History Commons^™

Elrod, Cecil Murray, 1923-2002 (Mss 352), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscript Collection 352. Material related to Cecil Murray Elrod, chiefly about his service in the U.S. Navy during World War II in the Patrol Bombing Squadron VPB-21. Includes notes on planes and guns discussed during training, aviators flight log books, and other military papers. Also includes information about reunions of the Valley High School (Jefferson County, Kentucky) Class of 1943.

Rich, Louis Arnold, 1921-1944 (Sc 2402), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2402. Letters of Louis Arnold Rich, a U. S. Army private from Tompkinsville, Kentucky, written to his wife and in-laws during his military training and while hospitalized for a long illness that resulted in his death on 3 August 1944. He writes of his medical condition and mentions other soldiers from home. Includes letters from his wife, Martha, to her parents and grandmother discussing his medical treatment. Also includes an unidentified soldier’s letter and a child’s letter to her father.

Robertson, J. Lee, B. 1922 (Fa 535), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 535. Interview with J. Lee Robertson conducted by Kenneth Hines and Gil Calhoun in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Robertson reminisces about the U.S. Army during World war II and his long association with Western Kentucky University.

Pace, Stanley Carter, B. 1921 (Fa 532), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 532. Presentation made by Stanley Carter Pace, a Kentucky native, to an unidentified group at the Eldorado Country Club, Indian Wells, California, on 25 March 1998 about his experiences in World War II. Pace served in the U.S. Army Air Corps. In August 1944 he was shot down in Austria and placed in a hospital and then transferred to a German prisoner of war camp. He was liberated in April 1945. Videotaped by Dreamweaver Video of Palm Desert, California, 1998.

Ms-117: Papers Of George H. Sweet Jr. ’42, Elizabeth M. Ungemach

All Finding Aids

This collection gives insight into the pre- and inter-wartime life of George H. Sweet Jr. ’42 as a member and captain of L.S.T. 358 in the Mediterranean. It also provides general information about World War II in the Mediterranean and L.S.T.s. It further gives a glimpse of the experiences of Donald Sweet ’49 as an aircrewman in the Pacific theater, specifically about life and important happenings during the invasion of Okinawa in 1945.

Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about …

Closing The Greenland-Iceland Atlantic Air-Gap: 1939 To 1943, James F. Boland

History Theses & Dissertations

The Battle of the Atlantic during World War II centered on the submarine guerre de course of the German Kriegsmarine, aimed at severing the maritime bridge between Great Britain and North America. From 1939 until mid-1943 all of the belligerents involved struggled to balance the scarce resources they could marshal for the fight. For the Allies the limited number and quality of escort ships and patrol aircraft they could muster reflected this scarcity. During the summer of 1943 the Allies achieved their turning point in the battle when a complex mix of factors coalesced. Prominent among those factors was …

Tolle, Donald James, 1918-1993 (Sc 2344), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Typescripted World War II diary of Donald James Tolle, kept 1942-1945 while serving in England, Italy and North Africa with the Army Air Corps, 47th Bombardment Group (Light). Includes diary annotations made in 1988, materials from a 1979 reunion of the Bombardment Group, biographical data on Tolle, his obituary, and a colleague's remarks at his memorial service.

World War Ii, 1939-1945 - Letters (Mss 330), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 330. Letters written to parents, friends, faculty and staff of Western Kentucky University by students during their service in Word War II. Includes some press releases, newspaper articles and photos. Also includes a history and travel log of the USS Stevens.

Warren County, Kentucky - World War Ii Servicemen (Mss 326), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 326. Data and newspaper clippings on U.S. military personnel from Warren County, collected during their service in World War II. The seventy pages of names includes women and African Americans.

Robertson, Gabrielle, 1889-1970 (Mss 323), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 323. Chiefly letters to Gabrielle Robertson, History Department faculty member, Western Kentucky University, 1916 to 1960. Of particular interest are those letters from former students serving in the military during World War II. Also includes genealogical materials and family photographs.

Pearson, Murl Douglas, 1920-1970 (Sc 2285), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2285. Letters sent from Murl D. Pearson to his parents, Dewey and Cora Pearson, Bowling Green, Kentucky, in which he relates information about his service in the U.S. Army in World War II. Pearson was working at a desk job in England during the course of these letters.

Sutton, Thomas W. (Sc 2319), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid, scan and typescript (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2319. "A Letter on a Record" from World War II in which Thomas W. Sutton, Camp Crowder, Missouri, records an oral letter on a phonograph record to Eva Mae Stone, Washington, D.C. The record has a U.S.O. logo and the paper enclosure has a military theme. A typescript of the letter is included.

