Collections

This collection relates to Major James J. McFarland who served with Headquarters, 59th Medical Battalion as a physician in the European Theater of Operations during World War II. The collection contains letters written by McFarland to his future wife Joy McFarlane.

This collection relates to James J. McGuire who served with the 102nd Infantry Division during World War II and was captured by the Germans in November 1944 near the Roer River. The collection includes documents related to prisoners-of-war, including special postage and protocols for sending letters to American POWs, special postage and protocols that James McGuire had to follow to send letters back to his family, and even an extremely detailed, multi-page set of instructions on how to order tobacco products for American soldiers in German POW camps. It also includes a ration book application, and a ration book itself.  Finally, it includes communications, telegrams, and letters, between the McGuire family and various government agencies and departments as they attempt to gain more information about James McGuire and his fate.

This collection consists of 21 letters written by Staff Sergeant James J. Sherman, U.S. Army Air Force. Sherman was the son of  Joseph and Florence Sherman of Newburgh, New York.  The letters were written to his parents from May to October, 1943 while he was stationed at bases in Colorado, Florida, and Utah.  After completing his training as an aerial gunner, he was sent to Italy and served with the 745th Bomber Squadron, 456th Bomber Group, Heavy.  He was reported missing in action on Thursday, May 4, 1944, and is memorialized at Florence American Cemetery in Via Cassia, Italy.

Two documents pertaining to Parole of Civil War Prisoner of War Suval D. Crawford, Private of the Waddells, Ala., Vols. C.S.A. One dated Vicksburg, Mississippi, July 9, A.D. 1863, filled in and signed by Lieutenant General John C. Pemberton, C.S.A., Commanding, on the 4th day of July, 1863, "do in pursuance of the terms of capitulation of the City of Vicksburg and its garrison, give this solemn parole under oath..." The document is also signed by Suval D. Crawford. The other document, dated Columbus, Georgia, May 19, 1865, Headquarters Calvary Corps, M.D.M., is a declaration by Suval D. Crawford that "I will not bear arms against the United States of America..." and signed by J.C. Lawson, Capt. and Acting Provost Marshal, C.C.M.D.M.

James William Lockett served in the U.S. Army 28th Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division, 1st Army, in the European (ETO), North African, and Mediterranean Theaters. Colonel Lockett was a 1928 West Point graduate. The collection includes a ten-page manuscript entitled "The March," which is about Lockett's serving with the Army in the European Theater and being a POW. Lockett was made to march by German guards with approaching Russians in January 1945. He discusses his encounters with the guards and the people along "the March." In March 1945, US artillery takes the Serbian compound where they were and freed them. Also, he describes the subsequent days to get out of danger, and he is eventually sent to Paris to speak with the press. In the manuscript, there are references to General Patton's son-in-law whose presence in the camp was a motivator for forming escape plans.

This collection relates to James M. Ryan who served as a 2nd Lieutenant Bombardier on a B-24 Bomber with the 866th Squadron, 494th Bombardment Group, stationed in Okinawa. Ryan's plane was shot down over Kyoto on July 28, 1945, and he was then imprisoned by the Japanese (declared missing in action by the United States). Ryan subsequently perished 500 feet from the epicenter of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. This collection contains photographs, letters, documents, and artifacts relating to the life, service, and death of James M. Ryan. His cased engraved purple heart medal is included in this collection.

The James Nelson Goodsell Collection documents four decades of Latin American and Caribbean history. Mr. Goodsell was the Latin American correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor news organization from 1964-1985. His archival legacy includes photographs of and transcripts with regional leaders from all across the region, from South America to the Caribbean and Central America.

Photostats of Civil War letters by James M. Nixon (d. 1863), 8th Fla. Regt., (1861-1863) to his wife, Louise A. Nixon, Mt. Pleasant, Gadsden County, Florida.

Collection contains typescripts of a published poetry book and two unpublished plays created by James Noble Harrell.