, Vietnam and Korea. The museum is wheelchair accessible.
Brian C. Rittmeyer, a Pittsburgh native and graduate of Penn State University's Schreyer Honors College, has been with the Trib since December 2000. He can be reached at brittmeyer@triblive.com.
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