Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
HUDSON, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — With 80 years passed, the soldiers who lived through World War II are now few and far between.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) estimates that less than 1% of the 16 million Americans who served in World War 2 are still living.
And of the approximately 66,000 survivors, that number will decrease significantly in the coming years.
As the living veterans succumb to age, places like the American Heritage Museum in Hudson, Mass. are trying to preserve the history of the war by keeping its relics in fighting shape.
"We're at the last throes of what we call the 'greatest generation," said the museum's Hunter Chaney.
The museum features an extensive collection of World War Two equipment including American and German tanks and armor, and a large collection of working antique planes, most of which served in combat.
"You can see in the front there's this little kind of a splash mark that shows where a shell actually hit the front of the tank," Chaney said, pointing to the impact of a shell on an M4 Sherman tank that fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
Eight of the museum's tanks are fully operational, and tank rides are used as a way to get people interested in a war that ended before most of them were alive.
Chaney said the working machines are a part of living history, which tends to draw more people in than just reading or hearing about the events.
The museum also houses a trove of historical documents and exhibits of some of the war's key battles and events including North Africa, the Battle of the Bulge, the Pacific War, and the Holocaust.
WBZ NewsRadio's Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.