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- Notes:
- Gerry Bauma lived in the Netherlands during World War II. As a seminary student, he had the opportunity to live in the times without having to go into forced labor as many of his friends did, although he was at one point caught up in a German sweep and sent to a forced labor camp, where he stayed until the seminary arranged for him to be released. He also observed the initial German attempt to capture the Hague by air, and after the surrender took his bike up to Rotterdam to inspect the bomb damage. He got a radio during the war, and passed along things he learned to a friend who ran an underground newspaper. He survived the "Hunger Winter" of 1944-45, and emigrated to Canada shortly after the war.
- Date Created:
- 2011-02-08T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- William Schrader was born in Alpena, Michigan on October 19, 1929. He entered the Army on July 31, 1948, and served in Germany near the end of World War II. After WWII, Schrader went to Korea and served in the Korean War. After Korea, Schrader switched from Infantry to Airborne. After joining the Airborne, Schrader married and he and his wife went back to Germany. Schrader spent 113 days in Lebanon during the Lebanese Crisis, and afterwards, went back to the United States and joined the Special Forces, eventually becoming a Green Beret. In 1962, Schrader left and trained guerillas in both Laos and Iran before going to Vietnam in 1965. Schrader left Vietnam and served in the United States for several years before returning to Vietnam in 1969, where he again trained Vietnamese forces.
- Date Created:
- 2010-05-20T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Walter Felver was born in Littleton, Colorado on September 4, 1927, but his family moved to Phillipsburg, New Jersey when he was five years old. He grew up during the Second World War and lost a brother to that conflict. After graduating from high school in June 1945 he signed up for the draft and in August he received his draft notice. He reported for duty on January 6, 1946, and after a short stay at Fort Hancock, New Jersey he was sent by train to Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training and armored (tank) training. When his two months of training were complete he was sent to Fort Lewis, Washington where he stayed for a year and a half, going on maneuvers, keeping a record of where the small arms were and who had them, and acting as the Venereal Diseases Noncommissioned Officer. He was discharged in September 1947.
- Date Created:
- 2014-10-31T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Jane Evans is the widow of two WW II Veterans. Her first husband, whom she met in school before the War, died in a plane accident during a training mission in Michigan. Her second husband, whom she also met in school, was an engineer during the war. They married after he came home from his service building bridges throughout Europe and staying a year after the war was over, allocating heating fuel to homes in Germany.
- Date Created:
- 2007-05-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Carolyn Burkholder was born in Miami, Oklahoma in 1932. Her husband served in World War II, specifically in the Battle of the Bulge, and landing on Omaha Beach. Her father was a grocer, and she moved to Michigan after the war to get a job at Dow Corning.
- Date Created:
- 2006-05-30T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Mary Louise Crowell shares what life was like at home prior to, during, and after WW II. With the US involvement in WW II, Mary explains what it meant to take an active role in the war at home like saving lard, oil, tin cans, and using ration books. During the war, Mary worked for the Civil Service at Fort Custer as a clerk typist and attended many of the USO events. When WW II ended, Mary married her soldier, Jim Crowell, and together they raised two children.
- Date Created:
- 2007-05-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- John Penning was a civilian who had a career in the airline business. He contributed to military operations from WWII to Vietnam by helping to traffic and guide commercial planes that were used for military use. His job took all around the world, from North American, to Asia, and even to Africa.
- Date Created:
- 2010-05-25T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Jack Baas, Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1920, enlisted in the Navy shortly after Pearl Harbor. Initially, he was initially allowed to return to college to finish his senior year, but before the term ended, he was sent to Mississippi to begin training. He qualified as a Navy pilot and was given his choice of naval aircraft (other than fighters), and trained on the TBF Avenger Torpedo Bomber. He did carrier training and flew patrols off the Massachusetts coast in 1944 and operated off of an escort carrier with an Atlantic convoy, and then was sent to the Pacific early in 1945. Assigned to Carrier Group 83, he flew missions over Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Japan, and participated in the attack on the Japanese battleship Yamato as it attempted to reach Okinawa.
- Date Created:
- 2011-11-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Gloria Jackson was born in 1925 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She graduated from high school in 1942, just before being accepted into the Cadet Nursing Corps. She trained at Butterworth Hospital, Wayne University, and Percy Jones Hospital (Battle Creek Sanitarium). She also worked for some time in Des Moines, Iowa after getting married. She remembers seeing German POW's in the hospitals. Gloria was in Grand Rapids, Michigan when World War II ended.
