Morton, an art teacher, was one of 60 local artists and craftspeople who made up the Red Cross Arts and Skills Corps. Its purpose was to help recuperating servicemen do creative and constructive work as they recovered.

Volunteers visited local hospitals three nights a week, teaching patients how to sculpt, make belts, carve boxes, do leatherwork, and stencil designs on a variety of objects.

And while the work had some value as occupational and physical therapy, its real strength was in fighting boredom, patients said.

Angelo Casale, from the Graniteville neighborhood of Johnston, had a busy war, flying as a flight engineer on sub-hunting missions from the Panama Canal to Greenland, or as far from his home base in Pensacola as to Norway.

But the closest he came to dying was when his Privateer long-range bomber collided with another American bomber in a heavy fog over the Gulf of Mexico.

When he regained consciousness, he was floating, held up by his life preserver.

Thank God for my Mae West [vest] . . . . My left shoulder was in terrible pain and I was bleeding from the top of my head. I could see only pieces of our bomber floating nearby.

It was getting dark. He heard screams and worried about sharks. The fog was so heavy he knew the rescue boats would not be out for some time. Then he spotted his navigator, about 50 feet away.

He was in real bad shape. He tried to talk to me, but finally passed out and started to roll over. I grabbed onto him and held his head above water. I really was not sure if he was alive or not, but I hung onto him anyway.

Casale hung on, all night long. They survived. Casale learned later all the others, from both planes, had died.

In 1949 he got a letter from the navigator, now living in Minnesota, who told Casale he had become a priest and he prayed for me every day.

Gerard Doire, of Cumberland, saw action on a number of grim fronts with the 2nd Armored Division, from landing on Omaha Beach to helping liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Along the way, he learned a lot about how to survive as a soldier, from sleeping in the snow at the Battle of the Bulge (you put one blanket on top and five underneath you, since heat rises) to staying healthy on an endless diet of Spam, beans, crackers, and canned rations.

Booze was often as easy to come by as water; a soldier's most important possession was a toss-up between his gas mask and his steel helmet, which was used for eating, brushing teeth, washing and shaving, as well as protecting the cranium.

And when soldiers weren't trying to kill someone or stay alive, there was always gambling, usually poker and blackjack.

Milton Levin, of Providence, enlisted in 1944 at the age of 17, just after graduating from Hope High School. He served as a tail gunner with the 15th Air Force in Italy, surviving 31 bombing missions over Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, and northern Italy.

The experience defined my appreciation of life itself, deepened my love and patriotism for my country, gained the gift of overcoming great fear and possessing the will to survive. The faith that strengthened would give me the ability to cope with the many mountains to climb in a lifetime.

Plenty of soldiers brought back war trophies, but few were as lucky as Ennio Zuccolo, of Providence.

His prize was a 60-pound bronze bust of Hermann Goering he and other Army soldiers unearthed in a building in Manheim, Germany.

There were two busts, one of Adolf Hitler, and one of Goering, he says. My friend snagged the Hitler. I was jealous, because I wanted the top guy, but he was real patriotic, and he sent the Hitler to the Smithsonian Institution.

Zuccolo mailed the bust home to Rhode Island. In 1946, it was the highlight of an exhibit of more than 500 war trophies mounted by the Rhode Island Historical Society.

At first, it was funny. Then it turned out not to be quite so hilarious.

Howard Frank O'Keefe of North Kingstown was a Marine staff sergeant on Okinawa during the war when a Japanese plane landed at Yonton airport on what turned out to be a suicide mission.

No sooner did it land than a whole gang of pint-sized Japs poured out of it. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. They gathered in a huddle like a football team, then they scattered over the strip.

This one guy wobbled toward me and I could see something was bothering him, but I wasn't waiting to find out. I fired about five rounds from my carbine at him, and he fell in his tracks. Then, to make sure he was finished, I ran up to where he lay.

The Japanese soldier had 50 hand grenades fastened around his body.

I don't know how I missed hitting one of those grenades. The guy had them fastened all over his uniform. I knew then why he couldn't make any time getting across the strip.

