This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

During World War II, some 10 percent of Utah's population was engaged in all branches of military service. Over the years, war stories — from the home front and in battle — were passed down. Each one personal, individual — and indispensable to our state's collective history.

"We lived in a west side, blue collar neighborhood," said Utah artist Marian Dunn. "I was at church on August 14, 1945, when they announced the war was over. Like an explosion went off in my head, all I could think about was my dad."

Dunn's father, Arty W. Clark, consumed eight bananas daily, gained weight and joined the Navy. A lieutenant commander, he served as communications officer on Johnston Island in the mid-Pacific and the USS Nevada, which sustained damage but survived the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

"We hadn't seen my dad for over four years," Dunn said. "He wrote letters. My mother worked as a bookkeeper. I'd call her whenever a letter arrived. But we worried because he was still on the battleship. How can I express the relief we felt when he finally came home."

Former Salt Lake City Mayor Ted Wilson was six years old when victory was declared. His father, Bob Wilson, was chief chemist at the American Smelting and Refining Co. in Murray. "Critical" to the war effort, he was exempt from the draft even though he tried hard to enlist.

"Dad became the neighborhood Civil Defense warden in charge of simulating bombing raids and getting the neighbors into their basements," Wilson said. "He wore a white helmet with 'CD' stenciled on it and [carried] a badge. I remember the tension in my dad and neighbors as they met in our home on 27th South and 20th East regarding a possible attack by the Japanese. When the war was over, it was understood those fears were unjustified since we were so far inland."

On V-J Day, Wilson's parents celebrated on downtown's Main Street. On their return, Bob sported a shiner.

"Dad said a sailor in uniform came up to him and asked where his uniform was. He explained he had not fought in the war and the sailor punched him in the eye," Wilson said. "I asked him, 'Did you punch him back?' He said, 'No, I didn't because he was a fighting guy and I just did my normal job during the war.'

"Later in my life I understood both the respect my father had for combat troops and his unhappiness about not going to combat."

In 1941, Barden Gee Smith of Salt Lake City joined the Army Air Corps as a ball turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress "named Bette Jo," said his daughter, Linda Adams.

Inside the small ball turret that revolved 360 degrees on the underside of the aircraft, Smith would sit hunched over bent legs with his feet in stirrups on "each side of the 13-inch diameter armored glass panel," and aim at targets directly between his knees.

On Oct. 14, 1943, the Fortress was targeting ball-bearing factories in Schweinfurt, Germany, when Luftwaffe fighters shot it down.

"Dad was hit by shrapnel and was the last man out," Adams said. "He evaded capture for awhile but was caught with an infected leg and taken to Stalag 17B."

Smith rarely talked about the rough POW camp. "I know they ate mostly rutabagas and it was so cold, they slept two to a bunk," Adams said. "Dad worried about losing his leg."

When a prisoner accidentally bumped him, knocking him down, Smith jumped up in agony and broke the man's nose.

"That 'bump' opened Dad's wound," Adams said. "It drained and saved his leg. He thanked the soldier."

Liberated after 18 months, Smith visited Auschwitz concentration camp. He wept and returned home a changed man.

"He couldn't believe the inhumanity," Adams said. "He gave up his religious affiliation, and never ate another rutabaga in his life."

Eileen Hallet Stone, author of "Hidden History of Utah," a compilation of her Salt Lake Tribune Living History columns, may be reached at ehswriter@aol.com. Special thanks to Ira Tannenbaum and Sue Gordon.