Bedford County veterans attend private screening of WWII movie

By KATHY MELLOTT

BEDFORD — Gene Cowles has many memories of World War II, some painful, some scary, others heart wrenching.

It is as the latter that he classifies Naomi, a 60-year-old, 60-pound survivor of a German concentration camp wearing a potato sack who he and seven fellow soldiers cleaned up and fed.

The young American soldiers gave the woman a toothbrush and Colgate. It was the first she had seen in three years. She could not stop weeping.

“It was pathetic. That picture of her will remain in the album of my mind forever,” said Cowles, a Hornerstown native now living in Bedford.

Cowles, author of “The War Years of a Teenager,” was one of nearly two dozen veterans of World War II featured in the recently completed documentary “Bedford County Veterans – WWII.”

He and many of the veterans were among the 100 people who attended a private screening of the movie Monday at the Pitt Theatre.

The two-hour film, produced by Dennis Tice, director of the Bedford County Visitors Bureau, premiered on Pearl Harbor Day, the 68th anni-

versary of the Japanese attack that pulled the United States into World War II.

Using black-and-white clips from the National Archives in College Park, Md., and bits from a wartime training film produced by Frank Capra, Tice provides a fact-filled narrative and interviews with 21 Bedford County residents now between the ages of 84 and 90 who served in all branches of the military during the conflict.

Dale Arnold of Bedford and his twin brother, Don, were 17 when they joined the Air Cadets.

They wanted to serve their country and were promised college educations.

“They forgot about that,” said Dale, the tail gunner in a B-29 who flew missions in the Pacific Theater.

The movie told of the heroic efforts of pilot Kenneth “Ace” Jewell of Cumberland Valley, whose aircraft was hit with ammunition, nearly severing his leg. He and a crew member amputated his leg with a knife and he crawled back into the pilot’s seat and landed the plane.

Jewell, a longtime district judge in Bedford who earned the Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars and a host of other medals, died in 1998.

The movie was broken into geographic areas of the county. One segment was filmed at the Omni Bedford Springs Resort & Spa, which in 1945 was used as an enemy detention camp for 180 Japanese diplomats and their families.

The making of the movie started out as a way to educate and entertain visitors to the county through a one-hour iPod tour, but it turned into much more, Tice said Monday prior to the showing.

He became curious about veterans more than a year ago when he questioned the significance of the Ellis R. Weicht Bridge in Everett, his hometown.

Turns out Weicht was a World War II veteran and a Medal of Honor recipient. Also receiving the highly valued medal was Robert Hartsock, who was killed in the Vietnam War.

Both men, killed in action, were from Everett.

This was something that needed to be told, Tice said, explaining how he embarked on the project that would take more than 2,000 hours and countless interviews.

“It was by mistake, really,” Tice said. “As I started to interview some of the guys, it turned into so much more, and we decided in August to release it in movie form.”

Veterans such as Paul Crawford talked about what fighting in a war did to him.

“War changes people drastically,” Crawford said.

Walter Weyant of Everett said his interview with Tice about his role in the war was the first time he had talked it.

Nationwide, 16 million men and women served in some capacity in the war and 40,000 were killed. Of that number, 130 were from Bedford County.

“This film is about sacrifice. It is about men and women who helped earn the freedom you enjoy,” Tice says in the opening of the movie.

Tice knows the movie will appeal to many older people and hopes it is something that will draw younger county residents.

“It’s important for the young people to know where they came from,” he said. “I want young people to recognize what a hero looks like.”

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