91 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d05b488424f53efc9a6d34e9c74c46d6.jpg 17a8370a7a30de6f8a4d1c108c933973 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoeseNancy_Photo2 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Boese, Nancy Description An account of the resource Nancy Boese, Michigan Small Business Technology Development Center Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ec66be5be0c8ba31b0c29fabacb1a86f.jpg ce7199e32ee94faf0d63b3f3d5bba0ad Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoeseNancy_Photo3 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Boese, Nancy Description An account of the resource Nancy Boese, Michigan Small Business Technology Development Center Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/ab6ea91fa3a051d4176dae158b530fac.jpg 2a279a7f09a3c1cdee1bfe963b6dda1f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoeseNancy_Photo4 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Boese, Nancy Description An account of the resource Nancy Boese, Michigan Small Business Technology Development Center Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/619d5215bca162cdef4f39ee47db1537.jpg 958ff6b2940bb02270408ea59911cb52 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoeseNancy_Photo5 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Boese, Nancy Description An account of the resource Nancy Boese, Michigan Small Business Technology Development Center Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c05deb49a61a079370a59f927d79a8c8.jpg 4d071c2b546b7ec07738f732bc2498b6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoeseNancy_Photo6 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Boese, Nancy Description An account of the resource Nancy Boese, Michigan Small Business Technology Development Center Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4b5c42546d6f69e9f80fdebdf498b7fa.jpg ce87341bee43b6d7bd841368ccc1310d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoeseNancy_Photo7 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Boese, Nancy Description An account of the resource Nancy Boese, Michigan Small Business Technology Development Center Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2c64c27e47618b9c3b741973f60bae76.jpg 81d079c26bf81e5392ae4e243476ac65 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoeseNancy_Photo8 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Boese, Nancy Description An account of the resource Nancy Boese, Michigan Small Business Technology Development Center Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/27e020a254a115ecb363065b4133e40a.mp4 f8cf058bf76d8653d3a7f1fb44425dbc https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0e5c3d1c2b3775ccf93ed3b870f701a3.pdf 55cae4be3924f1d293e02d82817b58a8 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Korean War Murl Bogert (15:18) Background Information (00:08)    Served in the Korean Conflict (00:09) Enlisted in the Marine Reserve in 1950 prior to the outbreak of the Korean War. (00:28) He was deferred from going overseas for 1 year due to his physical condition (00:45) Overview of Service (1:04)            He attended basic training for 6 weeks at Parris Island, South Carolina. (1:04) After basic he was sent to California for 2-3 months for Advanced Combat training. (1:11) He was sent to Korea aboard a troop ship. (1:26) He landed in Korea on July 4th 1952. (1:35) Murl was then sent to P’anmunjom Korea. (2:08) He spent 6 months at P’anmunjom where he sent supplies to troops in the surrounding area by train. (2:33) Murl was in what was considered a peace radius. Men were not supposed to carry ammunition in this radius. There was, however, a tank battalion next door to Murl’s position. (3:10) He was then sent to Ascom city where he did more supplies transport. (3:52) He was given a 30 day leave while in Korea. (4:26) On January 1st 1954 Murl was discharged. (4:53) Discharge papers. (5:28) Medals an Memorabilia (5:54)        He received an award for being an outstanding recruit in boot camp. (5:54) In 2003, Murl won a lottery to send several veterans of the Korean War to Korea for week. (6:50) In 1953 Murl thought Seoul Korea was in shambles. When he saw it in 2003 he was taken aback by how nice it was. (8:14) Campaign ribbons (Korean Service Medal, Presidential Citation Medal, and National Defense Service Medal). (9:06) This medal was received through the American Legion. (10:30) Pictures of service. (10:40) He was awarded a medal by the Commanding General of the Marine Corps when he was in Korea in 2003. (11:18) Slide Show of Pictures (12:37) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bogert, Murl (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bogert, Murl Description An account of the resource Murl Bogert enlisted in the U.S. Marine Reserve in 1950. After the Korean War began, he was sent to Parris Island South Carolina for basic training. While in Korea, Murl served in P'anmunjom and Ascom sending out supplies by train to other Marine units. He was discharged in January of 1954. In 2003 he revisited Korea. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Murillo, Cleyde (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Marine Corps Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-02-12 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BogertM1354V Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0744dc4281a91fd0bf37457a12d09eb4.jpg f0f47e3f1bf7094e7a7827592b294d5b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50_701 Title A name given to the resource Bogue class aircraft carrier escort Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource Bogue class US CVE (aircraft carrier escort), October 1, 1947. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy Military education Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1947-10-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/31d8c6b8c1a17fb650627c02179a25a5.jpg 7e090e2b96b3759e2801eb127bc08a97 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Naval Recognition Training Slides Subject The topic of the resource Slides Military education Airplanes, Military--Recognition Warships--Recognition World War, 1939-1945 Description An account of the resource Slides developed during World War II as a training tool, for top-side battle-station personnel on board ship and for all aircraft personnel, by the US Navy. In 1942 a Recognition School was established by the Navy at Ohio State University where the method of identification was developed. In 1943 the school was taken over by the US Navy. The importance of training in visual recognition of ships and aircraft became even more evident during World War II. Mistakes resulting in costly errors and loss of life led to an increased emphasis on recognition as a vital skill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides (RHC-50)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-04 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1943-1953 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source <a href="http://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/477">Naval recognition slides, RHC-50</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-50_M1144 Title A name given to the resource Bogue-Prince William classes escort carrier Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource United States. Navy Description An account