Tag Archives: World War II

by | September 3, 2015 · 6:48 pm

His Dream Home

J. C. Browning

J. C. Browning

In thousands of World War II soldiers’ letters in the collections of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections, servicemen express their patriotism, love of family, apprehension, boredom, determination, and a host of other emotions.  Reading of a man’s hopes for the future, however, is especially moving if we know that he didn’t make it home to realize those hopes and dreams.

Edmonson County, Kentucky native James “J.C.” Browning left his teaching job, wife Lila and infant daughter for service with the U.S. Army at Fort Knox in August 1941.  He trained in Ireland, then embarked for North Africa, where he was killed in November 1942 during the Allied invasion campaign known as Operation Torch.  But J.C.’s letters to Lila rarely dwelt upon the threats he faced (he seemed more worried about what would happen to their baby if Lila died while he was overseas!)  Instead, he returned time and again to one of his fondest wishes: that after the war they would purchase a home.  As these excerpts from his letters show, J.C.’s dream was vivid, and no doubt sustained him until his death:

If we really save while I am in the army this year we can make a down payment on our home somewhere. . . . We would admire it and love it as we made it better and better.  I’m really looking forward to that.

I would like to buy a home as quickly as we can. . . .  It takes an awful long time to build up a farm home that we would be proud of.  That is what I want and I will never be satisfied until we get started on it.

We want a very fertile farm close to town.  It should contain about 80 or 90 acres and have the modern conveniences of town.  In other words we want a town home out in the country.

Remember that we have a home to establish and it is a semi-country home.  It should contain about a hundred acres of good land and a tenant house because most of our work will be done for the public.

We must select a good location, one that we would like when we are old as well as now.  We should know what we are going to be doing 10, 20 or more years from now.  We must think and plan things to the best of our ability.

Click here to access a finding aid for J. C. Browning’s letters to his wife Lila.  For other World War II collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | August 13, 2015 · 4:32 pm

V-J Day: “It has passed like a tornado”

Happy warriors: Dee Perguson and Chester Travelstead

Happy warriors: Dee Perguson and Chester Travelstead

Kentuckians heard the first report on August 13, 1945: the war with Japan was over.  Stationed at a center for returning servicemen in Miami, Florida, Ohio County native Dee Perguson reported that “a scream rose to the roof” among his fellow soldiers listening to the radio.  On duty at an air base in India, McLean County native John Owens witnessed joyful men “firing off flare guns, machine guns, pistols and hollering at the top of their voices.”

Unfortunately, the report was premature and quickly retracted.  As surrender negotiations continued, Perguson stayed close to the radio, “hoping to hear the longed-for news.”  Angry at both the false report and Japan’s apparent recalcitrance, he declared himself “all in favor of dropping some more atomic bombs to help them decide to accept.”

Still, when the surrender was confirmed on August 15 — Victory in Japan Day — Perguson had a hard time believing that, at last, “the United States is not at war.”  Navy officer Chester Travelstead, stationed in Seattle, agreed.  Writing to his mother, WKU music teacher Nelle Travelstead, of the atomic bomb, the negotiations and the surrender, he remarked that “It has passed like a tornado.”

But there was little calm after the storm.  First came the celebrations.  In Miami, Dee Perguson witnessed streets filled with people and cars, a Navy band playing, Russian trainees bellowing out songs, and soldiers and sailors trading hats in a communal expression of joy.  Bars and liquor stores had closed the moment the surrender was announced, but “many people who had prepared for the day had their bottles.”  In Seattle, Chester Travelstead wrote, “Everybody kissed everybody.  Paper was thrown from the buildings by the wagonload . . . . The horns tooted a constant din; people shouted and ran.”

Then came the avalanche of work, gathering force since V-E Day, that would be necessary to accomplish the orderly demobilization of millions of soldiers.  The day after V-J Day, Travelstead found himself deluged with directives and orders.  Perguson, working in one of many Miami hotels commandeered by the military, expected to be kept busy either reassigning soldiers who remained in service or providing occupational counseling to veterans returning to civilian life.  And both men were thinking about where they stood in the long line of servicemen eager to get their discharge papers, go home and get on with their lives.

