Of the 16 million men and women who served in the military during World War II, fewer than 2 million remain.

On Thursday, two of those survivors told their stories before a packed house in the activities room at Ephrata Public Library.

Marlin Groft of Lancaster, a U.S. Marine Raider, and Paul Daugherty of Columbia, a navigator on a B-24 Liberator bomber, were the stars of the program, hosted by Blue Ridge Cable and the Pennsylvania Cable Network. Both men's stories were featured on the PCN series "World War II: In Their Own Words." Daugherty's tale also has been published by PCN in a book of the same title, while Groft appears in volume two, "World War II Reflections."

Daugherty, now 88, was a 20-year-old second lieutenant and navigator with the 450th Bomb Group, flying out of Italy. He talked about the life of a bomber crew, including the layers of clothes, some electrically heated, needed to endure being inside the unpressurized planes, where the temperature at 24,000 feet is 30 degrees below zero.

"On top of that, you have to wear a flak jacket, which has metal inside it, and a protective helmet," he said. "That's another 80 pounds."

During a mission on Dec. 29, 1944, to bomb a German-held railroad loop line at the Brenner Pass, anti-aircraft fire struck his plane's left wing, knocking out both engines. The Liberator was going down, and Daugherty bailed out at 22,000 feet.

"As the plane went down, I saw the port wing come off," he said. "I thought about the pilot and that he couldn't have gotten out in time. But he did."

Captured, Daugherty was sent to Stalag Luft I, a prisoner-of-war camp at the town of Bart on the Baltic sea coast.

"Being a POW is no fun," he said.

He recalled being interrogated by a member of the dreaded German Gestapo, or secret police. Surprisingly, he said, the man was quite cordial. Then he revealed why.

"He told me, 'You know who's going to win the war, and I know who's going to win the war. I want to be treated the same way I am treating you,' " Daugherty said.

Groft, also 88, lived in Lebanon when the war began. He came to Lancaster's Stahr Armory to enlist in the cavalry, like his father before him. Told that was not possible, he joined the marines because he liked the uniform.

"I'd never seen a marine," he said. "I didn't know what they did."

After boot camp, he volunteered for the raider battalion being formed by Col. Merritt A. "Red Mike" Edson, because he heard they would see action against the Japanese.

"That's why I went into the service," he said. "That's where I wanted to be."

Groft described the unit's first fight in August 1942 on the tiny island of Tulagi, which was defended by 400 Japanese heavily dug into the coral.

"It didn't take us long to get acquainted," he said.

After taking Tulagi, the raiders were sent to the nearby island of Guadalcanal. There, on Sept. 12-13, about 700 raiders fought off vicious Japanese night attacks with hand-to-hand combat. When it was over, about 60 Americans and more than 800 Japanese lay dead.

Groft would see more action on New Georgia and Okinawa.

Groft credits Edson and his tough training for his own survival.

"He had no peers in the South Pacific," Groft said. "My life was spared by being in the First Raider Battalion."

PCN hosts these veteran talks all around the state, said Rick Cochran, vice president of marketing, and the vets "love it."

"So many of them have never talked about this before they were interviewed for television, and now they love going to these things," he said.

Daugherty said talks like this are an important way to preserve the stories, and urged veterans who refuse to talk, to do so "and not take their stories with them."

"Those experiences are lost," he said. "And if we can keep even a little bit of it alive, it's worthwhile."

lalexander@lnpnews.com