Veterans History Project
1714 items
- Notes:
- Marthajane Kirby was born on November 4, 1927 in Kansas City, Missouri. When her high school sweetheart joined the Marines, she wrote to him regularly until he was killed. His friend, Stanley Kirby, then took up the correspondence, and when he finally returned to the US, the two were married. See other interview record for papers.
- Date Created:
- 2008-04-23T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Zena Smith was born in 1926 in Birmingham, England. As a teenager, she experienced the effects of war on her community. She had a job at an office after completing public school that made tanks for the North African Desert War. There were often sirens heard throughout her community to warn them about air raids. She contracted diphtheria at one point and had to stay in a hospital for eight weeks and was there when a bomb hit her hospital. She took a job with a defense plant and saw Winston Churchill and General Montgomery when they visited it. Mrs. Smith met her husband, Ken Smith, in 1944 and dated a year before marrying. Her husband worked at Packington Park and was an assistant during autopsies. After getting married and at the end of the war, she traveled on the Queen Mary to the United States.
- Date Created:
- 2012-02-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Lloyd Snowdeal was born in Rockland, Maine in 1927. After graduating from high school he enlisted in the Navy. Lloyd went to radio school after training and became a Radio Officer. Lloyd went on trips across the Pacific in a large convoy on a repeater ship. His job was to repeat changes in the course from the commander ship to all of the other ships in the convoy. After the war was over in the Europe, he brought replacements across the Pacific to Japan. Lloyd was discharged and then on February 23, 1950 he enlisted in the Air Force for the Korean War. He became a Bypass Specialist and was assigned to a B-29 squadron. Lloyd became sick and went home, but later volunteered to go back overseas. He was stationed at a service and repair depot and then spent the rest of his time in the Air Force close to home in Bangor, Maine.
- Date Created:
- 2008-05-20T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Shirley Weber served in the 32nd Infantry (Red Arrow) Division during WWII in New Guinea. His company teamed up with the Australians fighting Japanese soldiers on the island. He spent time fighting in Buna, Saidor and Aitape battles. He received the Bronze Star for an operation to pull out fire from the Japanese hiding in the jungle. He contracted malaria on New Guinea, which eventually led to his being sent home, where we worked with German POWs at a camp in Chicago. Military papers appended to the interview outline.
- Date Created:
- 2008-04-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- John Baker III was born in Kalamzoo, Michigan in 1935. He grew up in Kalamazoo and enlisted in the Army in 1954. John received basic training at Camp Chaffee, Arkansas and engineer training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Upon completion of his training he was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington where he took a ship to Alaska. He was assigned to Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, Alaska for two years and worked in the machine shop. Upon completion of duty in Alaska he returned to Fort Lewis, Washington and served for two years as a truck mechanic. At the end of his service he contracted meningitis, and once he recovered from that was discharged from the Army on June 18, 1958.
- Date Created:
- 2016-02-05T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Bryan Tobias enlisted in the Air Force six months after he graduated from high school. He received basic training in San Antonio, Texas and received mechanical and material training in Rantoul, Illinois (most likely at Chanute Air Force Base). After training he spent eight years in Anchorage, Alaska (most likely at Elmendorf Air Force Base) and completed his service at Fort Walton Beach, Florida (most likely at Eglin Air Force Base).
- Date Created:
- 2015-04-20T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Handwritten letter and envelope with transcript by Joe Olexa to Agnes Van Der Weide, dated July 2, 1944. The envelope is sent from Det. of Patients, 4187 U.S. Hospital Plant, A.P.O.-152, c/o Postmaster New York, New York, dated July 5, 1944. In the letter, Joe writes to Agnes on a Sunday while recovering in the hospital, reminiscing of the Sunday's they used to spend together and how swell it will be when they are together once again.
- Date Created:
- 1944-07-02T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Roger Elliott, born in 1949, enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1967 and served in Vietnam as a supply sergeant at Cam Ranh Bay. After his tour in Vietnam, he completed his enlistment at Fort Lee, Virginia.
- Date Created:
- 2012-05-24T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Bill Heintzelman enlisted in 1961 and trained as a radioman in the Navy. He was stationed at the Panama Canal during the Cuban Missile Crisis where he patrolled aboard ships and along the canal. When Heintzelman went back into the Navy after a ten year gap between his first and second term of service, he worked as a journalist at several stations around the world.
- Date Created:
- 2008-08-24T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Ken TerHaar was born in Byron Center, Michigan on January 31, 1928. He graduated from high school in 1946 and was drafted into the Army in August 1950 at the beginning of the Korean War. Ken spent six months training at Fort Knox in Tennessee and another six months training at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey. He was then sent to a base in Germany where he worked with the Army of Occupation for about one year. He spent time working with many German citizens while the country recovered and saw the effects of the Cold War grow stronger over the year.
- Date Created:
- 2008-04-09T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)