Veterans of World War II

Born in eastern Ukraine, Julia Barsuk volunteered to join the Red Army as a translator after having studied German in school. She was deemed too young when the war started but got her chance in 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad. It was Barsuk's job to interrogate German prisoners at the Stalingrad front.

Giovanni Doretta was a teen when his family moved back to Italy from Paris. He was drafted in January 1941. His division was sent to the Russian front to replace German soldiers near Stalingrad in August 1942. By January they were surrounded and ultimately surrendered. He returned home in April 1946. Of the 52 men from his village listed as missing in action, he was one of four who made it back.

Born in Edinburgh, Thomas Louis Gilzean enlisted in the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1938. He trained as a sapper and specialized in bomb disposal and laying and clearing landmines. He served in Egypt and Libya and in Burma, as part of the Chindits, an Anglo-Indian special operations unit working behind Japanese lines. In September 1944 he landed in Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

Ernst Gottstein grew up in Czechoslovakia, a Czech of German descent. He finished his studies in 1941 and volunteered for the Wehrmacht. He fought throughout Europe, initially in the Soviet Union. In 1942 he joined the Afrika Korps and fought across North Africa. In 1943 he returned to Europe. He was captured by American soldiers in Bavaria in 1945. At war's end he was a Hauptmann, a captain.

Hajime Hiroto was only called to fight at the end of the war, when Japan was drafting boys under 18 in desperation. By June 1945 he had joined a Kamikaze unit. His training lasted a few weeks, just enough time to learn to take off, fly and crash into a US ship. In July he and his unit were set for their first — and last — suicide mission. His plane's engine broke down. He never took off.

Lancen Majid grew up in a Moroccan village and enlisted in the French army at 16. He became a stretcher-bearer and was transferred to Algeria. In November 1943 his medical battalion sailed to Naples. He worked in field hospitals in Italy with US and British troops and was part of the Allied invasion of southern France. His unit also treated German soldiers, but Allied soldiers always had priority.

In the Philippines, Joel D. Pasada joined the US Army after war was declared. In July 1942, his Filipino squad ambushed a train carrying Japanese troops, cutting off the officers' heads to present to their commanding officer; the Japanese captain on the train had brutalized Filipinos. For a year, he and his men lived undercover in a village with many Japanese, reporting back to the Americans.

Pamela Tessier Bendall volunteered for service in June 1941. After five interviews testing general intelligence, memory and reaction, she started work at RAF Fighter Command headquarters, near London. Her job was to monitor radars and alert the proper channel when the Germans launched an attack. In August 1944 she was transferred to Normandy and continued her work in France, Belgium and Germany.