Oral History Commons^™

Italian Fellas In Olive Drab: Exploring The Experiences Of Italian-American Servicemen In Sicily And Italy, 1943-1945, Guido Rossi

Master's Theses

Despite constituting the largest ethnic group in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II, the experiences of Italian-Americans have received scant attention by historians. In particular, the stories of the U.S. citizens of Italian descent or Italian-born but naturalized Americans who served in Italy, have received almost none. These soldiers, sailors, airmen, and coastguardmen who could often speak Italian, had grown up in Italian-American families and neighborhoods, and still had relatives in Italy, were asked to go fight in their country of origin. During the Allied advance, these men found themselves in close contact with a destitute Italian population …

An Oral History Of Italian American Identity & Perception During The First Half Of The 20th Century, Joshua A. Hoxmeier

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

This paper will detail the experiences, perceptions, and memories of working and middle class Italian American men during the first half of the twentieth century and examine the differences between how the two World Wars and their aftermaths shaped the ethnic identity of these men. By looking at Italian American World War II veterans, I conclude the notion that Italian American inclusion was achieved through the First World War and the nationalism of the 1920s, especially the restriction of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, is not fully representative of both the realities and perceptions of a sizable number of …

George Downing Interview For The Veterans' Voices Project, George Downing, David Berry

Veterans' Voices

George Downing joined the United States Navy in 1963. He served in Vietnam, the Philippines, and Pakistan. He was discharged 1969.

Wolfgang Grossman Interview For The Veterans' Voices, Wolfgang H. W. Grossman, Jeniffer Seavey

Veterans' Voices

Wolfgang H. W. Grossman enlisted in the United States Army in 1969. He served at Fort Campbell, Fort Gordon, Fort Dix, Fort Bragg, and in Vietnam. He was awarded the Bronze Star, the Good Conduct Medal, the National Defense Medal, and more. He attained the rank of Specialist (E-5) and was discharged in 1978.

Alleged Insanity: Frank Johnson Sr., Racial Injustice, And The Failure Of The Mental Health Care System In South Carolina, Jonathon P. Johnson

Senior Theses

This thesis is about Frank Johnson Sr. and the circumstances that led to his downfall as a farmer and father of six, to his tragic death in the isolation of a racially segregated mental institution 18 miles away from his home. Using his life and incarceration at the South Carolina State Park mental health facility, I argue that racial injustice contributed to his tragic death and the woefully inadequate treatment thousands of African Americans in South Carolina received during Jim Crow. Additionally, I argue that the tragic circumstances around my great grandfather’s institutionalization and death were part of an enduring …

Daily Life At Crystal City Internment Camp 1942-1945, Caitlin T. Dietze

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Throughout World War II, the belligerent countries took enemy civilians, as well as soldiers, prisoner. The majority of the camps created to hold these prisoners were located in the European and Asian theaters of battle, but the United States operated prisoner of war camps and civilian internment camps as well. American internment camps, administered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), imprisoned persons from the Axis countries of Japan, Italy, and Germany, deemed a threat to national security and categorized as a group as “enemy aliens.” Generally, these individuals were not threats, and a sizable number were legal U.S. citizens. …

The Tragedy Of Deportation: An Analysis Of Jewish Survivor Testimony On Holocaust Train Deportations, Connor Schonta

Senior Honors Theses

Over the course of World War II, trains carried three million Jews to extermination centers. The deportation journey was an integral aspect of the Nazis’ Final Solution and the cause of insufferable torment to Jewish deportees. While on the trains, Jews endured an onslaught of physical and psychological misery.