Letters of Kentuckians about V-J Day are part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click on the links to access finding aids.  For other collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | July 17, 2014 · 4:49 pm

“V” for Victory

Winston Churchill; signing pen for his honorary U.S. citizenship proclamation

Winston Churchill; signing pen for his honorary U.S. citizenship proclamation

It first appeared in Nazi-occupied Europe, then took hold in Great Britain.  Promoted by the BBC, the “V for Victory” campaign of World War II featured the letter “V” defiantly chalked on walls, sidewalks, streetcars and other public places, and its Morse code equivalent, three dots and a dash, musically rendered in the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.  But its most iconic manifestation was the two-fingered sign unforgettably employed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill.  “The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories and a portent of the fate awaiting Nazi tyranny,” Churchill declared in a special message broadcast on July 19, 1941.

In 1963, Kentucky Congressman Frank Chelf took the floor of the House of Representatives as a co-sponsor of legislation to make the British leader an honorary U.S. citizen.  The son of an American mother, Churchill already commanded the deep affection of Chelf and his countrymen, but more importantly, Chelf declared, “as long as any of us shall live we shall carry the memory of the resolute, valiant Churchill . . . always holding his hand aloft, with his fingers forming his famous V-for-victory sign, standing as a shining symbol of hope and man’s determination to remain free.”

A week after Chelf’s speech, Churchill wrote a letter thanking him “for the very agreeable things you say about me and for the graceful way you expressed them.”  On April 9, 1963, when President John F. Kennedy signed the proclamation conferring citizenship on Churchill, Chelf received the signing pen as a souvenir.

The papers of Frank Chelf, which include his work for Churchill’s honorary citizenship, are part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Department of Library Special Collections.  Click here to access a finding aid.  For more political collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | September 13, 2013 · 1:03 pm

Apple Blossoms and Horseradish

Red Cross Motor Corps, 1944 (Elizabeth Coombs first row, second from left)

Red Cross Motor Corps, 1944 (Elizabeth Coombs first row, second from left)

Bowling Green native Elizabeth Robertson Coombs (1893-1988) spent much of her youth in New York City, but returned to Kentucky after the early death of her father, a railroad executive.  When the U.S. entered World War II, Coombs, who had worked for a decade as a reference librarian at WKU’s Special Collections Library, was ready to volunteer her skills.  In 1942, she filled out an application to serve with the local branch of the Red Cross Motor Corps.  She noted her proficiency in French, gave WKU uber-librarian Margie Helm as a reference, and for some reason boldly lopped nine years off her date of birth.

The Motor Corps was no delicate feminine pastime.  In their dark grey uniforms and caps, and with an identifying metal disk attached to their licence plates, volunteers undertook a variety of tasks related to the civilian war effort: carrying messages and deliveries, ferrying public health officials to their duties and children to hospital in Louisville, driving mobile canteens, transporting supplies for the blood donor program, doing office work and assisting at public gatherings.  Members attended meetings at the Bowling Green Armory and were liable to be discharged if they missed more than three; an acceptable excuse, however, was having a husband home on furlough.

In order to qualify for the Motor Corps, Coombs completed Red Cross first aid training, then took a 30-hour course in motor mechanics where she learned to change tires, put on chains, adjust brakes, and replace spark plugs.  But the Motor Corps also provided support to the civil defense authorities, and consequently Coombs received additional education in war’s worst-case scenarios, including the possibility of chemical attack.  She learned about the telltale odor of tear gas (fly paper or apple blossoms), mustard gas (horseradish), and paralyzing gases (bitter almonds or rotten eggs), the symptoms of exposure, and what aid to administer.

Fortunately, for Coombs and her fellow citizens, the discomforts of the home front did not extend beyond coping with a scarcity of consumer goods and a federal system of rationing and price controls.  Instructions on her books of ration stamps for food and gasoline gave her the right “to buy your fair share of certain goods” at reasonable prices.  “Don’t pay more” on the black market, warned the Office of Price Administration–and, conversely, “If you don’t need it, DON’T BUY IT.”  Some commodities required special clearance; completion of a two-page form allowed Coombs and her mother to apply for a “home canning sugar allowance” subject to an annual limit of 20 lbs. per person and a warning to “only apply for as much sugar as you are sure you will need.”

Material relating to Elizabeth Robertson Coombs’ life during wartime is part of the Coombs Family Collection housed in the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives section of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For more collections relating to the home front during World War II, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

Homemaker's pledge; ration stamps

Homemaker’s pledge; ration stamps

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by | March 14, 2013 · 1:40 pm

“We wish once more to be as a human”

Aina Raits and family in 1949; and her notes on their clothing sizes

Aina Raits and family in 1949; and her notes on their clothing sizes

In 1949, WKU foreign languages professor Sibyl Stonecipher received a request from the Kentucky Division of the American Association of University Women.  Post-World War II Europe was still struggling with a massive refugee problem, and the Kentucky AAUW had resolved to send food, clothing and other assistance to university women who had become displaced persons as a result of the war.  Could Miss Stonecipher and the Bowling Green AAUW “adopt” a 35-year-old Latvian teacher and musician named Aina Raits and her family, then living in a refugee camp in Germany?

