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gilliam
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ALTAMONT, New York (AP) – A soldier held in Japanese prison camps in World War II secretly painted stars and stripes on pilfered paper hidden from his captors, then held the flag up high to greet American planes flying overhead when his camp was liberated.
After returning home, Cpl. Millard Orsini consigned the object of his secret work to a closet. He rarely mentioned the war or the moldering flag, and died in 1978 from a heart attack.
“He was really a hometown hero who got lost in the cracks,” said Tony Ferraioli, who led the effort to restore the flag.
Its dark red stripes and 48 stars have been restored and it now hangs in a frame at the Homefront Cafe, a World War II-themed restaurant in Altamont, Orsini’s old home village near Albany.
Orsini was one of seven brothers who served during World War II. The combat engineer was captured early in the war in the Philippines.
In April 1942, he and some 70,000 fellow prisoners were herded into the 55-mile Bataan Death March, during which up to 10,000 marchers died.
The next 39 months in Japanese prison camps were nearly as brutal. A book on the death march, “Horror Trek,” described his punishment in 1944 for stealing potato peels from a trash heap: “(H)e was slugged and beaten by a dozen guards until he collapsed – then he was kicked in the face.”
He painted the flag on a newspaper-sized piece of pulpy paper, maybe a window shade or wrapping paper, using stolen or creatively mixed oil paints. The craftsmanship is meticulous. It is believed that he hid the flag under floorboards while his fellow prisoners kept watch. “If he got caught, it would have been the end of him,” said his brother, Joseph Orsini. (snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com …
After returning home, Cpl. Millard Orsini consigned the object of his secret work to a closet. He rarely mentioned the war or the moldering flag, and died in 1978 from a heart attack.
“He was really a hometown hero who got lost in the cracks,” said Tony Ferraioli, who led the effort to restore the flag.
Its dark red stripes and 48 stars have been restored and it now hangs in a frame at the Homefront Cafe, a World War II-themed restaurant in Altamont, Orsini’s old home village near Albany.
Orsini was one of seven brothers who served during World War II. The combat engineer was captured early in the war in the Philippines.
In April 1942, he and some 70,000 fellow prisoners were herded into the 55-mile Bataan Death March, during which up to 10,000 marchers died.
The next 39 months in Japanese prison camps were nearly as brutal. A book on the death march, “Horror Trek,” described his punishment in 1944 for stealing potato peels from a trash heap: “(H)e was slugged and beaten by a dozen guards until he collapsed – then he was kicked in the face.”
He painted the flag on a newspaper-sized piece of pulpy paper, maybe a window shade or wrapping paper, using stolen or creatively mixed oil paints. The craftsmanship is meticulous. It is believed that he hid the flag under floorboards while his fellow prisoners kept watch. “If he got caught, it would have been the end of him,” said his brother, Joseph Orsini. (snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com …