- Date Created:
- 2006-06-06T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Cecilia Schlepers is the daughter of two Dutch immigrants who lived under German occupation during the Second World War. She talks about what life was like for each of her parents during the war. Her father's family worked on a farm and her mother's family lost their farm during German occupation.
- Date Created:
- 2011-02-15T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Johnnie Myles, born in Natchez Mississippi in 1929, enlisted in the Army in 1946 at the age of seventeen. He qualified for training as a medic, and did both basic and medical training at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. While he was there, the Army began to desegregate, and the all-black unit that he was initially assigned to was broken up, and he was placed in an integrated unit. After completing his training, he was assigned to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where he served in an integrated transportation unit as a medic until his discharge in 1949. After returning to Natchez, attending trade school and getting job in a shoe shop, he decided to reenlist in 1952 in order to see more of the world and make a better life for himself. He was assigned to a base in Arkansas, and was now a sergeant supervising several soldiers in a medical unit. He stayed there for two tours, and was discharged in 1958.
- Date Created:
- 2011-08-25T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Albert Havinga was a civilian residing in Groningen in the Netherlands during World War II. In this Interview Albert gives an account of the invasion, occupation, and liberation of his city from 1940-1945, as well as the recovery of the state after the occupation had ended. In addition, Albert describes many social and economic hardships that where encountered as a result of the Nazi invasion. He also briefly touches upon his immigration to the U.S. after the war had ended.
- Date Created:
- 2011-10-18T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Dora Kilmer was born in Plymouth, England, in 1924. After high school, she worked for a gas company in the office and eventually worked as an air raid warden. As an air raid warden, she patrolled outside and assisted others in getting into the shelters during the raids. She met an American soldier stationed there and married him in 1945 towards the end of the war. Eventually, she went back to the US with her husband and lived in West Virginia, and eventually Michigan.
- Date Created:
- 2012-02-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Nina Trierweiler served as a nurse's aide in the Army during World War II. She and her sister enlisted together, trained at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and were assigned to the military hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan, where she served until November, 1945. She also discusses some of her husband's experiences as a soldier in Europe
- Date Created:
- 2008-02-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Ralph Baldwin was an astronomy instructor at Northwestern University in 1941 who volunteered for service after Pearl Harbor. He was initially assigned to teach navigation, but lobbied for a more important assignment. He was sent in 1942 to a secret program in Maryland being run by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. Here he helped to develop the proximity fuse, a device that enabled anti-aircraft shells to sense when they were near targets and explode. By the end of the war, the fuse had become highly effective, and aspects of the technology developed for it are still used today.
- Date Created:
- 2007-11-12T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Dorothy Folkema was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1922. She left high school after three years and went to work in a factory. She met her future husband, Harold Folkema, in 1939, and they were married in 1941. When the war started, she quit her job to protect her husband's deferment status, but he was drafted in 1943 and wound up on Omaha Beach on D-Day (see his interview in this archive). She had a child to take care of by then, and discusses different aspects of home front life while her husband was away.
- Date Created:
- 2009-10-27T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Ralph Slager was born in Comstock, Michigan on January 9, 1928. He grew up in Comstock during the Great Depression and World War Two and graduated in June 1945. The draft was still in effect after the war ended, and after turning eighteen in January 1946 he was susceptible to being drafted. He decided to enlist in the Army for an eighteen month commitment on March 8, 1946. He reported to Fort Custer, Michigan and Fort Sheridan, Illinois for his physical and getting inducted, and was then sent to Fort Knox, Kentucky for basic training and artillery training. He was then stationed at Camp Campbell, Kentucky with a signal company in the 5th Division, and then was sent to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey for high speed radio operator training. After that training he was reassigned to a signal company in the 3rd Division at Fort Meade, Maryland where he worked as a radio operator in Baltimore, Maryland and at a hospital on base. He was discharged on September 7, 1947.
- Date Created:
- 2015-05-18T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Carl J. Strom served in the United States Army in France and Italy during WW II from July 1942 to May 1945. In this interview, Strom and his wife, Eleanor, talk about their wartime experiences. Eleanor discusses life as an Army wife and how she followed her husband from boot camp to boot camp. Strom was a member Company B, 141st Regiment, 36th Infantry Division and lead the first platoon of soldiers across the Rapido River at the Battle at Cassino. He and one other soldier were the only people to survive from their Platoon's crossing. Strom's account of the Battle at Cassino is told in great detail. Strom shares stories of leaky boats, the bombing of the Abby, and intense casualties. He also discusses his Division's invasion of Southern France and an unlikely friendship between himself and a German Captain. Strom integrated maps, photographs, and his medals into the video interview.