of the resource Bogue-Prince William classes, US CVE (escort carrier), November 1, 1943. Subject The topic of the resource United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945 Military education Warships--Recognition Slides Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Naval recognition slides (RHC-50) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1943-11-01 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2f5c86699b8da2e2bf7b56d976a449a1.mp4 199a08d1e87fd83e7f9f91c0549435bb https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/046f9d4a770c6b9dfaf2772809d393b4.pdf 4f2f58ab28c33b1962860437da1e1b6b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans' History Project Raymond Boisvenue Vietnam War 47 minutes 17 seconds (00:00:21) Early Life -Born in Trenton, Michigan on December 3, 1945 -Small town -Attended a Catholic school for elementary school and went to a public school for high school -Attended Eastern Michigan University -Majored in accounting -Loved accounting after taking a bookkeeping class in high school -Father was from Quebec, Canada -Mother was from Ohio -Had three brothers and one sister -Father worked as a supervisor at The Detroit Edison Company (now DTE Energy) -Mother stayed at home and took care of him and his siblings -Played baseball with friends and ran track & cross country in high school -Ran in college for a year or two, but quit to focus on work and studies (00:03:15) Getting Drafted & the Vietnam War -Got drafted after he graduated from college -Worked for a year and a half before receiving his draft notice -Drafted in 1968 -Vietnam War had been going on for a while when he got drafted -Heard about antiwar sentiments -Had mixed feelings about the war -Went to Detroit for his draft physical -Considered going to Canada, but decided against it (00:04:30) Coming Home Pt. 1 -Coming home from Vietnam wasn't too bad -Left San Francisco early in the morning to fly back to Detroit -Able to avoid protestors -Nobody expressed any negatives sentiments about the war toward him (00:05:50) Basic Training -Received basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky -He was 22 years old while most of the recruits were 18 or 19 years old -Assigned to be a training platoon leader -Did physical training -Had to do a mile run in ten minutes -He had no problem with that -Remembers that he had to help a 300 pound recruit do the run -If that recruit didn't pass, then Raymond didn't pass -If they didn't pass they would have to try until they did (00:07:50) Advanced Infantry Training -Received advanced infantry training in Louisiana -Note: Most likely at Fort Polk -Didn't think that he was fit for combat �(00:08:22) Service in Vietnam Pt. 1 -His degree in accounting helped him get a good job in Vietnam -Had many acquaintances and got along well with the men in his unit -Part of the 9th Infantry Division operating in the Mekong Delta of South Vietnam -Originally supposed to go on patrols with the infantry -At the last minute he was offered chance to do administrative work -Handled paperwork for enlisted men in the division (00:09:49) Living Conditions in Vietnam Pt. 1 -Food wasn't too bad -Similar to school lunches -Visited an Air Force base in Vietnam -It was like being in the United States -Had tennis courts, swimming pools, and a large PX (post-exchange: general store) -Couldn't stay too long and didn't want to anyway (00:10:52) Service in Vietnam Pt. 2 -Stationed at Dong Tam -Engineers were building up the base and establishing defenses -Base served as the 9th Infantry Division headquarters -Worked together like a team -Everyone had a duty and did it -Nobody slacked off -His unit performed well in Vietnam -Got eight hours of sleep each night -Had entertainment available to them (00:12:34) Enemy Contact Pt. 1 -North Vietnamese (or Viet Cong) hit the base with rockets every three nights -By the time the second rocket hit everyone would get into bunkers -Didn't know if it would be in the morning, during the day, or at night -Had to be on edge at all times to be prepared for enemy attacks (00:13:42) Service in Vietnam Pt. 3 -Mekong Delta was hot and rainy during the monsoon season -Didn't worry about being wet, because as soon as it stopped the heat would dry their clothes (00:14:32) Arrival in Vietnam -Landed at a base close to Saigon -Note: Most likely Bien Hoa Air Base -Incoming soldiers got off the plane and were replaced with soldiers returning to the United States -Airliner took off as soon as all of the soldiers were on board -Went from Saigon to where he had been assigned -Preferred working wherever administrative duty was available -Sent to a canopy tent to wait for his assignment -Remembers the first foreign creature he saw was a fly (00:16:57) Service in Vietnam Pt. 4 -Dong Tam was close to the city of Tan An in the Mekong Delta -Tour began in late 1968 -Seven or eight men worked in the administrative building -He assigned men to various units within the 9th Infantry Division -Administrative duties consisted of promotions, early discharge, and supply management (00:18:12) Enemy Contact Pt. 2 -Enemy was always around �-Got his haircuts from a Vietnamese barber -One day they found his body outside of the perimeter -He had been shot dead with other Viet Cong militants trying to enter base -People of all ages fought for the Viet Cong (00:18:56) Downtime in Vietnam Pt. 1 -Ran with a major who was an Olympic athlete -Ran on a daily basis -Did foot races with other soldiers -Major always beat him and the other men -Remembers racing against some Vietnamese men -Running five miles from the base to the city -Safe since the major ran with them -Army made sure the area was secure -Protected by helicopters -Vietnamese cheated because they weren't in good enough shape to run against Americans (00:22:32) Enemy Contact Pt. 3 -Rocket attacks were the most intense experience he had in Vietnam -Remembers working near a helipad and there was a rocket attack -He couldn't find cover in a bunker, so he had to hide under nearby metal -Pulled guard duty some nights -Stayed close to the guard hut, but didn't stay in it -Felt like the hut was too much of a target (00:23:43) Downtime in Vietnam Pt. 2 -Stayed busy to keep his mind off of home -A girl from college wrote to him -Served as a morale boost -Race was the most fun he had while he was in Vietnam (00:25:13) Service in Vietnam Pt. 5 -Enjoyed his duty assigning soldiers to certain units in the 9th Infantry Division -Assigned them based on their skills -Didn't like replacing men that had been wounded in action, or killed in action -Worst experience was when Reservists from Hawaii were deployed to Vietnam -None of them had combat experience, or training, but had to be assigned to combat units -High mortality rate amongst these men (00:27:05) Friends in the Army -Major was a good man -Other officers respected the enlisted men -Officers didn't want to be saluted -Nobody paid much attention to rank (00:27:46) Division Dog -Had a dog at Dong Tam -Stray dog had shown up at the base with an injured leg -There was a veterinarian in the division that set the dog's leg -One soldier managed to get the dog awarded a Purple Heart -Served as a morale boost for the men (00:29:37) Enemy Contact Pt. 4 -He arrived later in 1968 after the Tet Offensive in January of that year -Enemy activity had decreased since their ranks had been depleted