Student project honors two Upstate WWII marines with research and ceremony

ANDERSON COUNTY, S.C. (FOX Carolina) - A student project focused on two Upstate marines will culminate with a special ceremony Thursday at M.J. Dolly Cooper Veteran’s Cemetery.

The project is part of the nonprofit National History Day’s “Silent Hero Project.”

Kim Guthrie, a teacher at Palmetto Christian Academy in Gaffney, and her students wanted to fill in the blanks for the families of Sgt. Louis Roy Sanchez and Pfc. Richard Eugene Irvin, who had limited information about their loved ones’ military service.

“I hope that the students walk away understanding that every there’s no way you can go in and serve in battle and not be touched by it,” Guthrie said. “Every person who serves has a legacy.”

The students will read the eulogies of each Marine and place flowers at their graves.

Guthrie said the students learned how to pull up and find information through census records that can be connected to other information found in newspaper archives and at the Library of Congress. Students also looked through the military records of each Marine.

“This is research that AI can’t do for you,” Guthrie said.

Students learned that Sgt. Sanchez, who was originally from Gretna, Louisiana, left school in the 8th grade to work and help support the family after his father’s sudden death. During his service, Sanchez crossed the equator and underwent a traditional maritime ceremony to graduate from “Pollywog“ to ”Shellback.“ Sanchez also went through a ”Blue Nose Ceremony" after crossing the Arctic Circle. Students learned how Sanchez was injured in Guam but survived the war and later moved to the upstate.

Pfc. Irvin served as an anti-aircraft radar operator during World War II. While doing their research, students learned about a failed plot by six Nazi saboteurs who traveled to the U.S. with plans to blow up the railroad system near Irvin’s hometown in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

“They came with explosives...and buried the explosives in the sand. They had a change of clothes,” Guthrie said. “One ran into a Coast Guard agent and got scared, so...he wanted to turn himself in. The FBI didn’t believe him. He actually had to go to Washington D.C. to meet with the FBI to convince them that he was there to blow up a railroad.”

“In telling one story or two stories, we’re also giving a voice to all those that are buried (at the cemetery),” Guthrie said.

Feel more informed, prepared, and connected with FOX Carolina. For more free content like this, download our apps.