You Can Help Us!
 We
hope you share our excitement in our voyage of discovery.
But that voyage has not yet ended. We hope that visitors
to our web site will share with us their recollections of
that period. Heritage Productions is working on a documentary
on the life of Pare Lorentz (“F.D.R.’s filmmaker”).
In additional to having produced a number of ”films
of merit” in the 1930s (as is well known), Lorentz
(which is less well known), joined the Army Air Force Officer
in World War II. He headed up the Overseas Technical Unit
that flew around the world in a specially adapted B-24 Liberator
Bomber and made some 225 briefing films. After receiving
his discharge in 1945, Lorentz then made a full-lengthy
documentary on the Nuremberg war crimes trial and then devoted
much of the rest of his life to working on a day-by-day
account of FDR’s presidency. These materials are now
in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park, New York.
If you have some personal knowledge of the above activities,
please let us know. We are particularly interested in locating
any Army Air Force personnel that were attached to the Overseas
Technical Unit.
 And
we still want to learn more about Bill Hazel and their children:
Dan, Tom, Jake, Ruth and Frank (Bip). Please share with
us your recollections. Is there anyone out there, for example,
who served with Dan Parkinson (or his good friend, George
Kuzma) with the 41st division in the New Guinea campaigns
in World War II? Is there anyone out there who served with
Tom Parkinson with the 301st Infantry in Europe and may
have been present in the fighting around Sinz in February,
1945 for which Tom received the Silver Star? And is there
anyone out there who might have served with Frank (Bip)
Parkinson in his artillery unit with the 6th Army in Korea?
As had been the case with his brothers Tom and Dan, Bip
saw major combat. Is there anyone out there who remembers
Tom Brannan (Ruth’s husband) in the US Navy. According
to his children, he ferried troops ashore at D-Day. As was
the case with a lot of veterans (including the Parkinson
children), Tom Brannan never talked much about his experiences
– which must have been horrific. But this is history
– and it should be recorded and preserved is possible.
Thank you for any assistance you can offer us here. To contact
us, click here.
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