In 1942, US military officials visited the Navajo Nation and recruited 29 Navajo men to train as Code Talkers in the Marines. Code Talkers used their tribal language to send secret messages on the battlefield. By the end of the war, more than 400 Navajos were trained as Code Talkers, participating in nearly every major…
We’ve added a new collection of WWI records to our archives! The U.S. WWI Burial Cards document the death and burial of over 78,000 American soldiers in WWI. These cards contain information including: Name of the deceased Unit assigned Date and cause of death Burial location Final resting place if reinterred Emergency contact information (often…
Thanks for joining us earlier this month during our live stream from the Gettysburg battlefield. It was our privilege to work with the American Battlefield Trust as we learned more about this important battle. We’re highlighting a few of the soldier’s stories and artifacts you may have missed during the broadcast. Our special thanks to…
“It affords me very great satisfaction to be able to inform you that…I received the sword-belt and scabbard which were taken from your father’s body upon the field at Gettysburg,” wrote Dr. John Wilson Wishart from a field hospital near Cold Harbor, Virginia. The recipient of the letter was 10-year-old Emma Roberts, a young girl…
On April 4, 1943, ten US service personnel outwitted their Japanese guards and escaped from a work camp in the Davao Region of the Philippines. One of those escapees, Lt. Commander Melvyn Harvey McCoy, kept a journal during his imprisonment. After his escape, he gave a detailed report of the brutal treatment of POWs and…
The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. With more than 50,000 casualties, it represented a turning point in the Civil War and ended Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s second attempt to invade the North. This coming July, in conjunction with the 158th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, we are…
In 1941, with the looming threat of war, Congress authorized the creation of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). The bill became law in 1942, but since the WAAC was an auxiliary unit and not governed by United States Army regulations, enlisted women were not eligible for overseas pay or government life insurance. In 1943,…
