Douglas Hamilton is a U.S. Navy veteran and retired university professor in upstate New York. Years ago he read in VFW Magazine about a proposed new museum at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, and decided to drop by on his way to Colorado. Construction was under way, and he remembers having to wear a hard hat as he walked around.
After that visit, he became a Patron Member of the Museum and purchased Walk of Honor bricks honoring his father and his uncle, both veterans of the First World War. His uncle served in the U.S. Army and was gassed in France. His father was a machinist’s mate on the oiler U.S.S. Maumee (AO-2). During the war, the Maumee conducted the Navy’s first under way refueling (see above image). His superior officer on the Maumee was the Chief Engineer, Lieutenant Chester W. Nimitz, who became Commander in Chief of American forces in the Pacific in the Second World War.
Hamilton returned to the National World War I Museum and Memorial every Memorial Day for 14 years, bringing an American flag from his father’s grave and planting it on the lawn each year. There is a room at the Westin Kansas City at Crown Center with a beautiful view of the Museum and Memorial, and he reserved that room every year. He has donated several World War I artifacts to the Museum, including a trench knife and a bolo knife that are on exhibit.