by the Tet Offensive �(00:30:06) Coming Home Pt. 2 -Various components of the division were being called out of Vietnam -Eventually, the whole division returned to the United States -Handed over control of the base to the South Vietnamese -Sent to a base south of Saigon -Spent a few months there -Muddier -Had a K-9 unit stationed there (00:31:27) Living Conditions in Vietnam -Lived in a two-story housing unit -Long and rectangular -Remembers a mortar hit the housing unit next to his -Fortunately, no one was inside, so nobody got hurt -Had he been in his barracks the mortar may have killed him or at least injured him (00:32:30) Contact with Friends after the War -Tried to reach out to one friend he served with in Vietnam -Friend didn't want to be in touch with anyone he served with -Trying to put the war behind him -One soldier contacted Raymond to thank him for his assignment -Probably saved the man's life (00:33:28) Reflections on Vietnam War -Over 58,000 Americans were killed in the Vietnam War as compared to nearly 4,500 in the Iraq War -Doesn't diminish losses in Iraq, but gives perspective on the two wars in terms of losses (00:33:54) Progress of Vietnam War -Never saw any Vietnamese prisoners of war during his time in Vietnam -Never heard any news about the war -If they heard news, it was usually the same stories over and over -Most newsworthy thing he remembers wasn't connected to the war at all -It was the Detroit Tigers playing in, and winning the 1968 World Series (00:34:57) R&R -Visited Hawaii on R&R -Spent a week in Hawaii -Spent R&R with the girl he wrote -Second date they ever had was in Hawaii -By the end of R&R they were both broke -When he went to Hawaii he had been in all 50 states (00:37:10) Vietnamese Civilians -Treated civilians with suspicion -Civilians were friendly, but the troops always kept an eye on them (00:37:39) Food in Vietnam -Always ate Army food -Had hot meals pretty much during his entire time in Vietnam -Only ate rations once when they were under attack and they weren't that bad (00:38:12) USO Shows -Only saw the Bob Hope Show once -Only stayed a little while because he was too far back and couldn't see the show (00:38:54) Contact with Home -Primary contact with home was with the girl he wrote -Wrote her every day, and she wrote him every day �(00:39:23) Coming Home Pt. 3 -Happy he made it to the end of his tour -Got delayed for two days -Took 24 hours all toll to get back to San Francisco and get out processed -Flew back to Detroit -Went 48 hours without sleep when he came home, but he didn't care -Happy to be home and was running on adrenaline (00:40:24) Rank & Commendations -Achieved the rank of Specialist 5 (similar pay grade to sergeant) -Awarded the Vietnam Service Medal -Received a commendation for helping move the 9th Infantry Division back to the United States (00:40:53) Life after the War -Went to Grand Rapids, Michigan where his girlfriend lived -Stayed at his future brother-in-law's house -Eventually moved in with his future in-laws -Got an accounting job with Seidman & Seidman -Extended his tour in Vietnam by two months -Meant that when he got back to the United States he had less than six months of his enlistment -Allowed him to get discharged as soon as he got back to the United States -Had originally met his wife in college when they worked together at the library -He didn't want to seriously date anyone in college because he knew he'd get drafted -Dated for two or three months, got engaged, and six months later they got married -Had four children and eight grandchildren -Lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan and the nearby suburb of Kentwood, Michigan -Worked with the Franciscans -Part of the Historical Society -Ironic because he wasn't good at history in school -Did that for 20 years -Served on the local draft board for 20 years -Wanted to make sure the right people got drafted if necessary -Defensive capacity after the Vietnam War ended -Note: Draft ended in 1973, but 18 year old men still have to register for the draft -Took up reading and enjoys telling stories about the saints with the Franciscans (00:46:39) Reflections on Service -Taught him that there are different cultures in the world -Cultures are formed based on outside factors and different contexts -Americans need to be aware of these cultures and respect them � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoisvenueR1838V Title A name given to the resource Boisvenue, Raymond L (Interview outline and video), 2015 Description An account of the resource Raymond Boisvenue was born in Trenton, Michigan on December 3, 1945. He was drafted in 1968 and received basic training at Fort Knox, Kentucky and advanced infantry training in Louisiana (most likely at Fort Polk). He was deployed to Vietnam in late 1968 where he served at the 9th Infantry Division headquarters at Dong Tam processing paperwork for the division. He was transferred to a base south of Saigon and completed his tour there. Due to extending his tour by two months he was able to be discharged as soon as he landed in San Francisco. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boisvenue, Raymond L. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Southerton, Erica (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-22 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a3eaa3aeec405ae6eaca669263421a30.mp4 b182f2533df733a36d687287205e021c https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/67605952c9aca8dfb67c80fc334d86eb.pdf cd2a9a81305c04fcc67d757c1fdaab8b PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Richard Boland Length of interview: (26:04) (00:20) Early Life      Richard was born on August 2, 1933 in St. Louis, Missouri His father was an attorney and his mother was a stay at home parent o Richard had one brother Before joining the service, he worked in construction and other small jobs during the summer Richard’s brother served in the Korean War in an artillery unit o He received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star When he was 21, he received a commission at the ROTC of Notre Dame University ( he graduated in 1955) o He chose to join the Air force because he wanted to fly as well as serve his country o Even if he decided not to join the military, he feels that he would have been drafted anyway (3:40) Military Life (1955-1958)        Richard’s training lasted for about a year and a half. At the end of the training, he was fit to fly the F-86 Sabre In the beginning, he was sent to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for basic training. o This training lasted for 6 weeks and had nothing to do with flying In January, 1956, Richard was sent to Bartow Air Base in Florida for flight training o This training lasted for 6 months o After that, he went to Greenville, Mississippi for jet training. During this 6 month training period, they flew the P-33 o Next, he went to Perrin Air Force Base in Sherman, Texas. Here he was trained on the F-86 o Finally, he received advanced weapons training at Panama City, Florida (7:00) Adjusting to life in the military was easy because he was enthusiastic about meeting new people and changing his life A lot of his instructors had flown missions during the Korean War and had a lot to offer in terms of experience Richard had very little experience flying prior to joining the military Tensions with Russia were