WWII. World War II Archives

Scope and Contents

This collection related to the 27th Troop Carrier Squadron includes a manuscript that consists of memoirs entitled "Freedom Rings," which were gathered from members of the Army's 27th Troop Carrier Squadron about their time in the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater. The squadron was in the CBI Theater from 1942-1945. The squadron was involved in many Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and SACO (Sino-American-Cooperative-Organization) operations, including rescues and liberations of P.O.W.'s. The collection includes their veteran's association magazine/newsletters as well.

Scope and Contents This collection relates to the 97th Bombardment Group which was based in England, Africa and Italy during World War II and the first operational bomb group in England in 1942. The collection contains documents (mostly photocopies) on missions, statements and statistics, three diaries, and newspaper articles. Their daily operations reports, narrative reports, and casualty reports detail their accomplishments and their losses. Included are a collection of videos, audio tapes, and microfilm. Included are copies of three personal diaries by Alex Blair, Jr., LeRoy Teschendorf, and Herman F. Lykins. Also included is an extensive photograph collection of flight crews, air fields, and...

Scope and Contents

This collection relates to the 385th Bombardment Group, Heavy, that was stationed at Station 155, Great Ashfield, Suffolk, England during World War II.  The collection includes a publication which documents the group's history during the war.

Scope and Contents The collection of the 460th Heavy Bombardment Group Society contains a unit history of this B-24 U.S. Army Air Corps Group, 55th Wing, 760th, 761st, 762nd, 763rd Squadrons and Group Headquarters, which served in the Italian Campaign. This collection primarily focuses on the memory of the war and those who served in the 460th. Included is a listing of the airmen who were held as prisoners of war, including their squadrons, positions on the plane (e.g. pilot, gunner), the date, mission, and what country or stalag in which they were held. Also included is a booklet, "Remembering the 460th Bomb Group (H)," which contains photographs, personnel lists, and maps, and was prepared as a...

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This collection relates to the 484th Bombardment Group (Heavy) that was assigned to the 15th Air Force and based in Torretta, Italy as a component of the Foggia Airfield Complex during World War II and assigned B-24 Liberator heavy bombers.  The materials contained in this collection were subsequently assembled during the post-war period by the 484th Bombardment Group Association.  The collection contains official reports, data sheets, statistics, newspapers, Missing Air Crew Reports, personal histories, photographs, and unit histories.

Content Description

This collection refers to Zelma D. Abarbanel, who served as a Technician Fourth Grade with the WAC Second Detachment during World War II. Abarbanel worked as a stenographer and assistant for the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the Office of Weapons. The collection includes a transcript of an oral history interview, one letter, the military records of both Abarbanel and her husband, Milton Goldman Abarbanel, and several photographs depicting Abarbanel’s life as a WAC.

Content Description

This collection relates to Donald and Portia Ackerman. Donald Ackerman served as a pilot on B-24 bombers with the 44th Bomb Squadron, 506th Bombardment Group, in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. He continued to serve in the U.S. Air Force for 20 years and served during the Korean War.This collection contains an oral history transcript, artifacts, audio tapes, documents, letters, maps, pamphlets, and photographs relating to Donald and Portia Ackerman.

Content Description

This collection relates to James Adams who served as an infantryman with the 26th “Yankee” Division and later the 87th Infantry regiment, part of General George Patton’s 3rd Army. The collection contains letters and postcards from James Adams to family, mostly his mother.

Content Description

This collection relates to Charles Aiken who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps in the European Theater of Operation during World War Two. This collection contains a newspaper clipping and an oral history transcript.

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This collection consists of an oral history interview transcript of Aldo Busot, who lived in Cuba during World War II.

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This collection relates to Allen Jere Tillery who served with the United States Marine Corps in the 22nd Marine Regiment, 6th Marine Division, in the Pacific Theater at the battles for Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Guam, and Tinian. This collection includes a published memoir of Tillery's time in service: Well and Smartly Done: a remembrance of war 1943-1945.

Scope and Contents The Monte Allen U.S.S. Kwajalein (CVE-98) collection contains comprehensive records pertaining to officially recorded, declassified daily life aboard the Casablanca Class Escort Carrier U.S.S. Kwajalein, an aircraft carrier, as well as various visual and auditory artifact materials relating to the work and lives of its crewmen. The collection specifically regards the life of U.S. Navy sailor Monte Allen, information he was able to preserve, and the first-hand observations he deemed important. Allen authored the collection himself. The collection contains detailed photocopies of and notes on ship records, including war diaries, daily logs, muster rolls, and reports of changes...

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Saul Alpern’s oral history transcript describes in detail his experiences growing up in Romania before World War II, the beginning of the war, listening to Adolf Hitler on the radio, life in labor camps, forced marches, hiding during the war, anti-Semitism, liberation, Zionist youth organizations, and his memoir.

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The collection of Alvin Dinsmore White consists of three letters and a V-mail written by Army officer Jim White of the 42nd "Rainbow" Infantry Division during World War II.  Also, in the collection is a news article and email describing his two other family members' actions during the war. Fort Benning, Georgia, and Rotenberg, Austria are the two discernible locations where Jim wrote his letters.

