Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY
P. 32
A32
FEATUREFriday 5 January 2018
Faces of war: Who are the men in soldier’s WWII sketches?
By CHRIS CAROLA sity, and he put his drawing
Associated Press skills to use by sketching
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. pencil- and charcoal-on-
(AP) — Before the Army’s paper portraits of his fellow
27th Infantry Division was soldiers while the 27th Divi-
decimated in a bloody sion was stationed in Ha-
World War II battle, Stan waii in 1943.
Dube sketched portraits The sure-handed sketches
of his fellow soldiers. The 17 mostly show young men
drawings were forgotten looking pensively into the
after the war and stashed distance, though a few
in an attic for decades be- crack a smile. Dube drew
fore being found a year no backgrounds and
ago by his son. barely sketched out his
Now, Ira Dube is on a mis- subjects’ shoulders, but he
sion to identify the men in took care to capture his
his late father’s 75-year-old subjects’ eyes and faces.
artwork. On all the drawings, Dube
So far he has definitively put the month, year and
identified two of the sol- his signature in the lower
diers, both New Yorkers right corner. Three of the
who served in the 27th soldiers signed their names
Division’s 105th Infantry next to Dube’s: Kenneth
Regiment, which suffered Reid, Joseph Joner Kratky
heavy casualties in the Bat- and Joe Orbe, who added
tle of Saipan in the Pacific. his nickname, “Solid Jack-
One was killed on Saipan; son.”
the other died in the 1970s. Using information he found
Because the 27th was a online, Ira Dube was able
former New York National to track down Kratky and
Guard unit, Dube believes Orbe’s relatives in upstate
most or all of the other 15 This undated family photo provided by Ira Dube shows architect Stan Dube. Stan Dube New York.
men also were New York- sketched members of the U.S. Army’s 27th Infantry Division in 1943, a year before the division Kratky was killed on Saipan
fought in the Battle of Saipan. in 1944.
Associated Press Orbe, a New York City na-
tive, survived the war and
work are still alive. “I look at these sketches were going through their died in 1974. Dube hasn’t
“These people need to and I see a hero.” father’s belongings. definitively identified the
be remembered,” said Ira Dube found the signed Stan Dube, who died in soldier in the Reid sketch.
Dube, 61, a retired Navy sketches in the attic of his 2009, was drafted into the The unidentified drawings
veteran living in Woodland sister’s home in Mississippi Army while studying archi- were delivered to the mili-
Park, Colorado. early last year while they tecture at Syracuse Univer- tary museum Dec. 1.
Director Courtney Burns
said the sketches will be
posted on the museum’s
website and likely will be
displayed in an exhibit this
year.
“We may never know who
any of them are,” Burns
said.
“But I think that’s part of
the mystery and part of the
These sketches provided by intrigue of them.”
Ira Dube of U.S. Army 27th Wilfred “Spike” Mailloux, a
Infantry Division soldiers 105th Regiment veteran
were among more than a who was wounded during
dozen done by his father, a massive banzai attack
Stan Dube, during World War near the end of the Saipan
II. battle, recently perused
the sketches at the muse-
Associated Press um to see whether he rec-
ognized any of the soldiers.
ers. He recently donated None looked familiar.
the original sketches to “It was such a long time
the New York State Military ago,” said Mailloux, 94,
Museum and Veterans Re- a General Electric retir-
search Center in hopes its ee from the Albany area
artifacts and records could In this Dec. 8, 2017 photo, World War II veteran Wilfred “Spike” Mailloux looks through a who’s one of the last sur-
be used to help identify series of sketches of U.S. Army 27th Infantry Division soldiers while visiting the New York State viving 105th Regiment vet-
more of the soldiers. It’s not Military Museum and Veterans Research Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. erans.
known whether any of the
“We were young squirts
Associated Press back then.”q
men depicted in the art-
