Play is entertaining tribute to WWII veterans

In farm houses and city homes, families heard the news of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on that Sunday afternoon, Dec. 7, 1941.

From Edneyville to Hendersonville to Mills River, those families would soon be forever changed, just like the rest of America. World events would plunge a generation into its second and most deadly test.

“They suffered through the worst depression in world history, then they fought the greatest war in world history and then they came home and rebuilt the entire world, and there is no generation that can compare to that in world history,” Jennie Jones Giles, director of Henderson County’s Heritage Museum. She is also co-creator of the play she was introducing, “We Interrupt This Program,” a tribute to the men and women who served and especially the 118 who never came home.

The readers play opens with peaceful scenes of the mountains on the screen in the old Courtroom, and for the next two hours moves through the lives of two dozen World War II veterans.

Orr used material from the Times-News series on World War II veterans to piece together stories of the young men who left families in Hendersonville and went off to war.

“The stories captured these people,” Orr said. “If I can bring to life in a theatrical way those lives and moments of these wonderful veterans, reinforced by multimedia sound and visual image, it will help people appreciate what those individuals did and accomplished.

“The veterans wrote this play,” he added. “They gave us the words and events.”

Focusing both on the local men who came back and those who perished, the play captures the time. Days of profound sorrow mixed with days of celebration and hope. The play is moving without being maudlin, performed with emotion and at times humor by the all-volunteer cast of singers and actors.

All three main vocalists, Sandie Salvaggio-Walker, Cathy Ridings Hammett and Ron Whittemore, shine as they perform familiar songs from the 1940s. A highlight too is the USO Troupe, a dozen young dancers who perform three second act numbers, choreographed by Pat and Sher Shepherd.

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The scenes recall the local men and their war experience. Mark Rhodes of Bearwallow Mountain, a seaman 1st class, is lost in action on board a ship. Fred Waters recalls running into Oscar Meyer, who asked him if he wanted to learn to fly. Waters did. He flew Navy transports n the Pacific.

Clint Nichols is portrayed recalling the Battle of the Bulge under Gen. Patton – minus-22 degrees in waist deep snow, tank treads frozen to the ground. George Gash, played by Ronnie Pepper, left the Jim Crow South but not segregation. He joined the 1317th Regiment as a demolition expert, an all-black unit.

George Justice of Dana served aboard the USS Bush in 1945 when it was hit by kamikaze pilots, one, then another, then another. He was blown into the water, suffered frostbite, could not move his legs when first rescued. A friend, Thomas Dillard of Mills River, didn’t make it.

The most well-developed and poignant story line is that of H.B. Drake and his sister, Kay, who correspond throughout the war. The letters powerfully convey the affection and good nature and hope of these two young people – one back home, celebrating her election as Hendersonville High School president, the other flying bombing missions in Europe. Drake’s B-24 Liberator was shot down over Czechoslovakia on June 17, 1944.

No war has cost the lives of more U.S. military men and women. It’s well known.

Still, as Orr said in an interview last week, it’s imperative to remember, while the last sources of first-hand oral history are here to speak. The most moving scene on the screen has no words at all. The names of the 118 service men lost in the war roll at the end. It takes more than two minutes.