A Gold Star Service Flag is presented to the family of service members who died while serving in the US Armed Forces. Each gold star represents an individual life, and one group of volunteers is working hard to tell each of their stories. Stories Behind the Stars (SBTS) was founded in 2019, and to date,…
In November 1942, an air transport crew ferrying a B-17 Flying Fortress to England diverted to Greenland to participate in a search for an overdue plane. During the search, the Flying Fortress crashed on the Greenland ice cap. Before the epic ordeal was over, five men died (including three rescuers), and the others spent months…
In April 1865, some 2,000 passengers, mostly Union soldiers, boarded the Sultana in Vicksburg, MS. The soldiers had recently been released from prison camps, including Andersonville and Cahaba. Weary and tired, they had begun the arduous trek home following the end of the Civil War. The 260-foot-long wooden, side-wheel steamboat, designed to hold 376 passengers,…
Do you have ancestors from Massachusetts who served in the Revolutionary War? We have added a new collection, Massachusetts, Soldiers and Sailors in the Revolutionary War, 1775-1801. This collection contains an alphabetized index created by the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from primary historical sources. More than 620,000 cards containing service information for Revolutionary…
On July 17, 1951, SFC Milton Wesley Bailey was patrolling with his unit near the 38th Parallel in Korea. While on this reconnaissance mission, Bailey’s unit came under heavy enemy fire on an exposed ridgeline. Bailey was the Rear Guard on this mission and shouted for his team to retreat while he provided cover. When…
The Battle of the Bismarck Sea was a pivotal WWII battle fought March 2-4, 1943, in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA). Allied aircraft from the US Fifth Airforce and the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) attacked a convoy of Japanese ships transporting troop reinforcements to Lae, New Guinea. The Allies destroyed most of the convoy,…
We are pleased to announce that we have added a new collection of records for Black and Indigenous Soldiers who served in the Revolutionary War. These records are primarily manuscripts dating from 1775-1783, including muster rolls, pay vouchers, and enlistment records. Barring a few units, the Continental Army was mostly integrated. Black and Indigenous men…
