Photo Exhibit:
World War II was in full swing. Mina Harrison at the age of 17 steals her older sister's birth
certificate and joins the Red Cross as a volunteer to give out coffee and donuts to our boys.
Shipped to England and faced with the decision to go forward or back home, she chose to go forward,
landing on Normandy Beach D-Day+4 and spending the rest of the war volunteering at the front lines
of Patton's Army. Working in a Red Cross field hospital tent was bad enough until she was faced with
another decision. Trapped in the Battle of the Bulge during Take-No-Prisoners with no intel coming back
about the next Nazi attacks, she volunteered again to drive her Jeep forward until she was captured,
hoping that the Geneva Convention would save her. Twice she set out "with my little Jeep and my poor German"
language and twice she was captured. But she lived to return with crucial information.
For her bravery
she was awarded the Medal Of Freedom, the highest civilian award given by the U.S. Only 8 women received
this in World War II. She came home after the War with two lasting conclusions, "I hate the cold, never been colder in my life"
and how to sleep standing up. And even after holding hundreds of men while they died in her arms in some unknown
Army field hospital at some forgotten battle while Patton fought across Europe, in peacetime she never turned her
back on a chance to help, stopping at car accidents on the highway, no matter how nicely dressed, to see if she stop
the bleeding long enough for the ambulance to arrive.
Also shown in the exhibit are her collection of personal snapshots and Signal Corps pictures of the Holocaust
she collected across Germany. Footage available on the web:
Her assignment there: after Patton's tanks crashed the gates with the furnaces still burning,
"Feed Lifesavers to the Living Dead", as it was the only thing many could still eat and care for them
as best she could until the Army moved on.
The survival rate at that stage was very low with many dying daily despite our best medical efforts.
Hear
Edward R. Murrow broadcasting of his
visit to Buchenwald to corroborate her experience.
Or
download and listen to it as an MP3.
For the rest of her life Mina would talk about "Man's Inhumanity to Man." Despite being
the liberator, she gave that up by volunteering to be captured twice and miraculously was
released twice, all by the age of 20, yet on the whole she still remained optimistic. When asked
why we won the War, she often replied, "Because we were nicer."
Sound Recording Exhibit (coming soon): General Wm. H. Harrison recounts his
service as Gen. George Patton's youngest general staff
Supply officer, European Theatre of Operations as the 3rd U.S. Army drove on
Berlin.
Photo Exhibit:
Military parade photos of the 102nd
Ozark Division, later 102nd USARCOM, now disbanded.
Contributions from former members of the 102nd and
their families is appreciated, including Jeeps,
half-tracks, and tanks. We'll make room.
This is a U. S. Signal Corp. map of Europe showing all the Nazi Concentration Camps. They
were far more widespread than many people thought. Millions of people died and were buried
in mass graves, burned, or cremated. Hitler referred to it as
the "Final Solution."