Battle tested

Three military buffs fuel fascination with South Shore's varied war history

From left, Frederick Morin, Mark Schmidt, and John Galluzzo of the South Shore Military Roundtable gathered near the Scituate Lighthouse. (Globe Staff Photo / Matthew J. Lee)

As a military theater of operations, the South Shore's day pretty much ended with King Philip's War in 1676.

There was the Battle of Grape Island in 1775, and the spunky sisters who scared off a British raid on Scituate Harbor during the War of 1812.

But those two incidents were bloodless affairs that hardly rank with the battles of Lexington and Concord, let alone Bunker Hill.

Still, there are sites of military interest in almost every town on the South Shore, and that history is enough to inspire the three military buffs who make up the South Shore Military Roundtable.

Brought together by a common interest in military history, they have organized an annual symposium, which was held for the first two years on board the USS Massachusetts at Fall River. They're now deep into planning this year's event, to be held Saturday at Adams Academy in Quincy.

The trio met recently at the 1699 Isaac Winslow House in Marshfield - itself a meeting place for Tories before the Revolution - where one of the three, Mark A. Schmidt, is executive director.

"We're not a bunch of bloodthirsty warmongers," said Schmidt. "It's not just the conflicts, but how they impact people's lives. There's an endless supply of stories."

"And the stories are good," said John J. Galluzzo, a freelance writer in South Weymouth. "There's intrigue, romance, good and evil."

"And they're all true," said Schmidt.

The annual symposium grew out of a very un-warlike event, the annual "Wander the Back Roads" tour of 13 historic South Shore houses, originally organized by Galluzzo. His 26 books, mainly on military subjects, include one on the South Weymouth and Squantum naval air stations for the "Images of America" series.

The third member of the roundtable is Frederick R. Morin, who lives in Plymouth. His interest is naval aviation and he was chairman of a subcommittee for the Save the Base Committee at South Weymouth.

The original plan, Schmidt said, "was to do something that was South Shore-based, but we wanted to include every war, so it broadened out."

The first symposium included lectures on the role of the Coast Guard in the Battle of the North Atlantic, and wartime technology developed at MIT during World War II. Last year's event included a lecture by sportswriter Bill Nowlin on Ted Williams's service as a pilot during the Korean War.

This year's symposium will include a lecture on a militia company largely from the South Shore that was wiped out in an ambush on the shores of Lake George during the French and Indian War.

The lecture, by Len Travers of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, will also discuss how the families of the men, missing or dead, coped with their loss, exploring what sources of help there were from churches, local governments, and neighbors.

When they're not organizing the symposium, the three men research and discuss a range of topics. And in keeping with the group's name, much of their activity focuses on events from the South Shore's military history.

The most violent occurred during King Philip's War of 1675-76, when many of the region's Indians, spurred on by the Pokanoket sachem known as King Philip, burned and ravaged towns throughout the South Shore.

The war quickly spread to the rest of the colony, raising fears that the fragile settlements would be pushed back into Boston. But after a series of defeats, King Philip was killed in a battle in Rhode Island in August 1676.

Far less bloody was the Battle of Grape Island. In May 1775, the British sent a small force from Boston to seize the cattle and hay on the island in Hingham Bay, which was owned by a local Tory.

As Abigail Adams reported to her husband, John, "all of Weymouth, Braintree and Hingham who were able to bear arms" headed for the island. The British fled and the patriots burned the hay and barn and brought off the cattle.

"A lot happens on the home front," commented Morin. "Every town has something military."

Weymouth, he noted, counts five Medal of Honor winners, from the Civil War to World War II. In Milton, there is the G.H. Bent bakery, which made hardtack for Union soldiers in the Civil War.

Schmidt, referring to students in the course on military history that he teaches at Fitchburg State College, said, "they're 19- and 20-year-olds, and many of them know somebody over there, in Iraq or Afghanistan."

Or, he added, "like us, they have fathers, grandfathers, who served."

The New England Military History Symposium will be held Saturday at the Adams Academy Building, 8 Adams St., Quincy, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For information, call Mark Schmidt at 781-837-5753 or John Galluzzo at 781-724-7131.