The University of Akron, University Libraries, Archival Services
The B-26 Marauder Archive

The Marauder Voice

War and Remembrance

At the end of the millennium, there was a lot written about what was important and unique in the 20th Century. While there were many major events in that century, and many of those were actually seen by our members, every poll has agreed that the most important event of the 20th Century was World War II. In this issue we’ll be looking not only at World War II as history but as a human event, and we hope to tell you of what is being done by the B-26 Marauder Archives at The University of Akron to make the history of those amazing days available to future generations.

We are the products of our memories not only as individuals but as a society. An archive is the storehouse of memory. A museum is a storehouse of things left over from human events. A university is a place where knowledge is transmitted from one generation to the next, new knowledge is developed from the old, and new ideas are created.

Your Story and the Next Generation

The past semester I had the unique opportunity to teach a colloquium for the University Honors Program entitled "War, Peace and the Humanities in the 20th Century." The Honors Program students are all students in the top 5% of their high school classes and are attending the University on scholarships. Over and above the normal degree requirements, they are also required to take three colloquia (seminars) during their time here in the area of humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. These courses are an opportunity for people of all academic backgrounds to come together to explore topics from their various perspectives. My class had students majoring in engineering, education, communication, political science, business, dance and mathematics.

My goal was to examine the nature of the nation’s decisions on matters of war and peace in this century and to see how those events were reflected in human terms and to discuss the impact of those events on the people who participated. This is why the Archive was developed and I was fortunate in being able to use many of the materials in the Archive to bring the subject of World War II to life. The final exam topic was to discuss a personal account in the Archive and to draw conclusions from it.

Let me say a few words about today’s students, at least the ones I know. I taught three classes this semester in addition to working at the Archive, and my wife has noted that this is quite a lot for somebody who’s been retired for two years. In two of the classes we had what we call "non-traditional" students. These are people comparable to most University of Akron students: half are over 25, 95% have a job, many have families, but all are there working on degrees to improve themselves. The Honors students are "traditional": 18-22, full-time students, and "young."

Let’s keep in mind that these people were not born until at least 1978, and there’s a lot of your lives and mine that they haven’t experienced, as I discovered during a lecture on the Sixties. This is not their fault, and they can do things such as splice DNA that you and I would not have ever thought possible. However, remember that they don’t know of a time before TV, the only Pope they’ve known is the current one, they can’t remember polio and they’ve never seen a major war. There’s a real challenge in trying to teach about things that happened years before they were born. But, the important thing is that they want to learn.

We began our discussion with the idea that much of what happened prior to 1939 was the foundation of World War II, and much of what has happened since 1945 was the direct result of the War. World War II is the truly pivotal event of this century and we’ve spent a lot of time discussing the sweeping social, political and technological changes that have occurred because of World War II. We also made the point that the 20th Century was unique in the sense that it saw the rise and fall of totalitarianism in the space of one generation’s lifetime.

However, I didn’t want to make this the sort of "history" course that you and I hated so much; we weren’t going to memorize names and dates for the final. My goal was to bring these sweeping events to life through the use of books, novels, films and archival materials.

As an example, one point I wanted to make was that while there was serious opposition to US entry into World War II, that this all evaporated after Pearl Harbor, and the nation pulled together for victory. The credit for that has to be given to the common man, to the people who fought and kept the home fires burning. As just one example, I mentioned what the War Department came to call the "Battle of Los Angeles" in February 1942. A Japanese sub had fired a couple of shells at the California coastline and set off a reaction that ultimately produced three deaths in traffic accidents because of blackout restrictions, and seriously scared 2 million Californians. The Los Angeles Times editorialized that it was a privilege to show "our foes the typical reaction to their tactics of the first community of the continental United States to come under fire." Showing them the actual newspaper articles brought this to life.

I wish I could properly convey the reaction the class had when they watched "Doubleheader" the unreleased documentary about a Marauder unit flying two missions from England in one day. That same day we viewed "Your Job in Germany" which I’m sure many of you saw during the War, and they were visible moved by the sacrifices you made. Our viewing of John Ford’s "December 7" brought your images of Pearl Harbor to another generation.

Since so much of the section on World War II would involve archival materials, the students learned quite a bit about the Marauder and the 9th Air Force, since these are our major World War II holdings. Of course, they got all the standard information, but more to the point they also read the words written in diaries and letters home about the experiences of ordinary people. They know that the B-26 was built by Martin, and that portions of it were built in Akron by war workers. They know what war workers were, their contributions, and what life on the home front was like. They also know something about the popular culture of World War II and they heard the only song I know of written about a B-26 ("Comin’ In On A Wing And A Prayer").