Though most Jews were immediately killed upon arriving at the death camps, a small number were chosen to work, and an even smaller number survived through liberation. The basis of this study comes from the testimonies of those who survived, specifically in regard to their recorded experiences and memories of the …

The Death Knell For Jim Crow: How African-American Soldiers’ Experiences Abroad Impacted The Modern Civil Rights Movement, Richard J. Sipe

MAD-RUSH Undergraduate Research Conference

This paper examines African-American soldiers’ experiences abroad in Europe during the Second World War and the occupation of Germany, and how these experiences affected their fight for Civil Rights on their return to the United States. The paper argues that the experiences of African-American soldiers in Europe, where they were free from Jim Crow Laws and treated with respect and equality by Europeans, created a new consciousness of equality that led to the demand for equal rights at home. The paper challenges traditional historical interpretations of the Civil Rights Movement by emphasizing the Movement’s international aspect. It accomplishes this by …

Oral History Project/ Margaret Jenkins, Cassia H. Reid Ms.

World War II

Margaret Jenkins was born in Humboldt, TN and spent most of her growing up years in Florence, Alabama and then moved to San Francisco when she was married. After the war, she lived in the town where the atomic bomb was tested, Oak Ridge, TN.

Although she does not have the experience most WWII veterans have, she still can share about her brother, husband, and father. Her husband and father served in the East Tennessee Valley Ordinance and her brother was in Iowa Jima and was also the great General MacArthur's secretary. We will also discussed her opinions and feelings …

Women And World War Ii At Gettysburg College, Keira B. Koch

Student Publications

An examination of the women attending Gettysburg College during World War II. This project examined what the women did and experienced during the World War II, along with analyzing campus culture and life.

A Resistance, Remembered? Remembrance, Commemoration And The Parallel System In Prishtina, Kosovo, Conner Gordon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Though the 1999 war that liberated Kosovo from Serbian control is over fifteen years in the past, memories of the 1990s still remain in a state of chaos. This paper approaches the development of these collective memories through interviews with Prishtina residents about the memories and legacy of Ibrahim Rugova’s parallel structures in the 1990s. Though they draw from similar narratives as memories of the Kosovo Liberation Army’s armed resistance, memories of the nonviolent resistance play a vastly different and largely underrepresented role in current Kosovar Albanian public discourse. Through competing deployments of resistance memories, disproportionate memorialization of Kosovo’s violent …

Encounters With Eisenhower: Personal Reminiscences Collected To Mark The 125th Anniversary Of The Birth Of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Michael J. Birkner, Devin Mckinney

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

The general who orchestrated the greatest amphibian invasion in history, and led Allied forces in the great crusade to crush Adolf Hitler’s armies, subsequently became a popular two-term president of the United States. In the annals of American success stories, it’s hard to beat the life that Dwight D. Eisenhower made.

Yet this heroic figure was also a “natural man,” as one of the contributors to this volume of personal reminiscences suggests. Lady Dill was referring to Eisenhower’s humanity and lack of pretense. Unlike other leading figures of his day—including a certain five-star general who orchestrated the American island-hopping campaign …

Tales Of A Combat Advisor In Iraq, Jerry Kidrick

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

In 2010, Army aviator Jerry Kidrick was mobilized from the Alaska National Guard to lead a team of Combat Advisors in Iraq. For 16 months in Basra, he advised the Iraqi Army on counter-insurgent actions. He also acted as liaison between the US State Dept.,CIA and US Commanders. He will discuss his experiences and how the Iraqi military assumed a greater counter-insurgent role under Operation New Dawn.

The Avenger - July 2014, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

The Avenger - March 2014, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

The Lafayette Mclaws Papers, Lafayette Mclaws

Lafayette McLaws Papers

Complete letters and transcriptions.

