Don Milne, founder of Stories Behind the Stars, pauses in Knoxville National Cemetery to read the life story of a soldier, written by his project’s volunteers, on his phone. Many volunteers in the D.C. area are helping to write 500-word biographies about Americans who lost their lives in World War II. Photo courtesy of Stories Behind the Stars

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Many stories from World War II have been lost, many heroes forgotten.

For instance, on a bombing raid in Japan, U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Francis Stevenson took the seat of future U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson on the B-26 Wabash Cannonball when Johnson briefly deplaned.

Johnson ended up on another bomber, while Stevenson’s bomber was hit, killing everyone on board. Johnson went on to become president.

More than 421,000 Americans died in World War II. For the past four years, volunteers from a project called Stories Behind the Stars are documenting each person’s life in 500 words.

John Rutherford, a retired reporter living in McLean, Virginia, wrote the mini-profile of Stevenson. He and his 400 fellow volunteers see writing these stories as a way to honor brave Americans, most of whom never made the history books.

“These men and women made a tremendous sacrifice,” Rutherford said. “People should know about what they did. I hope we can do it for all the wars.”

Stories Behind the Stars was founded in 2020 by Don Milne, a Kentucky retiree. He hopes his team will finish writing all the biographies by September 2, 2025 — the 80^th anniversary of the end of World War II. Since 2021, volunteers from all 50 states and more than a dozen countries have crafted 42,040 stories. But that means they have much more to do.

Each life story will be linked to war memorials and cemeteries around the world so in-person visitors with smartphones can read the stories on a website, storiesbehindthestars.org.

“Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of volunteers from all 50 states and more than a dozen other countries,” Milne said, “soon anyone will be able to visit the graves and memorials of each of these fallen heroes and read any of their stories via smartphone.”

‘Stories that need to be told’

The project honors everyday people who lost their lives in infamous battles. In the first six months of 2021, more than 130 volunteers wrote stories about the 2,502 Americans who died in the 1944 D-Day invasion, when Allied forces landed in Normandy, France.

In the second half of 2021, more than 100 volunteers wrote stories of the 2,341 who died when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

Nearly 200 volunteers in 2022 and 2023 wrote about all of the 8,700 World War II heroes and heroines buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Most of the stories document people’s lives: their birthplace, parents, high school, college, spouses, jobs, military service, and how and where they died.

Writers describe patriots who showed courage, defied the odds or were victims of tragic accidents. They write about prisoners of war, and some whose fate and whereabouts are still unknown.

Rutherford alone has written 1,600 biographies in two years, “stories that need to be told,” he said.

He has written, for example, about the women who served, many as nurses and Red Cross volunteers who got close to the front lines.

One example is the story of Dorothy Jane Burdge, an “American Red Cross girl” who handed out coffee, donuts, gum and cigarettes to exhausted troops across Europe. She died in a plane crash.

Rutherford is now writing about those lost when a German submarine torpedoed and sank the troop ship SS Leopoldville, killing 763 American soldiers and 56 crew members within five miles of Cherbourg, France.

Reporting is not new to him. After an Army stint in Vietnam from 1968 to 1970, he reported for United Press International for 10 years, and then was an NBC Network News producer for 30 years.

Why they write

Retired lawyer and Chevy Chase resident Les Wiesenfelder spends on average of 20 hours a week writing, and has completed 700 stories. He’s now the only person writing about the 5,100 people connected to Maryland. He’s completed 560 bios so far.

“I hate being bored. I need something to occupy my time and my mind,” he said.

He’s also inspired by his parents, who escaped Nazi Germany. “The Nazis murdered my uncle and grandmothers,” he explained. “I do this because of my gratitude for the Americans who rescued the world from the Nazis.”

Doria Owen, a retired special education teacher who lives near Baltimore, was exploring genealogy online during the Covid pandemic and came upon Stories Behind the Stars. In the past year, she has written more than 130 stories.

Owen starts by using websites like Newspapers.com, Ancestry.com and Findagrave.com, and ends up searching further — combing old newspapers, yearbooks and census records to find out more about her subjects.

Her current projects include military people lost when the Japanese sank the USS Robalo, a submarine, in the south China Sea in 1944. She’s also writing stories about the 1,015 casualties from the German bombing of the HTM Rhona in the Mediterranean Sea in 1943.

“I’m making the people more than numbers or dates,” she said, “telling the story of who they were. Some were very young. Some never met their children. Some mothers lost more than one son. I’ve gotten emotional over some of the stories.”

Her own grandfather came home from Europe, but he never discussed his experiences. “So many did not come home,” she said.

Susan Milstead Murphy, who retired from a film and video career and lives near Richmond, had three uncles who served in World War II. She never knew why one, Glenn Cochran, never came home.

About 15 years ago, when cousins cleaned out their grandmother’s home, Murphy received a box of materials about him, an Army Air Corps navigator. In the box were five photographs of her uncle in his leather helmet, silk ascot and bomber jacket.

She also found government notifications, including the dreaded telegram, “We regret to inform you. . .” sent to her grandmother.

The box revealed his final mission, Murphy said. “I then learned he flew out of England on bombing missions over Germany. His airplane crashed into the North Sea in December 1942.”

After Murphy learned about her Uncle Glenn, she became inspired to tell the stories of other fallen soldiers, she said, and now volunteers for Stories Behind the Stars.

“I want people to know about this 22-year-old whose life was cut way too short,” she said.

No experience necessary

The project does not seek out professional writers. Anyone is welcome to write a 500-word life story.

“Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, only two percent were professional military,” according to the project website.

“It is fitting that this project too be undertaken by normal, everyday people whose main qualification is that they want to preserve a remembrance of the World War II fallen for all to see.”

People can write as many or as few stories as they wish, on their own schedule. The project’s managers encourage writers to take the free “boot camp” online training to learn how to conduct research and to use Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com and Fold3.com.

Volunteers are also needed to help with basic research, databases, photos and other tasks that don’t require writing.

Many people get hooked on the project, Milne said. They love starting with a name — someone they know nothing about —and uncovering the details of the person’s life. The stories they write are lasting tributes.

As Owen, a grandmother of 15, put it, “Everyone has a story. No one wants to be forgotten. Someone will want to know someday.”

For more information, visit storiesbehindthestars.org.