high when he was in the military �         o It made men nervous knowing that nuclear was a possibility When he was in the service, Richard had a wife and two children o They were able to move with him wherever he went (12:35) Because of his academic background, Richard had a second duty as a financial officer When they flew training missions, each man was alone in the aircraft; however, they flew in formations of up to four aircraft o Ground units would use radar to guide them to a particular target His was a part of the 15th Fighter Interceptor Squadron o The duty of the squadron was to protect their assigned Strategic Air Command base (SAC) in the event of an attack o During this time, the B-47 bomber was being replaced with the B-52 Two of Richard’s close friends in his squadron were killed in Vietnam In their free time, the men in Richard’s squadron played a lot of cards and golf Three days out of the week, the squadron was on alert. This required them to be ready to go airborne in less than five minutes o On one particular occasion, Richard was told that there was an object in the air that was six miles wide and eight miles long. This startled Richard but it ended up being a glitch on the radar (9:12) When Richard got out of the service, he was a 1st lieutenant. After two years in the reserves, he achieved the rank of captain One of the most prominent memories he has if of a time when one of the squadron’s head officers took them to a base in New Mexico o On the way back from the base, they flew in a tight formation 500 feet in the air at a speed of 400mph (20:55) Later Life       When he was out of the service, Richard continued his schooling o He got his master’s degree in accounting from St. Louis University o After he spent ten years in public accounting, Richard went to work for Steelcase where he spent 30 years He got out of the service in 1958 o Since he didn’t see combat, he didn’t have any trouble adjusting to civilian life Richard lost contact with his comrades after 1960 (23:00) He likes the idea of requiring all young men and women serve two years in the military His early adult life taught him to be honest with himself and others Richard’s brother fought in Korea and was wounded in action (camera turns to show his commendations) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BolandR1823V Title A name given to the resource Boland, Richard D (Interview outline and video), 2015 Description An account of the resource Richard Boland was born on August 2, 1933 in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Norte Dame University and took part in the ROTC. Upon his graduation in 1955, he joined the United States Air Force and was placed in the 15th Fighter Interceptor Squadron as an F-86 pilot. His squadron was tasked with protecting various Strategic Air Command (SAC) bases throughout the United States. After leaving the air force in 1958, Richard got his master’s degree in accounting from St. Louis University and worked for Steelcase for 30 years. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Boland, Richard D. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Irons, Jacob (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Air Force Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2015-05-22 Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4cfa23452546eb41a15c10dbd2e058f0.jpg 8b4d58023f03fb6f048ead79cd2edb79 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BolhuisDave Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Bolhuis, Dave Description An account of the resource Dave Bolhuis, History Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College teachers Universities and colleges – Faculty Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1ca689bc28bb437e9dc2a51dd02b596d.mp4 4a19dd93c1397cf82fa76cde34c698ab https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4c58d88bd343f40702284de1e82383c4.pdf 9597be4461b22a23a1680416b89f03a3 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Robert Bolinder (01:46:00) Introduction (00:17) Family and Pre-enlistment (00:44) � Born in the Bronx, NY in 1923. His family moved to NJ a year after he was born. For many years his father worked as a sales representative at Union Flight Waxing Company. Bolinder graduated high school in 1940. � Took a year at Newark College for Engineering and then began taking night classes at NYU his 2nd year. At the same time, he worked for a gyroscope company training making gyroscopes, the predecessor to radar. � Bolinder mentions the patriotism that Americans displayed with the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. He mentions that just about every man he knew went and joined the army soon thereafter. (04:07) Enlistment and Training (4:20) � The U.S. Government at the turn of 1940 did away with the requirements that college kids needed to be 21 yrs of age and have 4 years of college to join the army. They moved the age down to 18 yrs of age. After passing his entry exams Bolinder was accepted into the Army Air Corps as of Feb. 6th 1940. (04:39) Was put on furlough between February and August at $21/month and 44 cents in rations a day. The point of this was to keep these servicemen available for active duty. � Went to Santa Ana, CA for pre-flight training. His training consisted of mathematics and drilling. While there he trained with PT-22 planes and was able to go solo in the allotted time of 9 hours. While training here, his mother requested he come to his sister’s wedding upon which he refused because he was still in the transitional stage of training with B-25s. � After training there he went to, Colorado where he learned how to operate twin engine planes. (08:26) While there he got his 2nd Lieutenant’s commission and graduated from there on May 20th 1943. Mentions that a month before graduation he and 19 others signed up for night fighter training. (14:51) � Bolinder goes on to mention that many of his friends went on to join the heavy bomber squadrons that were flying over Europe. Many that went to Europe did not survive. (15:58) � Went to Orlando, FL soon after and trained with A-20 aircraft. While there he mentions doing such exercises as flying low-level dives at 500 ft. and going through simulated flying situations. Spent about a month in Orlando before being sent to another base in FL. (21:12) �Bolinder describes that they had had switch pods instead of lights for markers when landing. He and other trainees lived in tents. � Briefly mentions that his CEO had previously flown with observational planes before joining the night fighters. Also mentions that he was part of a program called AFSAT (Air Force School of Applied Tactics) The airfield he was based at served as the headquarters for this program. � Describes his thoughts on how fast the U.S. government mobilized an effective air force. Bolinder mentions that he was in Florida from the middle of August 42’ to January 43’. At that point, the government decided to move the program to Saluditos, CA. For the next few months, Boldiner spent his time flying and taking an airplane identification class. (29:59) � After this, Bolinder boarded a troop train from California which went to Camp Kilmer, NJ. He was there a week getting last minute shots and training before joining his squadron. While there, he briefly mentions that a radar observer accidentally shot himself in the foot while cleaning some