Within two months, Miss Stonecipher had established a correspondence with Aina.  Once happy in Latvia, with a husband, house and garden, Aina, a graduate of the Latvian State Conservatory of Riga, had seen her siblings sent to Siberia and “my man . . . fallen in the war.”  Now, she was passing time in the refugee camp giving concerts, teaching music, and hoping that either the U. S. or Canada would allow her, her new husband, mother, and young children to emigrate.  We wish once more to be as a human and to work and live as the other people in the world, she declared in her careful English script.

Over the next two years, Aina wrote to “My dear, lovely Sibyl” of her life, past and present, and responded gratefully to the packages of food and clothing sent from America, including one from Miss Stonecipher’s colleague, Frances Richards.  But still, she sighed, her family could only “wait, and wait” for a promise of work that would allow them to leave Germany.  She yearned to begin life again.

Finally, late in 1951, Aina and her family emigrated to Jackson, Michigan.  Miss Stonecipher not only kept in touch, but visited them twice before Aina’s death in 1977.  “They are really wonderful people,” she reflected, glad for the opportunity given to her and Bowling Green’s other university women to help a fellow teacher.

Aina Raits’s letters to Sibyl Stonecipher are part of the Manuscripts & Folklife Archives collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click here to download a finding aid.  For other collections, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | February 5, 2013 · 6:46 pm

Military Broadsides

In 1943, World War II was in full swing. U-boats were sinking, London was being bombed, the Trident Conference was taking place, Italy was being liberated by the Allies—and military squadrons were heading to Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Why did so many squadrons come to town? They were using Bowling Green as a part of their troop training. We know that our airport was used for training beginning in 1943. The 11th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron was deployed to the Bowling Green Airport for about four months in 1943 and 1944 and some of the other divisions were probably doing air training as well, though the reasons for a tank division to be deployed here is less clear.

Jim the Pilot

Jim the Pilot

Five military broadsides found in the WKU Archives were apparently made by different squadrons as thank you cards to the citizens of Bowling Green for their hospitality. These broadsides offer some interesting information about soldiers who were about to head off to war. They reveal a sense of humor that underscores the stereotype of the happy-go-lucky, charming, confident American soldier boy. Nicknames like “SNAFU,” “Tough Boy,” and “Toothless” pepper the signatures. Corporal Martin “Snooks” Schnall Jr. is called “Headquarters (Brains of the Outfit)” on one poster. Some posters include references to the battalion’s purpose, like a tank or the outfit’s insignia or a plane, piloted by “Jim,” whose picture has been cut out and pasted into the airplane’s window.  [Click on images to enlarge].

Ship

Ship

One broadside is a complete mystery, though. Why does it have two ships from different eras passing or a sketch of a dog? Instead of including the signatures of the men in the outfit, there is an illegible inscription at the top and a lot of shorthand at the bottom.

Dog

Dog

There are a few other unanswered questions. What brought the tank battalion to town? It was the only part of its division to see engagement; did their training here help them get there and get through? Were hand-drawn posters a typical thank you to towns they visited? And what on earth does this shorthand say?

Shorthand

Shorthand

If you have the answer to these questions or know someone who was attached to any of these squadrons, we would love to hear from you! Please contact archives@wku.edu or leave a comment. Use the links below to take a closer look at the broadsides in TopScholar.

These and other university records are available for researchers to use in the Harrison-Baird Reading Room of the Kentucky Building, Monday-Saturday, 9 to 4.

Blog post written by WKU Archives Assistant Katherine Chappell.

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by | November 10, 2012 · 7:48 pm

Military Resources in WKU Archives

1917 saw the creation of the Army ROTC program at Western under the National Defense Act of 1916.  In 1918, the Board of Regents allowed for the formation of the Student’s Army Training Corps.  Barracks were provided for participating students.  In January 1919, this group became the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps.

During World War II the 321st Army Air Force Cadet Training Detachment took up residence on campus. From 1943 through 1944 the group published a newsletter The Open Post, which has been digitized and is now available TopScholar.

A Military Bibliography of primary and secondary sources in WKU Archives has been created.  It documents WKU student military units such as the Pershing Rifles and Scabbard & Blade.  There is information regarding veterans, World War II, Vietnam and the Persian Gulf War as well.

