Professors warn WWI could become forgotten

LYNN – Local drivers brush up briefly against World War I history every time they crisscross the city, but a Salem State University professor fears the nearly century-old conflict “is in danger of becoming a forgotten war.”History professor Chris Mauriello is organizing a trip this summer to World War I battlefields in Belgium and France in an effort to give students and anyone else interested in taking the trip a close-up look at how the war was fought and where it was fought.Mauriello and Salem State geography professor Steven Matchak have organized and led European trips since 2001, including two previous trips focused on the 1914-1918 war.Matchak said their history lessons make a big impact on people when they are taught on the site where the historical event occurred.?World War I happened all over – you can?t appreciate it without seeing the battle site,” Matchak said.The war?s history is scattered across Lynn, with streets, bridges and former schools, including Chase Street, Purdon Avenue and Buchanan Bridge, named after local residents who died during the war.?They all have histories,” said Grand Army of the Republic curator Robert Matthias.Located on Andrew Street, the city-owned museum includes a room devoted to World War I. The copper-engraved portraits of 150 Lynn residents, including Matthew Buchanan, Edward Chase and Frederick Purdon, who died in the war, hang in rows on the room?s walls.?Half of these guys died of the plague – not battlefield wounds,” said local historian Larry Campbell.Campbell said an influenza outbreak traveled across the Atlantic Ocean with American troops and took lives on both sides of the Atlantic. Campbell?s father fought in World War I, and a large metal plaque hanging in a corner of the World War I room bears the names of Frank Campbell and his brother, Percy.Frank Campbell served with an artillery battery and Percy Campbell was in the Marine Corps, but Larry Campbell said the pair ran into one another during the war.?My father overheard my uncle?s voice in a tent at Chateau Thierry,” Campbell said.Chateau Thierry is located about 60 miles northeast of Paris – one of six French and Belgian cities the World War I trip participants will stay overnight in from July 7 to July 20.Matchak said the study and travel trip to memorials, battlefields and museums will cost participants about $3,400.?It?s the height of the summer season and we stay in three and four-star hotels,” he said.North Shore Community College history professor Larry Davis is also taking the trip and said visiting World War I sites brings into sharp focus World War I?s pivotal role in 20th-century history.?Students see the monuments, walk the battlefields and face the experiences of those who fought and died,” Davis stated in a Salem State press release.Campbell said World War I drew dividing lines in Europe that endured for decades and heralded technological advances that allowed armies to be mobilized and transported across Europe only to be slaughtered with precision artillery fire and rapid-fire machine guns.The war also changed the lives of those who fought in it, including Campbell?s father, who spoke fluent French and fought at Chateau Thierry. Campbell said French troops fled from their positions during the battle, leaving Americans to fight on their own.?After that, my father refused to speak French for the rest of his life,” Campbell said.