side-arms. � From there, they boarded troop ships bound for Europe on March 23rd 1943. Describes the journey across the ocean in some detail. The reception they got from the people of Glasgow, United Kingdom was warm and cordial. It was decided while in England to increase the number of fighter planes from 20 to 30 per squadron because it would be more efficient. (38:36) � Bolinder mentions that he spent some time at a base near Bath, England, from April to midMay. After their time there they were stationed at Darlington, about 70 miles north of York. Based at a base called Scorpion they started training with AT-17s. About mid-June they had worked up to training with P-61s. These planes he mentions could go 420 mph at 20,000 ft. Bolinder mentions that they flew 5 out of 7 nights a week. � On one occasion, a British pilot flew one and came back and said that it was the worst plane he had ever flown. His report caused so much of a stir amongst the chain of command that that there was a competition between the British Mosquito of the 422nd and the P-61 of the 423rd Night Fighter Squadron. (43:30) Combat Experiences (45:31) • • • About 6 weeks after D-Day they started flying missions out of the city of Cherbourg, FR. He mentions that they served as the defensive force behind the 1st Army for the course of World War II. Bolinder mentions that air force squadrons remained in frequent contact with ground control. Every time an unidentified aircraft was spotted ground control would report their exact location to air squadrons so they could drop down quickly and eliminate the target. Bolinder describes his time going on interceptor missions in July 44’. At Chateaudun, he describes getting ready for a battle that never came. Makes the observation that throughout history Paris is known as the city that was never ransacked. Shares his thoughts on the liberation of Paris (49:43) �• 3 weeks following the liberation of Paris, he was stationed in Belgium. At that time the airports in Belgium were repaired enough for airplanes to fly out and support Patton. All the missions he flew out of there were night missions into Germany. (50:12) Describes the missions he flew out of Belgium. • On Sept. 15 1944, he mentions that he began to see more German activity taking place. Mentions that the city of Aachen had switched hands over 5 times. (53:10) • Bolinder describes his time flying A-10s and going on precision bombing missions. He mentions that German aircraft often avoided American A-10s to go after the British heavy bombers flying to and from the Rhone Valley. Also mentions that British heavy bombers usually had no fighter cover in combat and that they would be easy targets for German aircraft. Also mentions that he did some interceptor missions on buzz bombs. Eventually other methods were developed to deal with them such as shooting up a wall of flak and distract the bomb so that it would explode in route. (01:02:00) • Briefly mentions an encounter in which one of his friends shot down a buzz bomb which ended up destroying an American supply depot and killing quite a few American servicemen. On another occasion a buzz bomb exploded a quarter of a mile from his position in a village. • After Feb. 1945, he left for England and checked into a hospital where he underwent a physical and was told that he could no longer do combat missions because his eyesight was bad (01:03:13) but still could fly. • Afterward, he was transferred to the flight section of the 9th Tactical Air Force in March 45’. At about this time, served as an operations officer. Briefly mentions events happening on the Eastern Front. One night, he was informed to cease all night missions from 7pm to 10pm. The next day he found out that the Allies had crossed the Remagan Bridge into Germany. Was informed by an intelligence officer later that if the order had been given to attack two targets near the Remagan Bridge, that they would have bombed the 9th Armored Division crossing the bridge. (01:05:39) • Bolinder mentions that he served aboard a C-47 carrying Gen. Hodges of 1st Army and Gen. Sterling of his division on their trip to an airfield north of Leipzig, Germany. For fear of the airfield being mined he was told to land in the grass. After landing, he joined the company in a jeep which drove 20 miles to Torgau, Germany where they met with Marshall Zhukov. This was the first official meeting between Americans and Russians. (01:07:55) • Mentions have a brief dinner with the general of the 69th Inf. Division. Describes the experience in some detail. (01:11:25) Was then chosen by Gen. Sterling to be his personal pilot. Served in this capacity for about 2 months. Then heard that his squadron was heading back to the states to receive training in the invasion of Japan. • He describes the events leading up to the Battle of the Bulge. Mentions that the assumption by Allied intelligence was that the Germans were going to conduct a counter-offensive in the spring of 44’ but instead were completely surprised when they attacked in winter through the Ardennes region. �• The night of Sept. 16th and 17th Bolinder mentions that he was conducting routine patrols when he came upon a German Focke-Wulf190 which he quickly shot down and saw go down burning. After returning to base, he reported the kill but was not credited for the kill. Two months later it was finally verified that a unit saw the pilot from the aircraft parachute down and was quickly captured. (01:19:42) • In another instance, Bolinder communicates to GCI at seeing a lot of activity. He mentions shooting down a Heinkel 111, an ME 110 and possibly another Heinkel 111. (01:23:34) Didn’t receive the Silver Star until May 45’. Mentions that everybody was there doing the job they were trained to do not to receive some reward. Going Home (01:24:00) • About the 1st of July Bolinder’s squadron was transferred from Castle, Germany to Rheims, FR. While there the atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The situation after that changed what happened next dramatically. (01:25:18) Stayed in Rheims for the month of August 45’ but was then moved to Camp Herbert-Torrington up near Le Havre, France for a month waiting for a boat. • From there, he boarded a Liberty ship and crossed the Atlantic in 14 days. Upon landing in Boston on Oct. 5th, 1945 he was met by a welcoming party. Went to a camp right outside Boston and about a week later his squadron was disbanded. By Monday morning, he boarded a troop train bound for Fort Dix, NJ. (1:26:55) Upon getting off, he was able to obtain a pass to visit his parents who he had not seen in 2 years. (01:27:30) After the War (1:28:44) • After being discharged, he went on to marry his wife and shares briefly how they met. (01:28:44) Then describes his time in the Reserves and service in the Korean War. In 1951, he was stationed in Panama, FL and then Biloxi, Mississippi undergoing more training. (01:32:24) Briefly mentions his time there. From there he was transferred to Waco, TX where he was stationed for a little while. • After the service, he worked for Union Carbide for many years until he changed careers and went into the publishing industry working for Zondervan and Tyndale Publishing Companies. Finally, shares his personal thoughts on the army and how it helped him to grow in maturity. (01:46:01) �, MILITARY HISTORY FOR CAPT. ROBERT G.BOLINDER Bob was born June 6,1923 in