Today’s post is by Dr. Greg Bradsher, Senior Archivist at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. U.S. Military forces began capturing records almost as soon as the war began and started exploiting them immediately. Documents were first captured from a Japanese plane downed in the Pearl Harbor attack. These provided the first clues to … Continue reading The Capture and Exploitation of Japanese Records during World War II
Today’s post is by Dr. Greg Bradsher, Senior Archivist at the National Archives at College Park, MD. Dealing with World War II-era looted assets can be a challenging endeavor. Prior to 1990 there were relatively few scholarly works or newspaper articles on the subject of World War II-era looted assets, in part because of the … Continue reading World War II-era Far East Cultural Property Losses: Research at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland
Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher, Senior Archivist at the National Archives at College Park, MD. Within five years after the end of World War II the Japanese Government was making requests for the release of convicted war criminals and for the return of records that had been captured by US military forces. … Continue reading A Brief Survey of the Disposition of Captured Japanese Records, 1945-1962
Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher, Senior Archivist at the National Archives at College Park, MD. In January 2002, I met Duval A. Edwards, an Army Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) veteran of World War II in the Pacific and learned that he had been involved in the capture of Japanese records, beginning in … Continue reading The Exploitation of Captured Japanese Records
January 1943, while on her fourth war patrol, the USS Growler (SS 215) from Brisbane, Australia, had been patrolling the sea lanes to Rabaul on the western end of New Ireland, she encountered a fatal missed opportunity. The area had been active and alerted to the presence of an American submarine prowling around. The Growler … Continue reading Prepare for Collision! The Ramming of the USS Growler and a Japanese Gunboat
Today’s post is by Joseph P. Keefe, Archives Specialist at the National Archives at Boston. The USS Braine was a twenty-one-ton Fletcher class destroyer which had been built and launched at the Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine in March of 1943. Following her participation in General Douglas MacArthur’s campaign to retake the Philippines, the … Continue reading The Kamikaze Attack on the USS Braine, May 27, 1945
Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher, Senior Archivist at the National Archives at College Park, MD. On November 27, 1941, Lt. Cmdr. Edwin T. Layton, Fleet Intelligence Officer, United States Pacific Fleet, met with Colonel Edward W. Raley and the Intelligence Section of the Hawaiian Air Force, to discuss the B-24 reconnaissance mission. … Continue reading Prologue to Pearl Harbor: The Spy Flight that Wasn’t, Part II
Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher, Senior Archivist at the National Archives at College Park, MD. On December 4, 1941, at 9:08 pm, at Hamilton Field, located along the western shore of San Pablo Bay in the southern portion of Novato, California, 1st Lt. Ted Faulkner with his crew in their Consolidated B-24A … Continue reading Prologue to Pearl Harbor: The Spy Flight that Wasn’t, Part I
Today’s post is written by William Green, Archives Technician in Textual Processing at the National Archives in Washington, DC U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Edward N. Little was a prisoner of war (POW) from April 1942 until August 1945, as one of the nearly 30,000 Americans interned by the Japanese during World War II. Having survived … Continue reading The General Courts Martial of Lieutenant Commander Edward N. Little
Today’s post is written by David Langbart, an Archivist in the Textual Records Division at the National Archives at College Park. As numerous scholars have demonstrated, World War II in the Pacific had a distinct racial aspect to it.[1] The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor reinforced a long-standing strand of American racial animosity towards … Continue reading Watching Out for Your Friends: 1942 Guidance for U.S. Propaganda in the Pacific During World War II