Ann Marie Denelle, of Wakefield, doesn't know too much about what her father, Thomas E. Muddiman Jr., did during the war. He never would talk about it.

About all she knows is that he received the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service as a bombardier aboard a B-26, and she only knows that because she has a copy of his commendation letter.

On Feb. 22, 1945, Lt. Muddiman led his flight on a bombing mission in Marburg, Germany, and after achieving excellent results on the bombing run, he then led a brilliant strafing attack at tree-top level and wrought extensive destruction upon enemy equipment and materiel, the letter states.

Lt. Muddiman's aggressive leadership and determination on this and other hazardous missions are indicative of his devotion to duty and reflect the highest credit upon himself and his organization.

His daughter writes that she has asked him to write about his experiences, so that she can tell her children about them; but he can't seem to do it.

That's okay, I still want to acknowledge his service to our country, she writes. He was such a young man and faced such an enormous amount of responsibility. I am sure he did it with great dignity and pride.

The war filled Andrew White Rougvie Jr., of Providence, with a sense of adventure, as evidenced by his plans for after the war. When he came home, he told his family, they could do one of three things:

--Move to New Jersey, where he had worked before enlisting in the Army Air Corps.

--Move to Oklahoma, where he would go into business with one of the men he was serving with in China.

--Move to Alaska, and homestead.

I'll never know which would have been our future, writes his daughter, Nancy A. Rougvie, of Providence; her father was killed in Kunming, China, on July 17, 1945, two days after he turned 34.

Lester H. Salter, of Providence, had graduated from the Wharton School of Business and finished his first year at the Georgetown University Law School in 1941 when he was drafted by the Army.

Okay, he figured, I'll enlist in the Navy, where there are always hot meals and warm beds.

No way, said the Navy. You have allergies, and we don't want you.

On Sept. 19, I reported to the Providence Draft Board on Fountain Street, secure in the knowledge that if the Navy didn't want me, surely I was unfit for the Army, he writes.

Surprise!

That night I slept at Fort Devens along with Fred Friendly, then known as Ferdy Wachtenheim, and the other Providence recruits. The next day my name was on a bulletin board with instructions to report to Post Headquarters.

The other recruits were sure he was headed for a cushy job befitting a Wharton grad, but at Post headquarters I was handed a stick with a nail in the end and ordered to police the grounds for cigarette butts.

A few days later, fortune toyed with him one more time. He was called from the drill ground to get a telegram from the War Department, offering him a civil service job as an accountant in Washington.

You bet! he replied by return telegram.

He never heard another word about it, and a few days later was shipped to Fort Bragg in North Carolina. When the European war ended in 1945, he was with the 80th Infantry Division in Austria.

State Sen. John A. Patterson, R-North Kingstown, was 5 years old when his uncle, Lt. John Nininger, was killed in the Philippines in 1942 at the age of 23.

Nininger died because he just didn't know when to quit.

According to the official citation, Nininger was assigned to A Company of the 57th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Philippine Scouts. During a battle in northern Bataan in January 1942, the Americans were outnumbered.

In hand-to-hand fighting which followed, Lt. Nininger repeatedly forced his way into the hostile position. Though exposed to heavy enemy fire, he continued to attack with rifle and hand grenades and succeeded in destroying several enemy groups in foxholes and enemy snipers.

Although wounded three times, he continued his attacks until he was killed after pushing alone far within the enemy position.

Nininger was the first American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in World War II.

Nineteen-year-old Albert Cournoyer, of Woonsocket, was below decks on the U.S.S. Augusta on D-Day, anchored a half-mile offshore along with 600 other men. Also on board was Gen. Omer Bradley.

Not that Cournoyer saw Bradley, or many other people, for that matter; for the first few days, he stayed below, loading the guns that pounded German defenses as the Americans struggled ashore.

We were sealed in the ship. We couldn't see outside and we couldn't get outside, he says. But we knew what was going on, even though we couldn't see. We could hear everything falling and they (the Germans) were shooting shells at us, too. For a good two days this went on.