We discussed "Saving Private Ryan" and they were also surprised to learn of another event that happened on June 6, 1944, the taking of Rome by the Allies. We discussed the Battle of the Bulge not only as a battle, but as a factor in the diplomacy that led to Yalta. And, yes, we discussed the four Marauders at Midway and how they may have changed the course of the battle.

I was as nervous about the final exam as they were, but we succeeded. These students are a group that I’m willing to turn the world over to, and I think you’d be proud of how excited they became as they read the materials in the archives, looked through Life magazine from the War years and analyzed the content, and read the personal accounts in the Archive. By the way, they all got an A.

However, the important thing that happened was that these students were able to connect World War II to those events before and after it, and see how the past is prologue. A couple of weeks after the course, and after the grades came out, I received an e-mail from one of the students:

"I just wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed the Humanities Colloquium this past fall semester. Your stories were interesting and I learned a lot about our country’s past that I did not know. A few days ago I watched a TV special about Time Magazine’s Person of the Century. It also reviewed the past 100 years of our country. It described a lot of the things we talked about in class."

Those of you who have been teachers can appreciate what it feels like for your plan to actually work and to know that you’ve done what you set out to do. However, while I’m glad the lectures were interesting, the stories were not mine; they were from all of those who came before, and they were all in the records we seek to preserve. (Stan Akers)

Research Activity at Akron

Since the last newsletter, we’ve had another major increase in research requests coming to us by mail, phone and the Internet. Most days, we receive four to six informational requests. The vast majority of these come from the "second generation" of people who were not in the War but are searching for all sorts of answers for all sorts of reasons. We have also had an increase in on-site researchers, and this is gratifying.

Much of this increase is due to the proliferation of sites on the World Wide Web which have bulletin boards on which people can leave questions. Several of our Board members (notably Mary Lucas and Hugh Walker) have been monitoring these sites and getting in touch directly with the people asking the questions and working with the Archive to find the answers. The contributions of our Board to this effort is phenomenal and the important thing again is that the Marauder message is getting out. If you view our home page at http://www3.uakron.edu/ul/archives/b26/links.html you will see a list of "links" to other sites, and I think you will be amazed at how many there are.

One research inquiry particularly stands out:
"I am trying to find out information on a WW II B-26 pilot. His name was Lt. Herbert H. Moore, Jr. He was engaged to my mother and the information I have is from her 50+ year old recollections. She said he was stationed in England and shot down over Germany in the Fall of 1944. He was rescued by the Dutch Resistance and had already cabled her that he was safe in London before she was notified that he was MIA."

Initially both Katie and I felt that Lt. Moore was with the 386th, but when we involved Board member Harry Guinther we quickly realized that this wasn’t true. Further research determined that Lt. Moore was with the 344th Bomb Group and that allowed us to provide more information.

What’s really important about this is that we became curious as to what happened to Lt. Moore after the War. Katie Ryan supplied the details, and they add a poignant human dimension to the whole story. I’m using this with Katie’s permission.

When Katie’s mother met Moore before he went to Europe she coyly told him her name was Cathy, and he replied "Then I must be Heathcliff." after "Wuthering Heights" characters. From there on she referred to him as Heathie. They became engaged and planned to marry after the War. After he was rescued he gave Cathy his Caterpillar Club pin.

When he came home, they met in Miami and took a train to Louisville to meet his parents. Heathie planned to go to law school. They planned to marry in the summer of 1946 after Heathie completed the first year of law school. At Christmas 1945 Heathie begged Cathy to elope, but she wanted him to finish the school year. In February Heathie was seriously wounded in a gun accident and began a convalescence. The evening before he was to be discharged from the hospital, they talked and planned. A bit later he was walking down the hall and collapsed as a result of liver failure. Despite valiant efforts to save him, he died on April 6, 1946, after handing Cathy his signet ring. His last word was "Cathy." Cathy married a mutual friend of Heathie’s and were together for 46 years. Katie wrote "My mom died in January. I now have Heathie’s Caterpillar Pin and signet ring. My sister and I have always thought that this story is terribly romantic. Now it is a way of feeling closer to our mother by finding out what we can about Heathie. It is also a way of paying homage to someone who doesn’t have anyone to remember him."

Exodus 17 tells us to "Write this for remembrance in a book.." But let us also write it in the human memory and make these remarkable human insights known to the world through the Archive.

The Council's Publishing Program: New Book

From the beginning we have held to the idea that a long term goal should be to assist people in actually publishing their stories. At no time was our intent to make a profit on these, but we have been able to at least break even. During our affiliation with the MHS, we assisted Peter J. Hatcher in the publication of his book "Partisan Wings" about RAF operations in the Balkans. We have worked with other authors who are in varying stages of book production. We arranged for the printing of three volumes of the collected history of the 455th Bomb Squadron. We have distributed at cost nearly 50 copies of the videotape "Doubleheader." Now we are pleased to announce another that is ready.

