 WWII Memorial Committee
On July 4th, 2006, we
dedicated the WWII Memorial to honor the veterans of WWII: your fathers,
brothers, uncles, and aunts. They fought for you, their families, and
their country.
The WWII Memorial Committee has erected this memorial to
honor our veterans, both men and women, and the merchant seamen that
served their country so nobly.
This was a very trying time for the home front, too. This memorial also honors the mothers, fathers, and wives of these heroes. They mourned
their tragic loss when their loved one was killed or missing in action.
They too put in great effort to win the war. They suffered rationing of
clothes and food such as butter, meat, oils, and sugar. Gasoline and
tires were rationed. Many households planted victory gardens to
supplement the food supply.
An estimated 30,000,000 people died because of this war.
Over 400,000 American Veterans were killed in action and left their
widows and 183,000 orphaned children behind, all victims of the war. Because of us,
Europe has enjoyed over 60 years of peace, something that hasn't
happened since the days of the Roman Empire. Still, over 400,000 mothers and fathers
lost their sons in battle. Some were killed in action, thousands were
missing in action, and many of these were never accounted for.
To our viewers, if you
have not yet contributed, but wish to do so, your name will be included
as an addendum to our web site and will be included in the time capsule.
God Bless America!
What's New
A Thanksgiving
Letter from The Chairman
November
25, 2008
November and December is the season for remembrance and thankfulness. It
is the time we should appreciate all of those that were before us and
did so much for our great nation. Our early settlers, who left their
homelands and settled in the hostile conditions, yet survived and
prospered, gave us our unique day of remembrance “Thanksgiving”. Other
nations have a “harvest celebration”. We thank God for our blessings;
others do not.
We must also pay tribute to all of our brave men
and women from the time of our Revolution, to today’s young men and
women who believe in our country enough to put themselves in harms way.
Today, Gloucester is blessed with a beautiful
WWII Memorial, built and designed to honor all of Gloucester’s WWII
veterans. This was made possible by the political efforts of Senator
Bruce Tarr and by Representative Tony Verga, who got the state to give
us the first big infusion of money.
I want to thank my committee members for
attending meetings and giving help and encouragement to this great
effort and to the many non-paid volunteers who started with a small list
of two thousand and five hundred WWII veterans that was acquired from
City Hall and expanded it to the full count of five thousand six hundred
and sixty five WWII veterans. Now they are fully recorded in the City of
Gloucester archives, the Gloucester Veterans Center and in our
Gloucester WWII Memorial book. They will never be forgotten.
We had over a thousand businesses and citizens
that donated money and services. Everything standing at Kent Circle is
fully paid for. We never asked the City of Gloucester for money and the
city did not offer us any either.
In order to keep this memorial to our WWII
veterans in good condition we had to set up a fund for the perpetual
care.
When we were planning the memorial, we had many requests to inter the
veterans’ names. This we could not do at the time because there are so
many. There simply was not enough room. However, we have now devised a
plan to personally memorialize each veteran. We will now include their
names, branch of service and area that they served in. Each will be
engraved in a brick. The first one hundred will be put in the front part
of the patio facing the sidewalk. Over half of these have already been
committed. The cutoff date for the first one hundred will be at the end
of March 2009.
Any veteran who is listed in our Gloucester WWII
Veterans Memorial book is qualified.
Commemorative bricks may be purchased for $200 each to honor any
Gloucester WWII veteran. Application forms may be secured at the
Gloucester Veterans Center on Emerson Ave., at the Rose Baker Senior
Center, or may be downloaded and printed off of this website.
Please click here for a PDF of the form.
Because we still have some Gloucester WWII
Veterans Memorial books left over, we will offer one to each purchaser
of a brick while they last.
The first bricks will be in place before Memorial Day
in May, in time for the Veterans’ Memorial Day Service.
God Bless America.
God Bless all of our veterans, living and dead.
Michael Linquata – Chairman
Gloucester WWII Memorial Committee
P.O. Box 634 Gloucester, MA 01930
www.gloucesterww2vetsmemorial.org
November 19, 2008
The WWII Committee is now
offering personalized bricks to memorialize veterans near the memorial.
These 4" x 8" bricks will be placed around the newly lit monument and
will include the veteran's name, their branch of service, and the
theatre where they served. Currently, the committee is requesting a
minimum donation of $200 per brick.
If you are interested in
donating a memorial brick to a veteran, please click the link below to
download the form. This is formatted to print and should be hand
written. Mailing instructions are on the document:
WW2MBrickForm.pdf
If you are having technical difficulties
retrieving this document, please email Lily by clicking
here.
October 13, 2006
We now have over 600
photographs of veterans on our website. These photos have been published
in a memorial book that is currently still available. These photos
have been included in our Memorial Book. This book is now available to
all those that have contributed $100 or more while they last. The
remainder may be had by any new contributions of $100 or more, or may be
purchased. The books
will be available at the Veterans Center on Emerson Avenue.
CLICK HERE TO SEE SOME RECENT PHOTOGRAPHS OF
THE MEMORIAL
July 4, 2006
The monument
was dedicated this morning
for a crowd of around 1,000 people. Many thanks to Master of Ceremonies,
Tony Verga, John Bevilacqua, and also to speakers Senator Bruce Tarr, Mayor John Bell,
Father Eugene Alves, and to our keynote speaker, Secretary of Veterans
Affairs, Thomas Kelley. Additional thanks to all of the veterans, of all
wars, that could be there to support and to honor the committee's hard
work, to the Gloucester Boys Lacrosse team for setting up the chairs in
the morning, to the Rockport Legion Band, to the current members of the Coast
Guard, to the members of the Gloucester High School ROTC and also to the
St. Peter's Fiesta Committee (for the use of their chairs) for creating
a beautiful day. The ceremony was tasteful and timely and certainly
honored Gloucester's WWII Veterans, both living and dead, and all of
their families. We hope that you will enjoy our memorial for years to
come.
VIEW SOME PHOTOGRAPHS OF DEDICATION DAY HERE!
If you know of someone who
has not yet contributed to the efforts of the WWII Committee please
refer our work to them. We are still in the process of collecting funds
for the perpetual care of the memorial and also for the planned
publication of a book reflecting information and photographs found on
this website.
Click here to see some photographs of
Dedication Day, July 4, 2006.
The Gloucester WWII
Committee would like to thank its generous donors HERE!
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