“To Fly Is More Fascinating Than To Read About Flying”: British R.F.C. Memoirs Of The First World War, 1918-1939, Ian A. Isherwood

Civil War Institute Faculty Publications

Literature concerning aerial warfare was a new genre created by the First World War. With manned flight in its infancy, there were no significant novels or memoirs of pilots in combat before 1914. It was apparent to British publishers during the war that the new technology afforded a unique perspective on the battlefield, one that was practically made for an expanding literary marketplace. As such former Royal Flying Corps pilots created a new type of war book, one written by authors self-described as “Knights in the Air”, a literary mythology carefully constructed by pilots and publishers and propagated in the …

Voices From D-Day, June 6, 1944, Musselman Library

Other Exhibits & Events

Seventy years on from D-Day, we still marvel at the stoic heroism of the men who contributed to the success of what remains the greatest amphibious invasion in the history of warfare. The Normandy campaign would, in one way or another, prove a pivotal moment in the ongoing world war. A disaster in the campaign to liberate France would set back Allied hopes for crushing Nazism in Western Europe. It would also fray the alliance with the Soviet Union that was essential to defeating Hitler’s forces. By contrast, success would mark not just the end of the beginning of the …

An Interview With D. Scott Hartwig, Thomas E. Nank '16

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

D. Scott Hartwig, Supervisory Historian for Gettysburg National Military Park, retired in the fall of 2013. In recognition of his long service to the park and community of Gettysburg, Associate Editor Thomas Nank interviewed Mr. Hartwig concerning his personal experiences gained over three decades working at Gettysburg as well as the future of the National Park Service and the field of public history in general.

The Avenger - October 2013, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

Reading "Between The Lines", Sarah Hansen

Student Publications

Twenty-seven years: the time it took after Paul O’Connell’s return from Vietnam for him to fully reflect on his war experience. O’Connell, a Marine who at the age of eighteen served in the jungles of Vietnam from October 18^th, 1968 to October 1^st, 1969, was a purple-heart receiving grunt who faced some of the most horrid experiences of guerrilla warfare. His memoir, Between the Lines, is a collection of his letters written home from Vietnam, and reflections about his experiences and the “between the lines” of the correspondences. Throughout his memoir, the themes of heroism, cowardice, …

Perception Vs. Reality: Wwii Veterans Are More Than Willing To Share Their Stories, Thanasi Metropoulos

World War II – Related Research Projects

I created the Bristol Veterans History Project to record and preserve the stories from World War II and Korean War veterans in the local area.

The attached paper and corresponding PowerPoint presentation were created for a presentation with Professor Debbie Mulligan in Washington, DC.

Ua37/30/1 Faculty Personal Papers Lowell Harrison Correspondence/Subject File, Wku Archives, Sam Bruer, Bess Mchone

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Correspondence and subject files created by Lowell Harrison.

Beyond The Battle: Religion And American Troops In World War Ii, Kevin L. Walters

Theses and Dissertations--History

This dissertation examines the ways in which military personnel interacted with religion during World War II. It argues that the challenges of wartime service provided the impetus and the opportunity to improvise religious practices, refine religious beliefs amid new challenges, and broaden religious understanding through interaction with those from other traditions. Methodologically, this dissertation moves beyond existing analyses that focus primarily on institutions and their representatives such as military chaplains. Instead, it explores first-person accounts left by men and women who were not part of the chaplain corps and analyzes ways in which non-chaplains engaged religion. The exigencies of war …

We Did Our Part: The Story Of A World War Ii Aaf Air Transport C-47 Pilot In The South West Pacific, Kay Nehring

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

Hear the story of Lt Charles J. Nehring, as told by his daughter, who went from selling shoes in N. Dakota to dropping paratroopers on Corregidor. He served with the 39th SQ of the 317th TCG from ‘42 to ‘45 and shot rare 16mm color film of his daily activities and flights. Kay narrates the film and reads from his letters home, as well as brings a collection of his WW II things for viewing. A unique and personal look at the war.

The Avenger - August-December 2012, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

The Avenger - March-May 2012, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.

Ua94/6/7 Student / Alumni Personal Papers Wku Irene Gullette, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about Irene Gullette. This collection contains correspondence with WKU librarians and administrators regarding her time at WKU and her later accomplishments in the field of Library Science.

Ua68/8/2 Potter College Of Arts & Letters History Oral History Committee, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by the Oral History Committee. Series includes oral history interview tapes and transcriptions.

The Avenger - November 2011, Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale Museum

The Avenger

No abstract provided.