- Date Created:
- 2006-05-29T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Alida Glas was a teenager in the Netherlands during WW II. In this account, Glas discusses family and friends, the invasion of Holland, and life during the German occupation. She mentions the activities of the Dutch Underground, the effects of the food shortage in the Netherlands, and what German troops were like in her village. Glas concludes by discussing her life after the war and some of her thoughts on the war.
- Date Created:
- 2008-02-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Grace Harper was born in Iowa in 1923. She married Robert Powers in 1941. She and her husband had two children when he was drafted in 1944. Her husband was sent to Europe and was wounded in action and spent several months in the hospital before returning home.
- Date Created:
- 2009-05-30T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Eleanor Cameron is the widow of Malcolm Cameron, 3rd Infantry Div. who served during WW II. In this interview she discusses her life as a military wife, her husband's experience and injury while serving in Europe, and their life together after the war.
- Date Created:
- 2007-06-03T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Richard VanAllsburg, born on February 17th 1921 in Grand Rapids Michigan, served in the U.S. Navy from approximately 1943-1945 as a pilot during World War II. Richard spent his first year of service in various training locations and active duty on bases. He soon volunteered to be sent to the Pacific in order to fly more. Richard was sent to Hawaii where he pulled targets for shooting practice. After being discharged in 1945 Richard joined the Naval Reserve. He was called back into duty in 1962 to carry out reconnaissance missions in the Caribbean for approximately 1 year.
- Date Created:
- 2005-06-06T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Rosadell Galmish Wolf, wife of 2nd Lieutenant Elvin Jay Galmish, tells the story of her husband during World War II from her perspective. Elvin Jay Galmish enlisted in the Army Air Corps at the age of 21 and trained to be a pilot. His wife traveled with him during his training until he was sent to Europe in 1944 where died in service of his country. He was a bomber pilot, based first in England and then in France (so presumably with the 9th Air Force).
- Date Created:
- 2009-06-09T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Kolleen Crane is the widow of WW II veteran Richard Crane. In the interview she tells of being a telephone operator when Pearl Harbor was attacked. She met her husband at Midland (TX) Air Force base, where he served as a B-24 crew chief, responsible for maintaining the air craft. He was sent to school at Washtenaw College as part of the Officer Training program. After leaving Washtenaw they went to Massachusetts, then to South Carolina where they spent the rest of his enlistment.
- Date Created:
- 2007-05-22T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Rita Glanz was one of the 10,000 Jewish children saved before WWII started as a result of the Kinder Transport. Her father, a successful businessman, was driven out of Austria and into Switzerland by the Nazis. Mrs. Glanz was taken in by a couple from Coventry, in Great Britain, and remained with them for the duration of the war. Afterwards, her father wrote letters to Winston Churchill and George VI, and managed to get his daughter out of there. She spent three years with relatives in Birmingham, Alabama. She grew up in New York, graduated from high schoo, and spent two years in college before getting married. Her husband had escaped from Germany to Ireland, eventually coming to the United States.
- Date Created:
- 2008-04-24T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Henry Diedering was a teenager in the Netherlands when the Germans took over in 1940. He describes life in his home town under occupation, and of his efforts to avoid being impressed as a forced laborer by the Germans when he turned 18. He made his way to Rotterdam and got a job on a cargo ship on the Rhine River, and worked on it until the ship was damaged by Allied air attack. After that, he tried to make his way home, staying in damaged and abandoned houses, until he found a German village that had no able-bodied men in it, and where he worked for the villagers until the spring of 1945, when the Canadians took over the area. Seeing few opportunities at home, he enlisted in the Dutch Marine Corps and was sent to Indonesia, where the Dutch were attempting to reassert control, and was sent home after the Dutch agreed to leave.
- Date Created:
- 2010-02-25T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- Notes:
- Cappy Rowe served in the U.S. Air Force from 1941 to 1971. He enlisted in the Army prior to the start of the war, and trained initially as an artillerist, but eventually was accepted for pilot training. He served in the Pacific during the latter part of World War II, flying out of Guadalcanal and other islands. After the war, he had assignments in England, South Africa, Austria, Hawaii and the continental US, doing various types of intelligence work, and retired as a full colonel.
- Date Created:
- 2012-08-21T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Grand Valley State University. University Libraries
- Collection:
- Veterans History Project (U.S.)
- 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.)