Newman, Robert Mason, 1910-1988 & Frances Earlene (Holton) Newman, 1918-2012 (Sc 2278), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2278. Miscellaneous papers, chiefly items related to Robert Mason Newman's retirement from the U.S. Naval Reserves and pre-marriage letters written to Frances Earlene Holton from her friends.

Interview No. 1640, Thomas Edward Dent, Mary Helen Dent Trammell

Combined Interviews

He describes the schools growing up, and how they were all named after famous Texans, such as Davey Crocket and James Bowie. Mrs. Trammell describes how her mother was forced to work because of her father’s age and failing health. Her father had asthma and eventually suffered a stroke. The family lived in a rural area, where they kept chickens, cows, and other animals. Mr. Dent describes the fear that existed when WWII broke out, as he was still in elementary school. Both siblings describe the process of making phone calls at this time, and dealing with operators. There were …

Toomey, Lawrence Otto, 1903-1992 (Sc 2212), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2212. Lawrence Otto Toomey's memoir titled "Duty in the Medical Corps Reserves, May 11, 1942-January 30, 1966," dealing chiefly with his service in the Pacific during World War II. Also includes a copy of his obituary.

Interview No. 1630, James L. Hayden

Combined Interviews

As a career soldier, Hayden spent the better part of his life in the Army; in this interview he recalls his experiences as a fourth-generation West Point graduate, his service both in the Army Constabulary in immediate post-World War II Germany and in Korea during the Korean War, his responsibilities at White Sands Missile Range under Wernher von Braun, and his recent volunteer work as a West Point admissions advisor. Born in 1923 in New York, Hayden was expected from birth to attend West Point; indeed, his father was an instructor there at the time. Although he applied in 1940, …

Interview No. 1622, Michael Fushille M.D.

Combined Interviews

He describes the process of getting into medical school, and trying to keep his G.I. benefits. Dr. Fushille enlisted in the Navy before the war and was accepted, but was told to remain in school because they had no place for him. He eventually served on an aircraft carrier during WWII, where he faced hurricanes, fires, and kamikaze attacks by the Japanese. Dr. Fushille served in the combat information center on the carrier as a radar technician. He finished his medical exams in 1957, before returning to New Jersey to complete his internship; by this time he and his wife …

Over Here, Over There (Fa 480), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

FA Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 480. Collection contains recorded interviews and transcriptions conducted by David Baxter and Laura Harper Lee. The interviews contain information about the war effort at home and, for those who served, their experiences with the military and their combat experiences specifically.

Wku Veterans History Project (Mss 278), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Collection 278. Biographical data sheets and video interviews with U.S. war veterans in western Kentucky as part of the Veterans History Project, created by Congress in 2000. Dr. Gary L. Villereal, regional project coordinator.

The Experience Of The 756th Tank Battalion In World War Two: A Microcosm, Scott Millenbach

Senior Theses

December 7, 1941, "a day which will live in infamy," was the moment that the United States was plunged into the largest conflict that the world had ever seen. The sovereignty of the United States was being threatened at two ends of the globe by tyrannical leaders on the continent of Europe and the islands of the Pacific. In the years to come, the U.S. would have to fight to stop the spread of Emperor Hirohito's army in the Pacific and Hitler's Nazi Wermacht in Europe. It would take all the resources our mighty country could muster and the fighting …

Brown, George A., Jr. - Letter To (Sc 2148), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2148. Letters (2) written to George A Brown, Jr., Nashville, Tennessee, from two friends serving overseas during World War II; one was in Germany and the other was in the Pacific.

A History Of El Paso's Company E In World War Ii, Jorge Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

For the most part, Hispanics in the U.S. military were not segregated into separate units, but there was, at least, one known exception. It is this particular story of a National Guard unit from El Paso, Texas designated as Company E that has received minimal attention by historians. This unit was unlike any other unit of the National Guard in that it consisted only of Mexican-Americans.

Interview No. 1639, Itzhak Kotkowski

Combined Interviews

Itzhak Kotkowski is an author that wrote about his experiences in the Holocaust during World War II; he was born in Warsaw, Poland on December 25, 1921; his family was Jewish, attended private school; Mr. Kotkowski addresses anti-Semitism among Polish people, personally never experienced it; he lived in the Jewish section, enjoyed life there until the German invasion on September 1, 1939; he recalls being at home when Warsaw was occupied, had always respected German culture; he explains his father worked hard to give them an education; he describes his three sisters, one was in Mexico, one immigrated to the …