Content Description

This collection includes miscellaneous materials collected from numerous sources by Michael Amdahl, a Refuse Transfer Center worker who collected and donated found materials over the course of many years. Included in this collection are a variety of graphic materials, letters, documents, magazines, and a book on the 13th Air Force. Also included are photographs depicting war-torn cities, soldier life, sea and air vessels, and scenery from around Europe.

Scope and Contents

This collection relates to Private First Class Clarence H. Anderson who served with the 41st Armored Infantry Regiment, 2nd Armored Division, in the European theater during World War II. The collection contains letters from Anderson to his fiance Eleanor Schumaker. The letters encompass ten months from March 1944-January 1945 in which he writes from England, France, Belgium, and Germany. Clarence was wounded in Germany and sent to a hospital in England to recover. Julius Sleszak was stationed in California in the Transportation Section at Camp Beale. He sent seven letters to his wife during November 1945.

Scope and Contents This collection pertains to Oliver “Bud” Anderson who served as a Ship Fitter Second Class aboard the USS Clifton (IX-184) during World War II. The collection contains letters Anderson sent to his mother, father, and brother Nolan while stationed in various locations in the United States, Australia, New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan. Anderson's letters discuss mail, his high school sweetheart, Indigenous peoples, weather, entertainment, a furlough, rationing, and training. His government documents, several menus, and reflections from 2000 on his war experiences are also included. The collection also includes letters Anderson’s brother-in-law, Boyd...

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This collection relates to Private First Class Richard E. Anderson who served with Company L, 381st Infantry Regiment, 96th Infantry Division, during World War II in the Philippine Islands and Okinawa. The collection includes a letter, memoir, and newspaper clippings.

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The Anson E. Voorhees collection contains one folder with a 14-page typed transcript of an oral history interview.

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This collection contains a manuscript memoir of Anthony Catalino's WWII service in the U.S. Army Field Artillery and staff work at Army hospitals and supply depots in North Africa and Italy.

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This collection relates to Fred and Lucille Anton. Fred Anton served with the United States Marine Corps during World War II and China after World War II. This collection contains letters sent between Lucille and Fred Anton, also containing a few photographs.

Scope and Contents This collection consists of the business records from the Apalachicola Tent and Awning Company once located in Apalachicola, Florida. The company manufactured pyramidal tents under contract from the United States Army from early 1941 to at least October 1942. The records are unclear as to when the company ceased operations. J.H. Hodges, Sr. owned the building that housed the company from 1935 until 1951. The records reflect a wide range of day to day operations including ordering raw materials, sending and receiving invoices, tracking orders, requests for information, correspondence with the Federal Government including bids, rating certificates and other needs of the...

Scope and Contents Private First Class Jack Appel's oral history transcript details his life before and during World War II where he served with the 17th Signal Operations Battalion in the United States Army in the European Theater of Operations. His oral history elaborates on his early life, contracting Spinal Meningitis, completing basic training, trying to apply to Officer Candidate School, becoming a driver/messenger, arriving in Europe, landing at Normandy, traveling through France Belgium, and Germany, witnessing Battle of the Bulge, visiting the concentration camp Buchenwald, interacting with civilians, gambling on leave, the discharge point system, returning home, and his experiences with...

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William J. Arlet served with the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. This collection includes photographs and documents related to William J. Arlet. This collection also includes captured Japanese photographs, which were acquired in 1943 on Guadacanal, Solomon Islands from a United States Marine who was about to deploy to his next assignment.

Content Description

This collection relates to Technical Sergeant James A. Armstrong who served 691st Ordnance Company in the European Theater of Operation. He participated beginning with the Normandy Campaign and each subsequent campaign with the company through to Germany. After the war, he was also commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant Ammunition Supply Officer and assigned to the 633rd Ordnance Company. The collection contains letters, military documents, and photographs.

Content Description

This collection relates to Lyle D. Armstrong and his service in the U.S. Army during World War II in the Pacific Theater of Operations. The collection contains a veteran’s questionnaire where he shares his experience in service and recalls a memory of being in Manila when the Japanese Envoys came to speak to General MacArthur. He also mentions that he kept in contact with some of the men he met in service. The collection also contains photographs of Armstrong and his three older brothers, who also served in World War II.

Scope and Contents This collection includes a United States Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas Intelligence Information Bulletin on Okinawa, dated 15 November 1944. It also includes a U.S. Naval Training School (Hollywood Beach Hotel, Hollywood, Florida) graduation class 4-44 yearbook entitled "The Quarterdeck," dated 21 July 1944.  Other content includes Thanksgiving and Christmas 1945 dinner menus for U.S. troops in Samar, Philippines. Class photographs included int he collection are from Landing Craft School, A.T.B. Coronado, CA, as well as, Naval training class photographs. The collection also contains photograph album pages...

Scope and Contents This collection includes letters written to Arnold Busch, a basketball coach for Calvary Methodist Church in Lakewood, Ohio, by the students he previously coached. Whether drafted or enlisted, many of the men kept up a correspondence with Busch throughout the war years. This collection also includes Calvary Church newsletters and pamphlets, pamphlets regarding persons registered for service, ration books and other rationing documents, and letters returned to Busch because their recipients were MIA, deceased, or relocated. Also included are photographs of Calvary Church activities on the Homefront, the basketball team, and the Calvary Church’s V-J Day service as well as a copy of an...