In the days leading up to Memorial Day 1964, a project 19 years in the making was getting its finishing touches.
World War II had ended in Europe but was still raging in the South Pacific when the Cleveland Press first floated the idea of a memorial fountain on the Mall in May 1945. The memorial would be sculpted by Marshall Fredericks, a Rock Island, Illinois, native who grew up in Cleveland and attended the Cleveland School of Art. The announcement was made that fall, shortly after Fredericks had returned home from his own service in the Pacific as a lieutenant colonel in the 20th Bomber Group.
Fredericks was noted at that point for the Barbour Memorial Fountain at Belle Isle Park in Detroit, and would later sculpt the Spirit of Detroit at its City-County Building, as well as a statue for the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens…