Re-living history at Brentsville event

With music from the 1940s playing, Tim Ketchum and his wife, Kay, clad in World War II uniforms, stood in front of a Jeep filled with military equipment and easels with family photos of veterans.

“We basically put these up to honor our WWII veterans and also to educate the younger generations on what they did,” Tim Ketchum said.

He was speaking of the display at Brentsville Courthouse Historic Centre’s World War II Weekend, where re-enactors provided an up-close look at WWII life. About 300 people turned out for the event Saturday and Sunday.

Kay Ketchum, dressed as a WWII nurse, explained that though women had been overseas before as secretaries, WWII saw an influx of females in the military.

In real life, Ketchum is a retired Prince William Hospital nurse, and her husband is a retired engineer for the Department of the Army. They both volunteer at the WWII memorial.

Michelle Hyatt, dressed as a war correspondent, exhibited her collection of artifacts, which includes a 1938 camera and a nearly 20-pound field phone.

She showed a German handbook of phrases and pronunciations. When children stopped by, she had them read simple phrases such as, “I am hurt.”

A North Carolina resident, Hyatt participates in re-enactments in Pennsylvania, South Carolina and other places. She helps recreate the Battle of the Bulge and D-Day.

Frank Mason, a WWII veteran born in 1924, stopped by, too. A member of American Legion Post 10, Mason said he served in the Pacific from 1943 to 1949. The Manassas resident took part in five missions.

Mason wore his original dog tags. The tags, which he said he rarely takes off, contain his name, serial number and religion.

He explained that by the time he received his tags, the military was no longer including addresses because if combatants were caught, “the enemy could retaliate on families.”

Bill Bethke and Heathyr Haskins displayed their Singer 1940s sewing machine, buttons and fabric. Haskins talked about food and fabric rationing in England.

Bethke, dressed as an English soldier, said, “America was very isolated from the war itself.”

There was rationing of food in the U.S., but in England, conditions were severe because that nation was more dependent on imports and threatened by German U-boats.

“We bring out history to give people a chance to feel and touch,” Bethke said. “Textbooks in schools don’t give you that chance.”

Unlike Bethke, Andy Trainer came to the event to display American items.

Trainer is a docent for the National Museum of the Marine Corps. A retired Marine, Trainer said of his volunteer work, “It’s a true saying that once a Marine, always a Marine.”

The Manassas resident laid out a WWII submachine gun, helmet, field rations and mess kits. He allowed children to hold a replica weapon and wear a pack and helmet.

In the one-room schoolhouse at Brentsville, Mike Sabatino of Front Royal displayed mannequins of Japanese soldiers with original equipment, rifles, camouflage and hand grenades.

He said he became interested in WWII because his father and other family members served in the military.

And Willi Schumacher showed off his German mannequins: a radioman, a sailor, an army tanker and an SS member. All wore an eagle on top of a swastika, the national emblem.

Schumacher, who lives in Manassas, said these were German soldiers, not Nazis: Nazis were part of a political movement. He said when soldiers were in combat, they weren’t fighting for ideology or politics.

“In combat, you don’t fight for anyone … you fight for your survival and your comrades’ survival,” he said.

From 1972 to 1977, Schumacher served in the Navy, partly at the Navy Yard, where he started a WWII library.

Rob Orrison, who manages the Brentsville historic area, said this was the first year the site held a WWII event.

“Our WWII veterans are slowly passing away,” he said, so Prince William County’s Historic Preservation Division thought it was a good idea.

“We’re going to do it again next year,” Orrison said, “and we’re going to build on it.”