VIDEO CAPTURES MEMORIES OF WWII
By Melody Hanatani/ Staff Writer
Belmont Citizen-Herald, MA
May 25 2006
Markar Markarian was only a teenager when he was sitting in a cargo
plane hundreds of feet above the Pacific Ocean, under attack from
the Japanese.
The incident occurred in the midst of World War II and Markarian,
an 18-year-old from South Boston, was serving in the 25th Ordinance
Company, traveling around the Pacific repairing artillery weapons
for the United States military.
The day when the Japanese shot at his plane was the most action he
saw during his three years in service.
“I didn’t know if I was going to get home,” said Markarian, now an
82-year-old Belmont resident.
Markarian’s story will be told along with nine other local
Armenian-American veterans in a documentary titled “Our Boys: Armenian
World War II Veterans.”
The documentary was co-produced by Lexington residents Tom Spera and
Roger Hagopian, whose fathers served in the war.
The film will premiere this evening at the Armenian Library and Museum
of America in Watertown.
According to Hagopian, Spera wanted to find a way to honor veterans
after the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Spera approached
Hagopian, a filmmaker, and the two spent the past year interviewing
veterans about the war, and interviewing women about their experiences
on the home front.
Hagopian grew up hearing stories about World War II from his father
and the many other veterans who were around him. The 10 interviewees
in the documentary either attend the Armenian Memorial Church in
Watertown or the First Armenian Church in Belmont.
They range in age from 70 to 95.
“I felt most comfortable going to them because I already had a prior
relationship with them,” Hagopian said last week. “A lot of these
guys grew up together in Watertown.”
All the veterans are children of parents who survived the Armenian
genocide. Almost half of the veterans in the documentary had lost a
parent by the time World War II began, Hagopian said.
Some soldiers revealed stories they had kept secret for more than
60 years. Hagopian said these include secrets they kept from their
own family.
“They are humble guys who didn’t ask to be interviewed but they
cooperated enthusiastically,” he said.
One veteran lost his brother in the war. He has spent the past 60
years trying to make some sense of the death.
“His brother died so he could live, that’s the way he felt,”
Hagopian said.
Veterans’ wives and relatives recall life on the home front and their
roles in comforting soldiers.
“They were young kids,” Hagopian said of the veterans. “They were 17
and 18 years old, and they responded to a national crisis and they
were patriotic, they were heroic and they were humble … and some
of them made the ultimate sacrifice.”
Markarian’s division was sent to fix weapons in areas that had already
been cleared off from battle.
He remembers staying on an island off the Philippines and seeing the
Japanese soldiers come down the mountains with no clothes or guns. He
said the Japanese would occasionally steal their food.
There were periods of weeks and months when Markarian and his fellow
comrades would be bored from lack of work.
He recalls one four-month workless period when he created a ping-pong
table out of gun crates.
Markarian was in the Philippines when his division was told that
troops were en route to Japan to drop the atomic bomb.
It was good news for some soldiers who had been there for 18 months
and had no idea when they would be able to return home.
“There were six of us who went in as replacements and [the other
soldiers] said, ‘You are going to die here, we have been here 18
months and there is no sign of us going out,'” Markarian said.
Markarian was discharged in 1946, about half a year after the war
ended.
He slowly made his way back to Massachusetts, first stopping in
Seattle where he contacted his parents at 2 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
He then went to Fort Devens and eventually made his way to North
Station in Boston where he took the train to Broadway Station and
took a cab home.
Markarian moved to Belmont around 1953, after he married. He and his
wife raised two daughters who later married two brothers.
He has attended the Memorial Day Parade in Belmont almost every year
since he moved to town. Watching the annual parade always gives him
the same feeling.
“I feel tingling in my body when the flag goes by,” he said. “I’m
still very proud.”
“Our Boys: Armenian World War II Veterans” will be shown at 7:30
p.m. tonight at the Armenian Library and Museum of America, located
at 65 Main St. in Watertown Square. Admission is free (donations
appreciated). The filmmakers will be on hand to answer questions
and discuss the making of the video, which runs for approximately 55
minutes. A reception with refreshments will follow.