Scrapbooks purchased at auction chronicle path to Victory Day and role of RI during WWII

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – A story describes a letter that soldier Eugene C. Santos wrote his parents in Providence about his terrifying first experience with an air raid while serving in the Pacific during World War II.

A photograph shows Navy Seabee Anthony Amaral holding a copy of The Providence Journal-Bulletin with two other Rhode Island Seabees and an island native some 9,200 miles away from the Ocean State.

Many of the other stories were written by Journal writer Charles H. Spilman , who followed members of the Rhode Island National Guard while they fought in the Southwest Pacific as part of the Army's 43rd division.

Spilman, who would later become executive editor of The Providence Journal-Bulletin and win a Pulitzer Prize, compiled several scrapbooks of his and other reports of Rhode Islanders serving in the Pacific, including stories written by legendary war correspondents Ernie Pyle and Richard Tregaskis.

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Some of the stories were crafted from letters Rhode Island servicemen sent home. Others were accounts written by servicemen themselves. Some reported on awards and promotions of young men from places like Pawtucket and Providence. Photographs and caricatures also fill the pages.

The scrapbooks are on display at The International Museum of World War II in South Kingstown. Though yellowed and tattered, the scrapbooks help tell the important role Rhode Islanders played in World War II, says Tim Gray, the museum's founder and president of the World War II Foundation.

"It's really focused on people from Rhode Island," Gray said as he carefully turned the pages of a scrapbook. "Rhode Island is a small state, but it contributed to the war as much as many other states."

Rhode Island celebrates Victory Day

As Rhode Island marks Victory Day , celebrating the end of World War II, Gray is familiar with arguments to end the holiday in Rhode Island, the only state that recognizes it.

"It's something that can be revisited when Rhode Island's last WWII veteran passes on," Gray said via email. "Until then, I'm in favor of recognizing the day in which so many celebrated and recognized that one of the world's most horrific events was over, in major part thanks to the efforts of so many Americans, many of whom would lose their lives and never return to their home states, such as Rhode Island."

From September 1940 through October 1947, Rhode Island had 92,027 troops engaged in United States service, including 1,735 women, according to the Rhode Island secretary of state's office. Rhode Island war casualties totaled 2,340.

"We seem to still celebrate and recognize July Fourth every year (no controversy there) and the British, like the Japanese now, are one of our biggest allies in the world," Gray said.

The scrapbooks, which sit among thousands of other museum pieces including uniforms, weapons and maps, were part of a larger collection purchased by an acquaintance of Gray. Seeing the Rhode Island link, he contacted Gray and asked if the museum wanted them.

"When I started going through it and found out who Charles Spilman was, a reporter for The Providence Journal, and what his job was during the war, it became fascinating to me, because here was this reporter who was putting himself in harm's way in the Pacific covering all Rhode Islanders who were serving with this one division," Gray said.

"It's really interesting to go through and see Smithfield, Pawtucket, Wakefield and Providence. All these men, some of whom were killed in action," he said. "It really kind of brings home Rhode Island's role in the Pacific, in the war."

Journal writer chronicles big battle fought by Rhode Islanders

In a story headlined "Yankees take Munda," Spilman wrote about the hard-fought battle to take Munda Point in New Georgia in the Solomon Islands.

"Advances in the next two days were measured in yards per hour. The New England soldiers learned that the enemy had to be taken cautiously, by infiltration, by flushing them out of the morasses," Spilman wrote. "They learned that to move through an open trail was to court death, that it took the patience of Indian fighting to win. In two days they won another 1000 yards."

Later, he wrote, "Rhode Island artillery, which fought with distinction as part of the 26th division in the last World War had added lustre to its bright tradition. Rhode Island signal corpsmen, engineers, medical corpsmen and ordnance men showed that they, too, could fight in that tradition."

The Providence Journal-Bulletin makes it to the South Pacific

In a photograph inside the scrapbook, a Navy Seabee insisted he was spending some of his spare time trying to drum up business for Spilman's employer. Anthony Amaral of 25 Front St., East Providence, sent the snapshot of himself, three other Seabees, including two Rhode Islanders and an island native, to the newspaper.

He wrote, "We are trying to get these natives at our advanced allied base to read your swell newspaper. ... We're the Navy's Seabees 'the first to land and the last to leave.'"

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A soldier writes to his parents in Providence

A story in the scrapbook includes a photograph of Pfc. Eugene C. Santos and quotes a letter he sent to his parents.

Of his first air raid, he wrote, "I was never so scared in all my life." He later went to New Georgia, where he spent three days in a foxhole on the front lines and survived more air raids.

"And now, Mother, don't worry about me," he concluded. "I am safe now, so I hope the day will come soon so I can see you and father and brother again, and also my pals."

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Scrapbooks purchased at auction chronicle path to Victory Day and role of RI during WWII