New York, NY. He moved to Teaneck, NJ with his parents and sister when he was one year old. He grew up in Teaneck and graduated from Teaneck High School in June 1940. He attended Newark College of Engineering, Newark, NJ. He remembers well our country's "day of infamy," December 7, 1941 . ."His four closest friends joined the Army, on December 8. Bob volunteered for pilot training in the U.S. Army Air Corps on January 3, 1942, even though he had never been up in an airplane. He was sworn into the Air Corps on April 6, 1942 and called to active duty to become an Aviation Cadet in early August, 1942 training on the west coast. He graduated from Advanced Multi-Engine School May 20, 1943. A month before graduating, he along with 19 other graduates, volunteered to enter the new, mysterious, Night Fighter program. After two months of multi-engine transition training at La Junta, Colorado, flying B-25's, night fighter training commenced in Orlando, FL. There he "connected," with his Radar Observer, Flight Officer Bob "Shorty" Graham. They would be crewmates for the balance of the war. Training was completed the end ofNovember, 1943. We trained in twin engine, single cockpit P-70's, the Night Fighter version of the A-20. He joined the422nd "Green Bats," Night Fighter Squadron in Bath, England in March, 1944. In April, the Squadron moved to Scorton, England, north of York in April. In May, we finally received our P-61 Black Widows. Here, we intensively re-trained for about 6 weeks to familiarize ourselves with the P-61. The 422nd,s first combat was to engage the German pilotless V-I "Buzz Bombs." Four were destroyed in 1 week. The Squadron moved to Cherbourg, France in mid-July. Where the Allied position was still a "beachhead," About 10 days after we arrived, General Patton's Third army "broke through," the enemy lines at St. Lo, France. nd . The 422 moved about 1 week later to Chateaudun.Erance where we were expected to provide "night cover," for the battle to liberate Paris, However, the Germans abandoned Paris and in early September, the 422nd moved to Florennes, Belgium, about 60 miles south of Brussels. Here, we "settled in," to provide "night cover," for General Hodges 1st Army as we all battled to defeat the Third Reich. The 422nd,s big battle was the Battle of the Bulge, which started on the night of December 16,17, 1944. That night Bob Graham and I flew 2 missions, engaging 4 enemy aircraft. We destroyed 3 and probably crest} @j ed1:he"'~. rf' •• ".,.._ �( th destroyed the 4 . During this great battle, which lasted about 3 weeks, our squadron flew "night cover," for the 101 st Airborne Division which was surrounded by the German army. After 1 week, Gen Patton's 3rd army broke nd through the enemy lines to rescue the 101 st. The 422 was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for protecting the 101 st and for destroying a total of 17 enemy planes during the Battle of the Bulge. Bob Graham and I were awarded the Silver Star medal by the United States and the Distinguished -, Flying Cross by the British government, .( o v- d .... It" « -< P /" ,. ~ ~ /.0') "",e. , f- ;)~~. /6./ r; In March, 1945 my vision deteriorated and I had to wear glasses when I flew. I transferred to the 9 th Tactical Air Force Flight Section and finished the war as a Mission Pilot. I had the privilege of flying General Hodges and his Staff in a C-47 to Torgau, Germany for the first official meeting with Marshal Zukov and the Russian Army. Later I became the personal pilot to Brig. General Stearley, Commanding Officer of the 9 th Tactical Air Corps. nd I rejoined the 422 Night Fighter Squadron to return to the United States in June, 1945. By the time we got back to the United States, the war in the Pacific was over and I was discharged at Fort Dix New Jersey in early October, 1945. In February, 1951 I was recalled to the new United States Air Force. I flew another 1,000 hours in B-25's training Radar Observers for F-89's and F­ 94' s. I was separated from this 2nd tour of duty in July, 1952 �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bolinder, Robert (Interview outline, video, and papers), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bolinder, Robert Description An account of the resource Robert Bolinder is a World War II who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps with the 423rd Night Fighter Squadron from February 1941 to October 1945. Bolinder describes Robert Bolinder is a World War II who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps with the 423rd Night Fighter Squadron from February 1941 to October 1945. Bolinder describes the specialized training for night fighter pilots, the missions he flew over France, Belgium and Germany. Toward the end of the war, he was removed from night fighting because of vision problems, but could still fly, and wound up serving as the pilot for the commander of an infantry division, a duty that took him to Torgau, Germany, for the first meeting between US and Soviet generals. Personal narrative and pictures appended to outline. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Army World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-06-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BolinderR Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7c19da81f1cd303d8fdd6d5c64c87ba4.jpg 8f764bf6a0743bdafd330bc8b914b297 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoltJay Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Bolt, Jay Description An account of the resource Jay Bolt, Director of Housekeeping and Grounds Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/14f75be5cb8093113e594921434cf68c.mp4 9d8deacc26d85525d2604875fe8a11f9 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/454499cae243bd83b44b55f28dc78fa5.pdf c53e3f8c8ce97cf129c2303651186645 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Martin Henry Bolt (01:21:00) Interviewer: “Can we have you name and when you were born.” My name is Martin Henry Bolt. I was born on Griggs Street Grand Rapids, MI. From there on I proceeded to move out of there and we went up on Hall Street and I lived there all the time I was in the service and when I returned I got married and moved on. 4:36 Interviewer: “Tell us something about your early childhood and your early schooling here in Grand Rapids.” Well, I started out at Hall Street School in kindergarten because Holy Name Parish didn’t have a kindergarten. From there I went to Holy Name Parish for 8 years and from there I went to Catholic Central and graduated from Catholic Central in 1937. Then I did one fall semester at Davenport College and decided I didn’t want to do office work and went out and took construction. 5:11 Interviewer: “Who were your parents and what were they doing for a living?” My mother and father were both born in the Netherlands and my father came here in 1889 and took a job in a furniture factory and saved up enough money to send for my mother. They arrived at the depot and from there right to St. Joseph’s Parish and got married on the same day she arrived. 