When he finally did get out on deck, he saw hundreds of guys floating in the water. A lot of bodies, some without arms or legs. Some pieces of wood. A lot of smaller ships that had sunk. It was a slaughter.

Angelo Ruo, of North Providence, served in the Army Air Corps for three years:

Our job was to supply our Air Force whatever they needed, from food to bombs, he writes. After D-Day, we went from France to Belgium to Germany, and done the same job [sic].

There's one thing I will tell you. If it wasn't for the (military policemen) who stopped me from going to Bastogne on a supply mission, I wouldn't be here to write this letter.

One fairly chilling aspect of life in the armed services is the need to document records, so a soldier's survivors can claim benefits.

The U.S. Army is very blunt about it, issuing Personal Record Booklets to servicemen so they can list where records are filed, where they served, and who their beneficiaries should be.

The packet given to Mario J. Vallese, of Providence, contains helpful information on which veterans' cemeteries still have space, and allows him to specify whether he wants to be buried in uniform (yes) and whether he wishes a military honor guard (also yes).

Vallese retired as a major in 1964 after 23 years of honorable service, including three years at the main recruiting station in Providence during which he was often named "top recruiter."

During the war, he served in North Africa, Naples, Foggia, Sicily, Rome, Arno, the Appenines, the Po Valley, and the Brenner Pass.

It was a family reunion unlike any other when three of the Garnett children of Edgewood, in Cranston, got together during the war.

For one thing, they were somewhere near Reims, France. It was 1945 and they hadn't seen each other in four years.

The three who hooked up were Capt. Stanley A. Garnett, chief of the clothing section of the 64th Quartermaster Base Depot's salvage department; Lt. Virginia Garnett, a nurse assigned to the 139th Army Air Force; and Private Norval E. Garnett of the 586th Quartermaster Base.

Another brother, Lt. Richard H. Garnett, was engineer officer on a destroyer, the U.S.S. Laub, in the Mediterranean Sea, but could not be reached to join us, writes Norval Garnett, of East Greenwich.

Frank Iadevaia, of Warwick, was a gunner trained in anti-submarine warfare flying out of Tampa, Fla. when he saved at least one life.

One day on a bombing training run, he glanced into the bomb bay to see a second lieutenant kneeling on the bomb bay door.

I shouted to him to grab onto the catwalk. He asked me if I was crazy. I said, nope, just read that plaque. It stated, these BB doors will open automatically with 100 pounds of weight.

Well, you know the color white? That was the color of his face.

Iadevaia had many adventures on his way overseas, but they were just the warm-up for what was to come. He ended up with the 407th Bomb Squadron of the 92nd Bomb Group, flying bombing missions over France and Germany.

Before one mission, the radio in the bunk room was playing, and suddenly:

Guess who cut in? Axis Sally, the Blonde Bitch.

`Good morning,' she'd say, `to you of the 40th Bomb Squadron. We know you're getting ready to come over and we'll be waiting for you.' Then she'd name someone, `Hello, John Smith, come on over, I know all about you.'

Then she'd go on and tell him his mother's name, his father, etc. Sometimes she'd even mention his girlfriend and what school he attended.

He was shot down on his 12th mission over Merceberg, Germany. Five of his nine-man crew had been killed; the rest were imprisoned. Iadevaia ended up in Stalag Luft 4, near the French border; as the Allies came closer in early 1945, he was shifted to Stalag Luft 1, near the Baltic sea.

The war was winding down. British planes dropped flyers saying anyone who mistreated a prisoner would be prosecuted as a war criminal , and their treatment improved.

The Russians were coming closer. So were the Americans. Word circulated that Adolf Hitler was dead; the German prison guards made plans to surrender to the Americans, rather than the Russians whose revenge they dreaded.

Then one morning, when we woke up, everything was quiet. No guards in the towers, no goons walking around. . . . I never felt so much elation. Most every one was tearing down the barbed wire fences with wire cutters or chopping them down with axes.

Days later, the Russians rolled in. It was several months before Iadevaia pulled into New York harbor aboard the U.S.S. Hermitage and saw the first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty I ever had -- lump in my throat and, I'm not afraid to say it, a tear in my eye.