Marines skateboarding into combat… sounds like something out of a Back to the Future sequel, right? Well, as a matter of fact, the U.S. military experimented with using skateboards in combat situations. In the March 1999 exercises known as Urban Warrior ’99, the military experimented with the potential use of skateboards to detect trip wires [...]

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher. T/Sgt. Edward Mitsukado, a Nisei interpreter with the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), code-named Galahad and usually referred to as Merrill’s Marauders (named after Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill, its commander) “Somewhere in Burma” in mid-June 1944 decided to write a letter to the Commandant of the Military Intelligence Service [...]

Today’s post is written by Dr. Greg Bradsher.   During the first days of August 2012, at Archives II, I looked at three archival boxes that were labeled as Captured Korean Documents.  They were Japanese documents, bound together in small groups of pages by the Allied Translator and Interrogator Section (ATIS) of MacArthur’s General Headquarters, [...]

This post was written by Harry B. Kidd, a volunteer at Archives II, for the volunteer newsletter, The Columns. In the spring of 1918, the German Army launched a major offensive in the hope of achieving a quick victory before the full weight of American Forces could be brought to the line.  Beginning in May [...]

“This is an American soldier – he is your friend.”  So read the leaflet prepared by the United States for use in Vietnam.  Underneath that caption, it pictured several American infantrymen advancing into combat. The time, however, was not the 1960s; it was mid-1945 and World War II in the Pacific was drawing to a [...]

Today’s post is written by Archives II volunteer Jan Hodges. Do you know what a shellback ceremony is? Chances are that unless you’re a Navy man or a relative, you probably don’t. It’s a ritual conducted aboard ship after it crosses the equator. And not just any old ceremony–one that becomes part of the sailor’s permanent record. The Reference Unit [...]

Our guest blogger today is DeAnne Blanton, reference archivist at Archives I. The Archives I Reference Section is pleased to announce our in-house digitization project in honor of the Civil War sesquicentennial.  During the course of the next five years or so, the 2,750 volumes comprising the Collected Record Books of Various Executive, Legislative, and [...]

Today’s post is written by Adam Minakowski, an archives technician who works with researchers in College Park. Opening a box of records in the Textual Research Room at Archives II, you expect to file folders stuffed with typed or handwritten documents.  Sure, you’ll sometimes encounter log books, photos, and maps, but these are still paper-based [...]

During World War II, many American military personnel, primarily aircrew, found themselves trapped behind enemy lines.  The MIS-X Section of the Captured Personnel and Material Branch of the Army’s Military Intelligence Service handled matters dealing with escape and evasion (E&E) out of hostile areas and intelligence operations relating to Allied prisoners of war.  E&E training [...]

Today’s post is written by Judy Luis-Watson, volunteer coordinator at Archives II in College Park, Maryland. During World War I (WWI), more than 12,000 American Indians served in the armed forces of the United States.  In the army, their many roles included serving as gunners, snipers, patrol workers, messengers, scouts, medical personnel, radio operators, as [...]