5:41 That was quite a few years ago, back in the 1800’s. Interviewer: “Right after your first semester there at Davenport, what were your options and what were you planning to do with your life?” Well, if you recall, 1937 was a bad year. We had just gotten through the depression and jobs were not readily available so the first job I took was at a drug store and I lasted there about 9 months and I put my application in at the gas company, the telephone company and at Page Hardware. All 3 of them responded within a week for interviews. I took the interviews and I had my decision to make and I asked my father, “where do you think I should go” and he said, “I’ve never seen a telephone man without a job. They work through all periods” so I ended up in the phone company. 6:44 Interviewer: “Now what happened next that was a big step in your life?” Well, I guess the biggest step was, I met my wife in 1936. We both had different schools to attend. The girl’s school was on one side of Jefferson and the boy’s on the other. Crossing the road one day, I seen her coming toward me and I felt a sensation like being hit with electricity and I said, “ooh, what’s this?” I got across the street to the buddy I was walking with and I said, “do you know those 2 girls?” and he said, “ya, their the cutler sisters.” I said, “oh boy, I gotta find out who that one is.” 7:32 Then the rest of the school year I got acquainted with her and we started dating. I’d already gotten the job when I bought an engagement ring, presented her with the ring and up until the time, we were planning on getting married when I got my draft notice, so we delayed it. 1 �Interviewer: “Tell us about getting a draft notice.” 7:58 Well, I was down in Lansing working and I came back to Grand Rapids to register, which I did, went back to Lansing to work and I got informed that my draft number was 1037, which was pretty low and when I got back into Grand Rapids after working there in Lansing, the job was finished, I went to the board and asked what numbers they were at and they were pretty close to mine. They were probably in the 400’s. 8:32 He was a Dutchman and he said,” ve go through all these numbers and ven ve get 10 good names, ve take em 10 at a time”. I said, “Oh, ok. How long will it be?” and he said, “oh, you got until summer”. It didn’t work out that way. They called me up in April and I got my letter from them saying that, “you have been selected”. That made a complete change in my life and my future. 9:02 At that time it was only a years draft, 12 months, so I would have been out April 21st of 1942, so we planned on marrying first and my parents and her parents said, ”oh it’s a good test of your love, wait a year and if your still in love with each other then get married”. 9:25 they didn’t want us both down there in another city, her being a wife to a military man. I guess they were right in that respect. Interviewer: “What was the mood like around you? You were not in a war yet, but there were there sounds of war on the radio and in the newspapers and all that? Did you have any sense that now that you were in the military, you were going to go to war?” 9:50 No I didn’t. I just thought it was a years training and in the event we did get into a war, we would be experienced enough to fight the battle, but I didn’t worry about it at that time. Interviewer: “So you said goodbye to your family and you said goodbye to your future wife”. Yes, on a Sunday. I went down to the Union Depot and they loaded everyone on a train. There were probably at least a hundred of us at that time going in. We went to Kalamazoo overnight, I said goodbye of course to my family and my girlfriend, we went to Kalamazoo overnight and the next morning, it was Monday, they took us to Camp Custer, did a physical and after that they said “your in the service” and they swore us in. 10:43 A few of them failed their physicals and were sent back, so on April 22nd I was a member of the military service and I took my oath to serve my country loyally. Interviewer: “Did you have any voice in terms of what branch you were going into?” Not really. I guess about the only thing I can say about the choices is they told us after you got to your army base they would go through the records and see where we would do the best to serve our country. 11:20 Interviewer: “so where did you go for basic training?” I went to Camp Livingston, Louisiana and we had 6 weeks of training down there and we were confined to the base. We could not leave or do anything and after our basic training was over, then we could get our first pass to go to town. 11:43 2 �Interviewer: “What was the it like? You’re from Michigan and you arrive in Louisiana and you have never been to Louisiana before. You arrive in Louisiana and you’re about to be insulated in this little area. Can you give us an idea of this young mans impression as he came into the barracks and onto the grounds of this training area?” 12:02 Well, I realize a military installation; we had sidewalks made of shell and tents. Six men in a tent and it was basically just living with what they presented us with. We had very good meals and they had movies for entertainment. They had a gym and a few other places we could go for recreation. It seemed like the 6 weeks went real quick. I knew one of the Sergeants, Sergeant Merrin, who worked at the phone company. He was a National Guard so when I got down to I company, he called me up to the First Sergeants tent and he said “Bolt, we want you for a B.A.R. Gunner and I said, “what is a B.A.R.”? He said “it’s an automatic rifle that weighs about 20 pounds” and he said, “it has a tripod”. He said “you’ll learn about it”, so I went out to a training ground and a Lieutenant stood out there telling me all about a B.A.R. He said, “the average life of a B.A.R.Gunner is 6 seconds in action”. I said, “he made a mistake, he means 6 minutes”. 13:18 I waited until the presentation was over and he said “any questions?’ I said “ya”and I raised my hand and said, “you said the average life of a gunner is 6 seconds. I think you meant minutes” and he said “no”, I said it right. When I got back to the company it was still peacetime, I went up to Al Merrin and I said, “here’s your gun back. With a Corporals rating, I don’t need it”. That was a little bit of the humor that came while we were being trained. 13:46 Interviewer: “Was there any sense of camaraderie or sense of getting to know these guys around you?” Well to honest with you, the National Guards were all friends and knew each other. They had been down there from November and they kind of stayed together in one area and the draftees visited back and forth and became friends. Yes, there was some. Interviewer: “ In terms of your previous experience with the phone company, was there any thought of you going into that element or were you training just to be an infantryman?” Well, I trained from April until about August as an Infantryman, then they put a notice on the bulletin board that they needed some communication men and that school was going to start, so I offered to go to that class. 14:39 We spent 3 weeks, of course I was knowledgeable to what they were telling us and I already had experience climbing telephone poles, so I did pretty well in the class. I got my diploma and I made my first mistake. It said your going to the 5th Army and I said, “I don’t want to go there and meet all new people. I’m used to these kids and I have a lot of fun with them”. I stood there and looked at the diploma and a guy by the name of Brown, who also worked at the phone company, said, “what did you get?” and I said, “I got to go over to the 5th Army.” He said, “are you lucky.” and I said, “you want to trade?” and he said “ya, I’ll trade with ya.” We went up to see the Major and told him what happened and he said, “sure we’ll change it.” The kid went to a rear base and I went with our men up to wartime. 