By Kenneth K. Hatfield
Heartland Heroes is a set of exceptional tales from usual women and men who lived via amazing instances. They resided in locations like Lee’s Summit, Independence, and Kansas urban, but their studies have been greatly like these of worldwide battle II veterans all over. a few have been marines, nurses, or fighter pilots, others have been easily civilians who lived during the struggle below the martial legislation imposed at the Hawaiian Islands after the assault on Pearl Harbor.
In Heartland Heroes, Ken Hatfield gathers the tales of greater than 80 women and men, whom he started interviewing in 1984 whereas reporting for a small weekly newspaper in Liberty, Missouri. Hatfield’s first topic used to be a marine named Bob Barackman, the uncle of 1 of Hatfield’s coworkers. That interview, which lasted for numerous hours, had a profound influence on Hatfield. He started to discover that as a journalist he had a special chance to maintain that small piece of historical past every one veteran includes with him.
Hatfield spent the subsequent seventeen years interviewing approximately 100 global struggle II veterans and different contributors, however it used to be now not until eventually August 2001 that he determined to bring together the tales right into a ebook. The interviewees, such a lot of whom lived within the Kansas urban region on the time of the interviews, integrated Jim Daniels, a Grumman Wildcat pilot, who whereas attempting to land at Pearl Harbor at the night after the japanese assault, survived a snow fall of pleasant hearth, which claimed the lives of 3 of his neighbors and fellow pilots; Charles McGee, a pilot with 143 wrestle missions to his credits, who fought the Germans within the air and racism at the floor as one of many Tuskegee Airmen; and Dee Nicholson, who was once simply six years outdated whilst the japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and her domestic on Hawaii. She and her father remember what lifestyles used to be like for them and others, together with jap americans, after that fateful day.
Following the struggle, those brave women and men again to the lives they'd left and attempted to regulate as top they can. Hatfield collects their own memories—the thoughts of the heroes who helped to guard their country within the final international clash this state has noticeable. They loaned Hatfield their medals, commendations, and regimental and divisional histories to aid him record and piece jointly their tales. almost them all downplayed their honors, insisting they'd performed not anything special. Through their tales, Heartland Heroes effectively captures this fading time period for destiny generations.
