A Japanese code breaker, an "ace" pilot, an indomitable prisoner of war, a death camp liberator, a fearless sailor, a B-17 bomber crew member and many, many more—all of them are residents of northeastern Colorado, all of them ordinary men who became extraordinary heroes.

World War II called American young men, boys really, to leave the safety of life in the United States for the gore and terror of the battlefield. In the Pacific, men worked around the clock under the threat of submarines, torpedoes and kamikaze fighters as they captured tiny island after island as strongholds for the U.S. Navy. In the European theater, artillerymen, bomber crews, pilots and infantrymen paid with their own blood for every mile inroad gained against the Nazis in France, North Africa, the Netherlands, Italy and, finally, Germany. In both hemispheres, Colorado soldiers and sailors fought and persevered.

They were injured, witnessed the deaths of their comrades and suffered hunger, cold and fear in the name of their country, and now they live in the Sterling area as average citizens. Their amazing stories of courage, honor and sheer luck are recorded in this extraordinarily valuable collection. A fitting and timeless memorial to their sacrifices, it is an assurance that their bravery will be remembered for many more generations to come.

Uncover this treasure of a book in local bookstores or online at comservbooks.com.

By Jean Gray

With an estimated 1,100 World War II veterans dying daily in the United States, telling their stories becomes critical to the preservation of that era, says Dr. John Elliff of Sterling. “It’s like the little kid in class. The teacher says, ‘We are going to talk about Pearl Harbor.’ And the little kid says, ‘Who’s Pearl Harbor?’ That’s why it’s important. These things slip by us.” People living in Northeast Colorado and a few in the Denver Metro area may recognize the name, Dr. John Elliff, either through his 50-plus years practicing Ophthalmology in Sterling or through his performances as a soloist jazz pianist or as a member of the Hoagies, a Denver-area jazz and swing-era music group. He splits his time between Denver and Sterling these days.

Others may recognize one or more names from the list of 36 veterans, all but one from Northeast Colorado, that Dr. Elliff enticed to tell their stories. Those stories, first video taped and later transcribed, wound their way through the capable editing of veteran journalist Denny Dressman and into a book titled Sterling Heroes of World War II, appropriately scheduled to launch on July 4, the date America celebrates the many freedoms these and other veterans risked their lives to preserve.

Dr. Elliff recorded the interviews over a 10-year period beginning in 2000, all but one of the men coming to him as patients. “They chose me,” he says, readily admitting that the 36 men, 17 of which have since passed away, represent a mere fraction of the number from Northeast Colorado who fought in WWII. “We sent thousands of guys from this part of the country,” he says, adding that he feels the group represents a profile of all who served. “These guys went everywhere. They did everything. They flew. They were in the Pacific. They were in Asia. They were in Europe. We got guys who were in the Navy. We got guys who were prisoners of war.

“Every one of these guys was absolutely sincere in their work. A lot had various adventures, but these guys were true patriots. They were upset about the Japanese attacking us (at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941), so a lot of these guys volunteered when they were 17 and had to have their mothers sign for them to go into the service. A unique bunch of guys.” He says the first person narratives make the book unique. “That’s the difference in this book and most war stories. Most war stories are third person. Somebody is talking about it. This book, these guys are telling their own story.” Ten years into taping the interviews, he decided he wanted to put them in book form so he asked employee Lila Moore to transcribe them. Assistant Evelyn Harper says the project took a total of 13 years, first recording on VHF (very high frequency) tapes, and then later transferring to DVDs and then transcription. Once Moore transcribed the tapes, Dr. Elliff took the manuscript to Scott Johnson, a friend and fellow musician who runs Sputnik Design Works in Denver. Johnson suggested they ask Dressman to edit the transcript to a manageable size. “When I interviewed these guys, I tried to get their story from the service. What happened to them? How did it affect them? How did it affect their family? A lot of that’s not in the book. Denny just chopped it out.” He is considering a follow-up film or donating the tapes to a repository that holds similar archives.

Dressman, a 43-year veteran of the newspaper business and author of four books, read portions of the transcript before signing on. “I read a couple of the interviews from the transcript at random and realized how extraordinary they were,” he says. “I saw tremendous potential. My goal was to present them in the most effective way that would allow their unique first-person accounts to shine.

“From that goal, I came up with the idea of the third-person intros, and then realized that, in order to not disrupt the flow of the first-person accounts, something like the Historical References was needed to explain or elaborate on certain things they talked about.”

In his editor’s note at the end of the book, Dressman writes that it is one of the most unusual books in the vast array of Word War II literature published. “You should judge for yourself, but I am proud of the way it turned out. I think it provides a picture of America during the war years, and the experience of military service then, that is unique. It’s a real microcosm of the time in America, and all the more amazing because Dr. Elliff didn’t screen the 36 guys or try to select guys to represent the broad spectrum that he wound up with. These are 36 guys from the same area, who had all of these different experiences. Amazing!”

Each of the 36 stories begins with a reproduction of that veteran’s dog tag and ends with a current photo, something Dressman suggested, says Dr. Elliff. “Mr. Dressman said we needed pictures of all of these guys, so with the help of Mrs. Harper, we called and got the pictures from the families.” He says Harper has been good about “bird-dogging” those kinds of things.

Harper, who previously worked for Logan County Development and the Brush School District, says it was fun. “I was very honored to be involved in a project of such magnitude, and I enjoyed talking to the vets and their wives.”

Dr. Elliff, who was 13 in 1941, says he hopes the children and grandchildren of these 36 veterans read the book so they understand, not only what these men did, but also what the world was like at that time. “The United States was totally mobilized,” he says. “I mean everybody was mobilized. We had rationing. We had shoe rationing. We had gas rationing. We had clothing rationing. We had paper drives. We had rubber drives. We had scrap drives. Everybody was into it.”

Dressman says he hopes the book becomes one schools use to teach the WWII era in America and America in WWII.

He says a quote on the back of the book by Rick Crandall, president of the Colorado Freedom Memorial Foundation, sums up his thoughts on the importance of the book to Colorado. “Colorado has much to be proud of in these hometown heroes,” writes Crandall. “I never tire of reading about the feats of ordinary people in extraordinary times.”

An essay in the front of the book notes that, “without exception,” the men who told their stories said, “I am not a hero.” Dr. Elliff disagrees. “These guys represented 100 percent of the effort. Every one of them I called a hero. They risked their necks. Every one of them.”