Hello Fellow HMGS Members,

My name is Dean Veneziano and I am a member of HMGS-GL. I am writing this message to ask anyone who might be interested in interviewing WWII veterans in your local area to contact me. Also, anyone who is and avid modeler and would be willing to build kits for WWII displays for museums and presentations please contact me.

I am Chief Historian with an association known as the Society for the Preservation of Military History. The SPMH is a small group of military historians who have joined forces to build up a research archive on several historic WWII U.S. Army and Army Air Force units. We share a mixture of interests: military history, war gaming, modeling and collecting historic war memorabilia and vehicles.

The goal of the SPMH is to identify living WWII veterans who have seen combat in particularly significant battles and record their personal histories. Our work has already been instrumental in the generation of several published articles and a heavily illustrated hardcover unit history. We also locate veterans who have only received superficial coverage through scanty accounts of their war experiences. Some of the latter accounts are in obscure publications that most military history buffs, modelers and war gamers have never heard of.

For now, the SPMH is focusing on infantrymen, paratroopers, tankers and fighter pilots. The vets we are currently interviewing are from the Third Infantry Division, the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the 551h USAAF Fighter Group and the 332nd USAAF Fighter Group. We are also interviewing a few German and Japanese pilots and infantrymen who fought against the American veterans we are researching.

Statistics out today show that WWII veterans are passing away at an alarming rate, upwards of 1000 a day. For some details, see www.honorguard.org. Before this untapped wealth of knowledge and human experience leaves this earth, we must capture as much of it as possible. Whether he be a Congressional Medal of Honor winner or not, each and every veteran has an important story to tell.

The SPMH president, Anthony Meldahl, and our vice-president, Mark Ballas, have tasked me with the collection and storage of all WWII history we collect. This is an impossible task to accomplish alone. Stephen Ambrose has a University and an entire team of college students backing him, and he hasn't even scratched the proverbial surface of what is actually out there.

If you decide to give an interview a try, I have an initial interview template already created. I will assist you in contacting the veteran you will interview. You really don't have to do much, except spend a couple extremely exciting hours re-living history! After you do your first interview you'll be hooked, it's that much fun.

The Society for the Preservation of Military History has contacts with many different major publications and museums. If you are an inspiring historian and would like to publish an article or two with the information you've gleaned from your interview, I can help set that up for you. If you are involved with a find of significant historical value, you will be part of the introduction of the piece(s) in any museum exhibit that follows.

You may not be the type of person who likes to do interviews but would still like to help. I'd like to remind you that there is tremendous demand for models to go along with museum exhibits or historical presentations. So you modelers can be a great asset too. If you have any ideas, contacts, resources or questions don't hesitate to contact me. If you are interested in our cause and wish to help, I am:

Dean Veneziano
2920 Maryland Ave.
Bexley, Ohio 43209
(614) 336- 7214
(614) 231- 3689
Venezaid@oh-arng.ngb.army.mil
Pitviper@netwalk.com