Time is working out for the final residing U.S. veterans of World Warfare II.
At 102 years previous — “103 next month,” he stated with a smile — Robert Heiss spends his afternoons taking part in cribbage and devouring homicide mysteries on the Veterans Residence of California in Yountville, the place he’s lived since 2008. At first look, he’s a cheerful centenarian having fun with the quiet routines of retirement. However as one of many final World Warfare II veterans within the Bay Space, Heiss carries recollections that also weigh closely eight a long time later.
Earlier than he was drafted into the conflict, Heiss was simply one other younger boy rising up in San Francisco, biking via the town, catching a brand new film for a dime, and at all times making it again by 5 p.m. for dinner, simply as his mom informed him.
Then, he grew up a bit.
“On the West Coast, we were all scared we could be next,” he stated between sobs. “How could they get this far without our knowing?”
Capturing the recollections of those witnesses to conflict has taken on a brand new urgency, at the same time as they’re remembered yearly on Veteran’s Day.
The Nationwide WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana, estimates that about 45,518 U.S. veterans of World Warfare II are nonetheless alive, all now of their 90s or older. In California, there are an estimated 10,703 survivors — the most of any state. By 2030, the nationwide whole is anticipated to fall to simply over 5,000, and by 2044, researchers predict there will probably be no remaining veterans of a conflict that reshaped the worldwide steadiness of energy.
The upcoming lack of those that served through the battle has led Bay Space organizations to create initiatives to honor the remaining veterans of World Warfare II, from dream flights for ageing veterans to commemorations at Richmond’s Rosie the Riveter WWII Residence Entrance Nationwide Historic Park, which celebrates the “Rosies,” the ladies who crammed manufacturing unit and shipyard jobs whereas males fought abroad.
For the establishments looking for to protect the narratives of the conflict, some Bay Space veterans have a lot to share.
Heiss, who joined the Air Power after the Pearl Harbor bombing, was despatched to England as an plane technician, serving from June 1943 till February 1946. After the conflict, he married, raised three kids, and commenced to consider his legacy. His spouse, Betty, who had served within the Navy, helped him write a e-book chronicling their wartime experiences, however when she died in 2009, Heiss discovered himself ending the mission alone.
“The book became a distraction for me as I was grieving,” he stated.
The self-published e-book, “The Wonderful Life of Bob and Betty Heiss,” spans greater than 500 spiral-bound pages, tracing the couple’s story from their preschool days to Heiss’s life in the present day on the veterans dwelling in Napa County. Heiss printed about 60 copies, distributing them to his three kids, prolonged household and some shut mates. Now, he stated, his tales can reside on lengthy after he’s gone.
{A photograph} of Robert Heiss and his spouse Elizabeth Heiss each veterans of World Warfare II is displayed his room on the Veterans Residence of California-Yountville on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Yountville, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
“It makes me feel proud to be a part of the Greatest Generation,” Heiss stated, tearing up once more.
Steve James, a retired monetary analyst and Vietnam Warfare veteran, has made it his mission to protect the historical past of his father, Ernest E. James, who served in World Warfare II. Now the treasurer of the Contra Costa Historic Society, James recalled sitting across the campfire as a baby, listening to his father’s vivid and typically grotesque tales from the entrance traces.
Within the margins of one in all his books, Ernest James described the second he killed a German soldier, writing that he “shot him as he looked out of a window.”
Steve James appears to be like via a set of World Warfare II memorabilia gathered by his father Ernest James on the Contra Costa County Historic Society on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Martinez, Calif. Steve James a veteran of the Military volunteers on the historic society and has donated objects from his father Ernest James who served throughout World Warfare II. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
Steve James holds a navy e-book with notes written by his father Ernest James on the Contra Costa County Historic Society on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Martinez, Calif. Steve James a veteran of the Military volunteers on the historic society and has donated objects from his father Ernest James who served throughout World Warfare II. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
LeighAnn Davis, the manager director of the Contra Costa County Historic Society on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Martinez, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
Objects from the World Warfare II assortment of Ernest James at Contra Costa County Historic Society on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Martinez, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
Volunteer Steve James, left, and Govt Director LeighAnn Davis, middle in an archive room of the Contra Costa County Historic Society on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Martinez, Calif. James a veteran of the Military volunteers on the historic society and has donated objects from his father Ernest James who served throughout World Warfare II. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
Objects from the World Warfare II assortment of Ernest James at Contra Costa County Historic Society on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Martinez, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
LeighAnn Davis, the manager director of the Contra Costa County Historic Society on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Martinez, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
Memorabilia hangs within the room of Robert Heiss a veteran of World Warfare II on the Veterans Residence of California-Yountville on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Yountville, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
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Steve James appears to be like via a set of World Warfare II memorabilia gathered by his father Ernest James on the Contra Costa County Historic Society on Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Martinez, Calif. Steve James a veteran of the Military volunteers on the historic society and has donated objects from his father Ernest James who served throughout World Warfare II. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
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“I was looking through the box at his stuff and said ‘this has to be preserved,’” James stated.
James introduced the container to the Contra Costa Historic Society in Martinez, which homes thousands and thousands of historic paperwork and information from as early because the 1700s. When he introduced it the recollections of his father, who died in 2002, James stated, Govt Director Leigh Ann Davis was ecstatic.
“I geek out on this stuff,” Davis stated. “As a historian, it feels like a dream come true to be able to create a space where these documents can live forever.”
The urgency of shedding firsthand witnesses to historical past impressed her to begin the Archive Your self program, which inspires county residents to protect their households’ necessary paperwork and recollections utilizing the group’s superior digitization providers.
James Scott a veteran of World Warfare II in his room on the Veterans Residence of California-Yountville on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Yountville, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
Whereas Heiss saved planes flying, fellow San Francisco native James A. Scott carried his paints into the Pacific. A former artwork pupil who enlisted in 1942, the 103 year-old former corporal sketched portraits of fellow Marines from his foxhole—pictures that many households would later treasure because the final glimpse of their family members.
Though the U.S. remembers its navy veterans every Nov. 11, Scott, who additionally lives on the veteran’s dwelling in Yountville, notes adjustments within the intervening years. “It was an important time in our history because everyone felt patriotic at that time and that’s something people don’t know about anymore,” he stated.
In a earlier interview with the Nationwide Museum of the Marine Corps in Virginia, Scott recalled his wartime creativity. “It wasn’t unusual for complete strangers from other outfits to come to my barracks, foxhole or tent and ask for a drawing of themselves,” Scott stated
The sketches that didn’t make it to households of veterans are actually preserved on the Library of Congress.
{A photograph} and certificates grasp on the wall of James Scott’s room on the Veterans Residence of California-Yountville on Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Yountville, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Space Information Group)