It is a work by Joe M. Jeffers "Learning the Facts of Life." Joe has written a different sort of book, and tells the story of his life and how the events in it all fit together. He takes us through his early years, education, B-26 training and service in the Aleutians, and on to his post-War military and civilian work.

When future generations seek to understand the generation that won World War II they will need to understand more about them than the few years of that War if they wish to know what sort of people they were. Joe’s book is a perfect example as to why Tom Brokaw’s "Greatest Generation" was great; it was a lot more than World War II, and Joe’s book is a remarkable slice of ordinary life that can be extended to an entire generation. It took over a year to produce, and we’re quite proud of it.

It’s available for $20.00 including shipping from:

The University of Akron
Archival Services
Akron, OH 44325-1702

Y2K, Computers, and People

If you’re reading this, the world didn’t come to an end on January 1st and at least the mails are still going through. Possible some computers now think it’s 1900, but William McKinley is not the President and we don’t have to go through the whole century again. But, perhaps the Y2K fears have served a purpose if they remind us that we should be the masters of technology, not the other way around.

One of the things that the next generation is going to have to deal with is the explosion of information and information processing available. The Internet and World Wide Web will change societies in ways that are unbelievable, and the information systems will create their own problems and opportunities.

As we’ve said before, one of the fascinating things about working with our Archive is that so many of our information requests come via the Web. Nearly 90% of the requests we get are from people not physically present, people who may be thousands of miles away in another country. It’s a far cry from the old way of doing research, when you sought out the place that had the information, and went to find it. Of course, scholars working on major projects will still want to see the original documents, and there is still no substitute for hands-on research. But, for simple questions, it’s amazing what can be done electronically.

However, what many people forget is that contacting a facility that has the information doesn’t necessarily mean that there isn’t an expenditure of human effort. Quite often it means that the work is transferred from the person wanting the information to the people that have it. Mr. X may be able to sit at his computer in Europe and ask me a question, but that really means that I have to do the mechanical work of finding the answer, not him.

That’s not a complaint. We at the University are people who entered a field that wants to provide information. Fundamentally, we’re teachers and transmitting information is what we dedicated ourselves to for our careers. But, I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say that technology has raised the expectations of our clientele considerably. We live in an age of literally instant communication and with that an expectation of instant answers.

At the same time, people are struggling to deal with their technologies. I remember my first computer, purchased in 1983 so that I could write my dissertation. It had 64K of memory, and I was assured that was a tremendous amount. Remember that Bill Gates once said that nobody need more than 64K. A few years later my wife gave me a computer game for Christmas and I discovered that I needed at least twice as much memory to run it, and of course spent $1500 to buy a computer to run a $50 game. It’s currently residing in the back bedroom, still playing games, but the real working computer is a new one that cost about $1000.

And so it goes. Remember your first microwave, and all the things that you cooked in it that really were easier to cook conventionally. Sometime, I’ll tell you about the bacon cooking rack I had for the microwave. On the other hand, the computer is losing some of its mystery and that’s probably good too. The telephone and television first became important tools when people realized that they really didn’t need to know what was going on inside them to use them.

On the other hand...
AAC Board member Harry Dahlheimer and his wife Marian wrote this Christmas about computers. For those of you who don’t know Harry, he is a retired Professor of History and has been slowly edging into the computer age. The Dahlheimers have raised the issue of computer gender in their letter, and ask whether computers are male or female. I haven’t asked Harry about the provenance of this, and if it’s not original with him, my apologies to the copyright holder.

The arguments for computers being female are:

• No one but the Creator understand their internal logic.
• The language they use in communicating with one another is for the most part incomprehensible.
• Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
• As soon as you commit to one, you find yourself spending half your income on accessories.

On the other hand, computers may be male because:

• In order to get their attention you have to turn them on.
• While they spew forth profuse data, they are often clueless.
• Half the time they are the problem rather than the solution.
• As soon as you commit to one, you discover that if you had waited a little longer you could have had a better model.

Research the Old Fashioned Way

One of our constant correspondents is Ross Sudbury. Ross is a fascinating man who’s interest in the B26 stems from the fact that his brother flew one with the 323rd Bomb Group. Much of Ross’ life has been spent working with race horses, but he’s a man of wide interests, and isn’t afraid to take on a big project. He lives near Cleveland and spends a lot of his time in the local library.

For years Ross has attempted to research a thesis he had for the crashes of many early B26s, the "One A Day in Tampa Bay" legend. Over the years Ross began to feel that it was the fuel flow was that the problem. Ross discussed this matter with all sorts of B26 people, including Peyton Magruder, the plane’s designer.