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by | December 13, 2011 · 2:43 pm

“A Better Person for the Experience”

Dee Carl Perguson, Jr.

Dee Carl Perguson, Jr.

Graduating from high school at age 16, Dee Carl “D.C.” Perguson, Jr. (1921-2010) left his home in Horse Branch (Ohio County) in 1938 to attend Western Kentucky State Teachers College (now WKU).  He earned a bachelor’s degree in history, then entered the U. S. Army.  Perguson served in North Africa and Italy, where he was wounded in January 1944 and sent home to recover.  Earning his master’s degree in 1947, Dee began a life of teaching, travel and volunteerism.

Highlighting the personal papers of Dee Perguson, now part of the collections of WKU’s Special Collections Library, are his correspondence and diaries.  Begun while Perguson was a student at WKU, his diaries offer a detailed account of college life in the shadow of World War II.  During his military service, Perguson kept up a faithful correspondence with his parents in Horse Branch. After being wounded in action, he tried to reassure them.  “My injury is not really bad,” he wrote.  “Two bullets hit my arm, one bone is broken in my upper arm.  Done up in my plaster cast I am in fine shape” and, he continued, “probably a better person for the experience.”

Perguson’s post-war correspondence details his political, church and volunteer activities during his career as a high school teacher in Seattle.  He also kept journals documenting his year in England as a Fulbright Scholar (1949-1950) and his travel to the Soviet Union and Central America.  Ever the historian, Perguson also wrote retrospective essays about his youth and family in Horse Branch.

Click here to download a finding aid for the Dee Carl Perguson, Jr. Collection.  For other collections relating to Ohio County, World War II and more, search TopSCHOLAR and KenCat.

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by | June 16, 2011 · 8:20 am

Kriegsgefangenenpost

Charles Kaenzig's prisoner of war post

Charles Kaenzig’s prisoner of war post

Late in December 1944, John Kaenzig of Versailles, Kentucky received the telegram that every parent of a soldier dreads.  His son Charles, an Air Force lieutenant, was reported missing in action, his plane shot down over Italy.  As John read the telegram, a Kreigsgefangenenpost (prisoner of war post) signed by Charles was on its way to Kentucky.  “I have been taken prisoner of war in Germany,” the Postkarte read.  “I am in good health.”

In February 1945, John Kaenzig received two more extraordinary communications.  One was from the pilot of Charles’s downed aircraft, describing its destruction by anti-aircraft fire.  He had seen Charles parachute from the plane and was hopeful he had survived, because Italian civilians (who had helped the pilot to safety) were friendly and the Germans were thought to treat prisoners humanely.  The second was a postcard from a couple in New York City who had picked up a German short-wave radio broadcast carrying a message from Charles “Kinsie.”  He had arrived at a permanent POW camp and was in good health and spirits.  “With our sincere hope that he will return to you safely and soon,” the couple had addressed the postcard to his mother.

Charles did return after his liberation by Russian troops on May 1.  While he waited in Germany, then France, to be shipped home, he wrote cheerfully to his family.  “These last ten days out from behind barb wire have been wonderful,” he declared.  “Going to be mightly nice to get back on the farm for awhile.”

This collection of letters by and about Charles Kaenzig is available at WKU’s Special Collections Library.  Click here for a finding aid.  For more World War II collections, search TopScholar and KenCat.

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by | January 5, 2011 · 2:37 pm

“Je suis aviateur americain”

World War II blood chit

World War II blood chit

I am an American aviator.  My plane is destroyed.  I cannot speak your language.  I am an enemy of the Japanese.  Be so kind as to protect me, treat me and take me to the closest allied military office.  The government of my country will reward you.

They were called “escape flags” or “blood chits.”  Made of silk, about the size of a handkerchief, they reproduced the message above in several languages including French, Thai, Korean and Japanese.  During World War II, pilots shot down in foreign territory used the flags to identify themselves and obtain help from the local population.  If the pilot failed to survive, the serial number on the flag could offer a clue as to his fate.

WKU’s Special Collections Library holds two such escape flags in the collection of Warren County native and U. S. Navy veteran Cecil Murray Elrod (1923-2002).  The first is pictured at left, while the second shows the flag of Nationalist China.  Issued to pilots in the China-Burma-India theatre, it included a request in Chinese to shelter and protect the bearer, a “foreign person” who has “come to China to help in the war effort.”

A finding aid for the Cecil Murray Elrod Collection can be downloaded here.

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