TheBurg

20 | theburg | 07.17 C harlie Lloyd is in a race against time. As vice president of the Central Pennsylvania World War II Roundtable, Lloyd has the increasingly difficult task of finding veterans to share their war experiences at the group's monthly meetings. Most of these men are now in their early 90s. Nationally, only 620,000 of the war's veterans remain alive, and they are dying at a rate of one every four minutes. "I feel a sense of urgency getting these guys," said Lloyd. "e clock is ticking to get these stories out. In the future, we'll have to rely on authors and historians. But they won't have the same impact." e roundtable's events are free and open to the public. ey're held at Grace United Methodist Church in Hummelstown, often attracting as many as 400 people. A typical format includes opening statements, followed by featured speakers and audience questions. Many of the talks elicit powerful emotions. In a recent meeting, U.S. army soldier Don Greenbaum Soldier Stories Veterans share their memories at the Central Pennsylvania World War II Roundtable. bY rObert NAeYe described how his unit liberated the Nazi death camp at Dachau. Ernie Gross, a Romanian Jew who was liberated at Dachau, also spoke. Both now live near Philadelphia. In another meeting, 92-year-old Milton Dienes of King of Prussia shared photographs he took in Nagasaki just 90 days after an atomic bomb destroyed much of the Japanese city. Dienes was a U.S. Army Air Corps photo reconnaissance officer based in Guam whose unit was sent into the city to document the devastation. He and the group took photos for two days amidst the rubble. e military later destroyed the photos and negatives, so only the pictures that Dienes kept for himself survive. Some show industrial buildings reduced to twisted metal, but with smokestacks still standing. Others show a train station in operation. "I didn't take many pictures of people since many of them were burned from radiation," Dienes said. One notable meeting, from 2015, featured Harold Billow of Mount Joy, who might be the sole living survivor of the infamous Malmedy Massacre, in which German SS Panzer troops slaughtered 87 American prisoners in a Belgian field in December 1944. Billow survived by lying face down in the snow-covered field, playing dead even when a German kicked him in the back. "Anyone who showed signs of life, they shot point blank in the head to finish him off," Billow recalled. Meetings run the gamut of experiences in World War II. During the January meeting, Chuck Klein of Harrisburg described his service on the USS Wasatch, which helped launch amphibious invasions of Japanese-held islands while serving as Gen. Douglas MacArthur's command ship. Klein described seeing MacArthur land on a beach in New Guinea, but then, realizing no cameras were present, went back to the boat, only to return once several photographers were on shore. April's speaker, Kenneth Fidler, spoke about surviving after a Japanese kamikaze plane hit his ship off of the island of Okinawa. Bombing raid, Kobe, Japan.

• Cover