When the Written Word Fails: Human Histories of WWII

Considering the immense lack of historical sources on such a young monument, we turn to the people the WWII Memorial was made by and for. The aforementioned Joseph Corrente was born on November 27, 1923, in Providence, and he spent most of his life there before moving to Cranston. His passion for commemorative works such as the WWII Memorial was inspired by more than just his military service: he received an Associate Degree in Architectural Design and Construction from the Providence Technical Institute, and, in 1954, he began his “32 years of distinguished and dedicated public service with the State of Rhode Island.”¹ He held the position of resident engineer for the state’s bridges during the Providence River Bridge construction from 1955 to 1958. Throughout the next fifteen years, he remained the engineer in charge of around twenty bridges in the state. The WWII Memorial, therefore, depicts a cross-section of his two primary pursuits: military service and architecture. Corrente lived to see the monument made but passed away only two years later, almost exactly to the day, on November 5, 2009, at Miriam Hospital in Providence. He was 85.² [include photo Joseph_Corrente, taken from his obituary which I cite elsewhere - this is the only available photo of him and it's not great quality, so feel free to exclude it if it looks awful]

Although very little historical work exists on this monument, it appeared in the local news in 2007. WPRI released a short YouTube video on the then-upcoming dedication of the memorial, which started with a parade to the site at 2:15 PM before the ceremony at 3:00 PM on November 11, 2007.³ Further, through a news release, we know that Brown University, along with its role in gentrifying much of the surrounding area to the monument, was another major contributor to its existence. Under the presidency of Ruth J. Simmons, who also initiated the Slavery and Justice Report at Brown, the University gave $50,000 to the WWII Memorial.⁴ According to Simmons, this decision came from Brown's commitment “to contributing to the culture and economy of our state."⁵ The University does have a relationship to the war, considering that three hundred students left campus for active duty in February 1943. The news release continues, detailing that “other students, staff, and faculty members joined various branches of the armed forces, or left to serve in war advisory positions in Washington.”⁶ Rhode Island was also involved in the war far beyond Brown's contributions. Factories along the coast of the Ocean State produced necessary wartime equipment, making it a “vital war zone.” Several naval bases, and even a secret radio station, sprinkled waterfronts across the state.⁷

These personal connections to the war are essentially the entirety of what has been documented on the memorial. In 2015, the Providence Journal published a piece on Peggy Swann, a woman from Coventry whose father was a WWII veteran. When the state commission was “struggling” to secure enough donations to fund the memorial, Swann donated in her dad’s name because, for her, it “had to be finished to honor the sacrifices of those who served.”⁸ Her father, notably, lived to see the memorial but died three years later at 86. In 2015, the 70^th anniversary of the end of WWII, five years after her dad died, Swann brought the veteran cap that once belonged to her dad to the memorial. Joined by a Providence Journal reporter, she spoke of him and his service. This interview and the location at which it was held underscore the WWII Memorial as a representation of desperation—a rush to preserve the lives and memories of those who served and were, or were soon to be, no longer there. [include photo Peggy_Swann, taken of her by the WWII Memorial for the Providence Journal piece]

According to Swann, her father, Stanley Munslow, who became a construction worker after his time overseas, did not talk about his service. “I think [veterans] were protecting us,” Swann mused. “They didn’t want their families to know what they went through. He didn’t think he was a hero, but he was my hero.”⁹ But one year, during the week of Christmas, when his wife Mary and their five children were all home together, Munslow said he was off to church, the same one in East Greenwich he visited as a child and at which he married his wife. He had done this for years, each December 28^th, without his family ever knowing. “We all said, 'why?'” Swann recalled. “And then the story came out.”¹⁰ Munslow trained to serve as a medic for the 13^th Jungle Division of the Army Air Force. However, as one of tens of thousands of men serving in the South Pacific, his job became to help repair airfields on South Pacific islands so that U.S. planes could maintain access to bombing Japan. On that day in 1944, he and many of his brothers-in-arms were left exposed on the tarmac of one airfield when Japanese fighters attacked. As the article describes, the men had “no place to hide,” so they “hit the deck and covered their heads. Bullets tore into the ground around Munslow, missing him, but killing others.”¹¹ [include photo Stanley_Munslow, taking from his Obituary]

For any number of reasons—trauma, survivor’s guilt, shame—Munslow kept this experience a secret for most of his life. And yet he continued to pay respects to the friends he lost each year on the day of the attack. Sometimes, however, as his children were growing up, he shared happier moments from his service. He would tell a story about a kind Filipino farmer who raised Rhode Island Red chickens, who, when Munslow met him, gave Munslow two eggs because of his connection to Rhode Island. The Providence Journal’s decision to write about Munslow using the WWII Memorial as a vehicle demonstrates that the memorial’s existence has, to some extent, successfully inspired the preservation of veterans’ otherwise untold stories. “Without his generation and the people who fought to win that war, we wouldn’t have the country we have today,” said Swann. “The whole world would have changed. So how can we forget that?’”¹²