Dylan Welker interviews World War II vetran Roy Chrisman as part of a history project the MSSU student is compiling. Globe/Brian Shields

The D-Day invasion of Normandy. The liberation of Paris. The Battle of the Bulge. The invasion of Germany.

The number of people who remember these momentous events of World War II in 1944 and 1945 is dwindling.

Joplin resident Roy Chrisman, 89, is one of thousands of Americans who have firsthand memories of these historic events. Dylan Welker, a Missouri Southern State University senior, is working to make sure those memories are preserved.

Welker is working to collect on videotape memories and words of those who lived through World War II as part of an internship under the supervision of Larry Cebula, associate professor of history at MSSU.

“I’m so glad Dylan is doing this,” Cebula said. “For years, I was hoping a student would take on a project like this. It’s absolutely vital that we collect these memories. This is what you call primary source history, the words and memories of those who lived history, and we’re in the last days of being able to collect this information because the World War II generation is passing on.”

Chrisman, who has operated Roy’s Rental and Costume Service at 2401 E. Seventh St. for the past 50 years, said he appreciates Welker’s efforts and is glad to see someone working to save the memories of his generation.

“I think it’s great. It really helps the children understand history,” Chrisman said. “I’ve worked with children all my life. I’ve probably spoken to more than 2,000 children in the past years at Carl Junction schools, Webb City schools, North Middle School, South Middle School, and they listen to me and it seems to give them a different perspective on history.”

Welker, who is from the St. Louis area, is just starting on the project, which he hopes will preserve, on video, the words of area veterans in the archives of the MSSU library and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., through the Veterans History Project.

Welker said he was inspired to work on the project by stories about his late grandfather, Russell Welker, who lived in Gallatin. He was a Navy veteran of World War II, serving in the Pacific.

“He passed away in 1982 when I was 3 or 4, and I never got to talk to him about his service,” Welker said. “We still have photos from his service in the Pacific Theater, and I wished I had gotten to talk to him.”

Welker said he interviewed a veteran for the first time last year, but an inferior microphone impaired the effort to record the session.
He went to Cebula last fall, and the two worked out a way he could work on the project for college credit.

“This was all Dylan’s idea. He gets all the credit,” Cebula said. “We talked about this project, and I told him I could set up the framework, but this is an example of a student who took an idea and caught fire with it.”

Welker said Chrisman has given him the names of a number of veterans to interview. He also got some names from professors at MSSU.

In addition, Welker said he hopes to travel later this year to Washington, D.C., to videotape at the World War II Memorial and other places related to World War II.

Welker said he plans to preserve copies of the interviews in their entirety in the archives at MSSU and offer them to the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.

For his internship, he plans to put together a 45-minute video program for a public showing sometime in May.

The Veterans History Project was authorized by an act of Congress in October 2000 for the collection of oral and video histories from veterans who served in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East conflicts of 1991 and 2003.

According to the project’s Web site, it “collects and preserves the extraordinary wartime stories of ordinary people. ... Vivid as if they happened yesterday, these heartfelt accounts make us laugh, cry and remember.”

Stories can be told through personal narratives (audiotape and videotape interviews, and written memoirs); correspondence (letters, postcards, V-mail and personal diaries); or visual material (photographs, drawings and scrapbooks), the Web site says.

Others in Joplin have tried to preserve the memories of veterans.
Roy Lincoln is president of Airport Promotions Inc., the group that plans the annual Joplin Airfest at the Joplin Regional Airport.
Last year, the air show honored veterans who kept American bombers flying in World War II. This year, it will honor the pilots and air crews of the Korean War.

“We had a get-together last April, and one of the television stations came out and videotaped the stories of a number of those guys at the reception,” Lincoln said. “My wife, Pat, put together a great scrapbook of some of the things those World War II guys brought along. We’ll have another gathering like that for the Korean War vets later this year.”

Lincoln said saving these veterans’ stories is vitally important.
“These guys are all up in their 80s, and they won’t be around much longer,” he said. “Some of these guys told us they had never discussed their stories because, in 60 years, no one had ever asked them, and that’s a shame. Also, the current generation needs to know what happened in the past and what these guys did to preserve our freedom.

“Without these guys, we would be ruled by the Nazis or Imperial Japan, and a wonderful part of that history is the heroism and bravery that can only be described by someone who was there.”

Cyndee Sanders writes:
"Thank you for the stories. We need to take more time to visit with those that have such interesting lives."