Wings Over Wiscasset 2014

Step into WWII camp at airport event

Reenactors help event-goers experience history closeup
Wed, 07/23/2014 - 7:00pm

When Jeremy Harmon puts on a U.S. military uniform from World War II, he feels honored to wear it.

But he said he and other reenactors with the Tulsa (Okla.) Living History Association also feel a sense of responsibility.

“Those are big shoes that we fill, and we do the best we can,” Harmon said.

The association and another group, the Northeast Living History Association, will set up camp at Wiscasset Municipal Airport on August 8 and 9, for Wings Over Wiscasset.

It will be an ongoing show-and-tell for event-goers, who will see what they would have seen in WWII for duties, clothing and equipment, some replica, but much of it real.

Those items and the groups’ reenactments take history from being something read in a book, to being 3D, Harmon said.

“It brings that much more awe to everything that history has to offer,” he said.

The Ellsworth man flies Cessnas for Scenic Flights of Acadia. In reenactments, he portrays a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot.

“As a pilot, knowing what we have now for equipment compared to what the pilots had then, really makes you appreciate how far we’ve come,” he said.

The camp will be in place for both days of Wings. Two WWII military motorcycles will be on display Saturday, Aug. 9, said Paul Levasseur of the Northeast group. Both were used by Canadian soldiers to relay messages in Europe during WWII.

Motorcycles’ use marked a change from the World War I practice of delivering messages on horseback, Levasseur said.

Levasseur and the rest of the Northeast group will be in trousers, not the kilts members wear when reenacting pre-World War II times. The group with members from Virginia to New Brunswick portrays the Black Watch of Canada, a regiment that still exists today, Levasseur said.

“It’s a chance to relive history,” Levasseur said about his reenactment experiences. The Hudson, N.H. man is a retired history teacher who now works as an educator for the National Park Service in Lowell, Mass.

Encampments like the one next month at Wings are another way for him to share history. “That’s what I’ve done my whole life as a teacher, so this kind of fits it all together nicely,” Levasseur said.

Visitors to the camp at Wings are welcome to ask the groups’ members questions, Harmon and Levasseur said.

“If they don’t, we’re disappointed,” Levasseur said.