Stories by Media
Stories by Location
The War, Ken Burns’ seven-part documentary series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, was the most-watched PBS series of the past 10 years. It explored the history and horror of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the fortunes of so-called ordinary men and women who become caught up in one of the greatest cataclysms in human history.
WILL-TV’s Central Illinois World War II Stories was developed in conjunction with the Ken Burns’ series.
Visit The War web site on PBS.org
Share Your Story
PBS is gathering WWII stories from viewers across the United States. Upload your story to PBS for sharing with all other viewers. If you need assistance, contact Mary Barrineau or Jack Brighton at 217-333-1070.
This project supported in part by:
Clark Lindsey Village
Ecowater Systems
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers #601
Strawberry Fields
Steamatic
WETA
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
WILL Stories
In stories on WILL radio, television and the Web, WILL looks at the war from many perspectives: men in battle on land and at sea, Japanese-American families in internment camps, conscientious objectors, women in the service, African-Americans at Chanute Air Force Base, German POWs in Hoopeston.
Radio Stories
These stories, which ran on AM 580 during 2007, were winners of a regional Edward R. Murrow Award for excellence in electronic journalism from the Radio-Television News Directors Association. News director Tom Rogers and reporters Jim Meadows and Jeff Bossert won in the News Series category in competition with other small market stations in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. Their winning stories become eligible for national awards, which will be presented in October.
The series also was recognized by the Illinois Associated Press Broadcasters Association Journalism Excellence Contest. The news staff placed second in the Best Series/Documentary category for their World War II: Central Illinois Stories series. Rogers placed second in the Best Light Feature category for his story on the POW camp in Hoopeston during World War II.
Illinois' Tuskegee Airmen
Aired on Feb. 19, 2008, on WILL-AM
The story of the Tuskegee Airmen began as an experiment and ended by proving the ability of many African-American servicemen. The military’s first black pilots withstood animosity to fight America’s enemies overseas while continuing to fight racism on the home front. This story by WILL-AM’s Jeff Bossert looks at the paths taken by two of the first members of the Army Air Corps’ 99th Pursuit Squadron. Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul was the first training ground for these officers. AM 580’s Jeff Bossert spoke with the widows of two men, Bill Thompson and Ellsworth Dansby, who helped pave the way for many others:
Audio archives:
Play Now:RealAudio archive | downloadable MP3
Battle of the Bulge
Aired on Monday, Dec. 17, on WILL-AM
Sixty-three years ago, Germany was mounting its last major offensive in World War II. Months later, the Nazis would fall and the guns of war would finally go silent in Europe. In the following decades, we heard about bits and pieces of the conflagration, hundreds of thousands of individual stories from those on the front lines. Now, one by one, those voices are also falling silent. AM 580’s Tom Rogers lets area residents Harold Cox, Hoopeston; Harold “Sparky” Songer, Danville; Malcolm Davis, Urbana; Frank Mula, Monticello; and Jill Knappenberger, Champaign, tell their stories of the war’s bloodiest battle.
Audio archives:
Play Now:RealAudio archive | downloadable MP3
One American POW's Story
Curt Campbell (left, holding a copy of his memoirs) is a retired farmer—and an American serviceman who experienced prison life behind enemy lines. AM 580’s Tom Rogers talked with him.
Audio archives:
Play Now:RealAudio archive | downloadable MP3
Merlin Taber, Champaign, and Delbert Augsburger, Flanagan
Merlin Taber of Champaign and Delbert Augsburger of Flanagan, whose churches opposed fighting, chose different paths when confronted with decisions about going to war. Taber, from a Quaker background, obtained conscientious objector status after being drafted and served in the Civilian Public Service. Augsburger, of Flanagan, comes from a Mennonite background, but he and his brothers went into the military against the teachings of their church.
Audio archives:
Play Now:RealAudio archive | downloadable MP3
Hoopeston POW Camps
German POWs were brought to Hoopeston each summer to pick vegetables and work in factories canning tomatoes, asparagus and corn. WILL-AM’s Tom Rogers talks to people who remember working with the POWs. Although locals were told not to talk to the prisoners, people recall the Germans singing as they marching from their barracks to the factories each day.
Rogers also interviews Kurt Pechmann, left, who as a German POW was sent from Camp Ellis outside Peoria to Hoopeston’s POW camp for about two months to pick asparagus. Pechmann was later moved to a number of camps in Wisconsin, where he met the farmer who eventually sponsored his immigration to the U.S. in 1952.
Audio archives:
Play Now:RealAudio archive | downloadable MP3
Setting the Record Straight about the USS Indianapolis Disaster
The sinking of the USS Indianapolis has been called the worst single at-sea loss of life in the history of the U.S. Navy. It was attacked by a Japanese submarine in July of 1945, resulting the deaths of nearly 900 men who either perished in the sinking or died in the shark-infested waters in the days that followed. Yet only in recent years have there been efforts to accurately describe the tragedy and the ordeal its 317 survivors went through. The 81 remaining survivors want to set the record straight. WILL-AM’s Jeff Bossert visits places and people who are part of the effort, including a new exhibit at the Indiana War Memorial, and a naval aviator who, as a boy, researched the sinking of the ship.
Audio archives:
Play Now:RealAudio archive | downloadable MP3
Story extras:
Jeff Bossert interviews Hunter Scott, whose research on the USS Indianapolis has cleared misconceptions about the tragedy: RealAudio archive| MP3 archive