World War II

WORLD WAR II

Complete Content List

- Full Citation: John Balfour, "A British Diplomat's Portrait of America in 1939," ed. Thomas E. Hachey, Indiana Magazine of History 70, no. 3 (September 1974): 229-251.
- Home: London
- Year: 1939
- Abstract: British Foreign Officer Counselor John Balfour gave this address to the British Imperial Defense College on June 8, 1939. He had been stationed in Washington, D.C. from 1924-1928, and College officials had asked him to brief officers of British Commonwealth nations on American culture. His address shows influences of Frederick Jackson Turner, James Truslow Adams, and Denis William Brogan, and is valuable for insight into British military perceptions of the United States on the eve of World War II. This document had recently been unclassified by the London Public Records Office at the time of publication.
- Sample Text:
  1. "The frontier, or rather a succession of frontiers, guaranteed that there should be no lack of opportunity for the individual to realise his dream." (p. 235)
  2. "As the best energies of the Americans were absorbed by production, politics could never be more than a secondary pursuit." (p. 242)
  3. "It is perfectly understandable that newly-arrived immigrants or elements which cannot be fully assimilated should be held at arms length." (p. 248)

- Full Citation: Virginia Mayberry, "Draftee's Wife: A Memoir of World War II," Indiana Magazine of History 79, no. 4 (Dec. 1983): 305-329.
- Home: Elkhart County (Middlebury)
- Year: 1941-1945
- Abstract: Mayberry was born in Cleveland in 1921, raised in Indianapolis, and graduated from Indiana University in 1941. She met her future husband while working on an in-house newspaper for L.S. Ayers. They were married in August 1942. Joseph Mayberry was called to service in February 1943 and was first assigned to Camp Crowder, Missouri. The family moved several times during the war, but spent most of the time (2 children were born by the end of the war) at Gore Field in Great Falls, Montana. After the war, the family settled in Goshen, Indiana.
- Sample Text:
  1. "Some argued that service wives ought to stay home instead of traipsing around hither and yon, dragging their brats into other people's towns... I feel a wife belongs by her husband's side, and a child should have his father's steadying influence so long as possible." (321)
  2. "There was an indefinable quality about parties at the officer's club at Gore Field that will never be equalled... Among people whose lives existed only from day to day there developed a keener sensitivity for pleasure that lent intensity to our brief joy." (325)
- Full Citation: Lawrence C. McFaddin, "A Hoosier Soldier in the British Isles," Indiana Magazine of History 41, no. 3 (September 1945): 294-302.
- Home: Monroe County (Bloomington)
- Year: 1944-1945
- Abstract: McFaddin was a junior at Indiana University when he enlisted in December 1942. He was stationed in England with the Office of Strategic Services, and had the opportunity to take a couple of short vacations to Boat of Garten, Scotland, and St. Ives with his friends, and wrote back to Indiana about his travels. He was transferred to Germany after the war.
- Sample Text:
  1. "The first afternoon there, we dozed around the fire... It was a wonderful feeling of being completely away and yet closer to the things I consider priceless than I had felt for weeks." (Boat of Garten, Scotland, p. 296)
  2. "There were no plain children there... How strange it is that these children will mature into the plain old women who sit on the waterfront and knit vests, and men who fish at night and sleep through the days." (St. Ives, pp. 300-301)

- Full Citation: Bernard L. Rice, "Recollections of a World War II Combat Medic," Indiana Magazine of History 93, no. 4 (December 1997): 312-344.
- Home: Mishawaka (St. Joseph County)
- Year: 1944-1945
- Regiment: 12th Armored Division, 82nd Medical Battalion, Co. C
- Engagements: Herrlisheim
- Abstract: Bernard Rice, after training for an eventually cancelled engineering position in the Army, was assigned as a medic to the 12th Battalion. He arrived in England on October 1, 1944, and then in France on November 11, 1944. He was involved in tending the wounded in the 8-day battle "The Hell of Herrlisheim" where the Allied lines held against German forces. He crossed the Rhine on March 28, entered Dachau in April, and was in Munich by May. He was discharged in March of 1946 and attended his first reunion in 1980. This article contains maps and images, some of which may not be suitable for younger readers.
- Sample Text:
  1. "At Herrlisheim, hell and health met at the hands of the combat medic and were forever after united." (p. 324)
  2. "Even our bloodiest battle could not prepare us for Dachau... Words cannot describe what we saw nor the feelings of revulsion we felt." (pp. 334-335)
- LC Subject Headings:
  1. Dachau (Concentration camp)
  2. United States. Army. 12th armored division