It is a fact that rubber carburetor diaphragms were replaced with nylon. On October 3, 1942 a B-26 crashed at Akron on takeoff. In the course of the investigation, it was determined that a rubber seal on the impeller shaft shrank when heated under high RPMs on takeoff. The fuel then got past this seal, causing the engine to fail, and nylon seals solved the problem. (The full details of this have been described by Vic Tannehill.)

The point is not whether Ross has found something new and hitherto unknown. The point is that he spent years wrestling with the question and trying to solve it, all because of his brother. His brother’s memory lives on in Ross, and because of Ross, in the Archives.

Lest We Forget

Veteran’s Day at The University of Akron is a solemn day for many. The University does have one of the oldest ROTC programs in the country and local residents have been fighting the nation’s wars since before Ohio was a state. Six Medal of Honor winners have come from Akron, with three in World War II. Many of our faculty, staff and students are veterans and a considerable number serve in the reserves. Quite a few have served in Desert Storm and Kosovo.

The main sidewalk on campus was named "Memorial Way" in 1995 to mark the 50th Anniversary of D-Day and it passes Memorial Hall which has the names of Summit County men and women who died in the nation’s service up through the Korean War. It’s a larger list than it should have been, but they are honored. Further along the Way is a Vietnam memorial plaque and then in front of the Administration building is a flagpole. On Veteran’s Day the ROTC staged an all-night vigil with honor guard at the flag pole. Every Friday afternoon there is a formal retreat ceremony.

This Veteran’s Day featured the traditional breakfast and ceremonies on Buchtel Commons with a fly-over of F16s. What’s impressive is that classes are held that day, and there are a full complement of students on campus participating in this.
We thought you’d like to know.

Contacts You Should Know

We welcome your comments, thoughts, questions, and conversations. Our mailing address is:

B-26 Archives Advisory Council
The University of Akron
Archival Services
Akron, OH 44325-1702

Our phone is 330-972-7832 and our web site is http://www3.uakron.edu/ul/archives/b26/ If you’d like to e-mail us, our address is archives@uakron.edu.

Best of all, we’d like you to visit. We’re open Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 5:00 and we’d love to see you. Akron is not yet one of the main vacation destinations of the United States, but most people find a trip here enjoyable. We’ve got some attractions here that most people find fascinating and we’ve been told that it’s one the friendliest towns around. Also, we’re within a day’s drive of 60% of the US population.

The Future

One thing that we can all agree upon is not only the need to preserve Marauder history, but also to insure that that history is known to future generations. I think we can also agree that time is not on our side in this project. The World War II generation maybe running out time to complete the description of their history, but they’re also in the unique position of having the perspective of over 55 years to see how their involvement fit with the events before and after it. Probably more than any other generation in history, they have the technological ability to project their history for all time. To that end, we are considering several projects, and we would like your input. None of these are simple, and we need to start now.

Curricular Support: A common complaint is that World War II is not taught in schools. Actually, it is being taught, and it will be taught more as the years go on. However, remember when you were in school and you were learning about the Civil War. How much more interesting and effective would it have been if you could have talked with actual veterans, read their letters, seen their photos?

We feel that it is possible through the Web to make materials available free of charge to teachers that will accomplish specific curriculum objectives. We will be shortly embarking on that project.

Promoting Research: Our concept of research is not to tell the researcher what to think or believe, but to make the information available. To that end, we are proposing the announcement of a research prize to a graduate level researcher who will use our archival holdings in his/her research. We feel this will embed B26 in the scholarly "system" and as a result more will be done using our collection of unique and primary materials.

Why it's Important

Slightly over 16 million US citizens wore the nation’s uniform during World War II, and millions more supported the homefront efforts. There’s no way to accurately determine the financial cost of World War II, but it’s in the billions and we’re still paying for it. Nearly 250,000 made the ultimate sacrifice, and most of them died in their youth. For all those who didn’t return, and for those that still carry the physical and mental wounds of World War II, we need to tell the story to the future, to write it down in a book of remembrance.

From 1939 to 1944 Archibald MacLeish was Librarian of Congress. Prior to that he had won a Pulitzer Prize, was a poet, and later became Asst. Secretary of State. During World War II he wrote a poem for Lt. Richard Myers, called "The Young Dead Soldiers:"

The Young Dead Soldiers
by Archibald MacLeish

The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it you who must say this.
They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.

In this new millennium, let’s pause to remind ourselves that the past century has been one of tremendous progress, but also tremendous sacrifice. There was a lot of it that future generations shouldn’t have to repeat. The lessons that can be learned from our materials can have a lot to do with making a better world in the next 100 years.

But there was also a lot to celebrate in the 20th century, and we owe it to the future to leave the legacy.

Non Nobis Solum: Not For Us Alone.