15:39 Those are things that happened. Bad decision. 3 �Interviewer: “The other Red Arrow veterans that I have talked to said that the training that you actually got was really more WWI based. Tell us a little bit more, one thing about the training itself and whether or not it had any application to what you actually got into.” There was nothing, the training we got was for civilian type countries where you go from city to city using highways and side roads, which is understandable, we didn’t realize the war was going to be in a jungle. So we had no training at all in jungle warfare, none what so ever. 16:26 Interviewer: “So after you made this decision, you are now in the 5th Army, what was the next step? Did you get a notice you were going somewhere? What did you do next?” Well, we stayed right at Livingston, we got a 72-hour pass and went down to New Orleans; there were 5 of us. On December 6 we arrived in New Orleans and slept in a car, all of us in a car, got up the next morning and there were some nuns coming down the street going toward a church and we asked them for a little bit of information about going to church and she said, “you got another hour” so we went to a restaurant and thought we would get a cup of coffee and a donut and there was nobody at the counter to wait on us. We hollered, “where are ya, where are ya” and he said “shh, I’m in the back room here, I’ll be right out.” He came out and told us that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. 17:35 All of us said “where is Pearl Harbor”? He said, “well, the Japs bombed the whole city and we lost a lot of boats and ships and quite a few men were killed and you have to go right back to your base.” So we took off for the base. The people down in the south didn’t want much to do with us, they didn’t invite us into their homes per say and didn’t offer to buy us a round of drinks or anything. On the way back we stopped and had a couple of beers and they offered to buy everything for us. 18:18 It just changed overnight. Interviewer: “Was there any sense, and I realize this was a long time ago, but was there any sense at the time of where you are going to go? You guys are heading back to base, the war has started, any idea where you were going to go?” No idea. I’m sure the officers had that information, but they didn’t pass it to us. I got back to the base the night of the 7th and the morning of the 8th they said, “load up were going to go down to New Orleans on guard duty until we get a different assignment”. So we came right back and I was stationed at Lake Ponchatrain camp down there and went on guard duty on the bridges and that lasted about 4 weeks, probably a month, then we got our orders. Interviewer: “ Today’s audience, if you will, thinking about guard duty in the United States, would probably think in terms of guarding Fort Knox or something like that, so let’s try and get a better idea of guarding. What were you guarding and why were you guarding it?” Well, they were afraid of sabotage and that’s what we were out there to do, to protect the area that we were assigned to and to be alert in case you see anything suspicious. 19:43 Cars would be stopped and searched to see if there was something in the trunk. They would pull them over if they were suspicious of anything. Just basically, keep an alert 4 �eye on the civilians and be sure that they weren’t going to do anything like the terrorists are doing today. Interviewer: “I think that is a good connection there. It’s hard for even someone like myself to even fathom that we would have guards in the streets of New Orleans or St. Louis or any where else, but that actually did happen at that time. 20:17 Once the guard duty period was over with, what was your next assignment? Where did you go?” Well, we got orders to go back to our camp and await the next assignment. So we were back there about a month, no not quite a month, we were there a couple of weeks when we got notice that we were going to go to Fort Devens in Massachusetts and I stayed, there was always a fore echelon, a main body and a rear echelon and I was assigned to the rear echelon. So, the first group went out and the second group went out about a week later and we were to follow up. Well, in the meantime, while we were waiting this period of 2 or 3 weeks to get notified to go ahead, they put a sign up on the bulleting board, “cooks and bakers school”. Well the unit I was with was an artillery unit so I said, “ok, that’s for me, I’m going to go there and get some education rather sit on the company street.” So, I went to school and while I was at school, they called the rear echelon up. They didn’t want to break our classes up, there were about 10 of us from this company that were in this school, so we stayed behind to get our diplomas, which was about a week or 10 days, got our diplomas and they wanted us just like that, overnight, straight to Devins. 21:53 They loaded one complete railroad car, passenger coach, and highballed all the way across the United States to catch up with them. Well, I got up there about Ash Wednesday during holy week and I went to the barracks I was assigned to and in about 4 days they gave us the notice to go down to the docks, we were going to Europe. I guess everyone knows the history of that, we didn’t go to Europe, the Japs had broken through at New Guinea and were marching toward Port Moresby and Australia was in danger of being invaded. Well, Macarthur wanted the 1st division that was ready to ship and that was us. We turned back, got on trains and headed right on back to San Francisco. 22:48 We were there about 5 days, they loaded us on the boat. I went on the Lurline, a passenger ship; ironically it was April 22nd when I boarded it. One year and one day in the service. We stayed in this convoy, the complete division was shipped all at once, the first time that was ever tried, and we arrived May 14th in Adelaide. We were scheduled to go to Sidney, but because of the Coral Sea battle and the secrecy, they didn’t know if the Japanese won that battle or the Americans, they were really sailing to get us, they intended to hit that convoy I was in and as it was the Americans won, but as a defense maneuver, instead of going to the middle of Australia, we went down to the base which was like Florida compared to New York. 23:48 We went there and trained there for a while. Interviewer: “Martin, how old were you at this time?” Well, I was 22 years old at this time. Born September 7th and we landed in May, so I was just 22. 5 �Interviewer: “Now when you arrived in Australia, a 22 year old kid from Grand Rapids, Michigan, what was the reaction of the Australians? Did you have any contact with them at all?” Yes I did. When we would get a pass and go into town, they were very receptive; they invited us into their homes. Most of their soldiers were prisoners, I guess at Holbrook where they fought, and they treated us very nice. 24:35 Interviewer: “What was your training like there?” Learning how to eat mutton. We had a lot of different food when we arrived there. Not as much beef as we had in the states, but our training was basically the same thing as it was in the states, maneuvering, out there setting up CP’s, which is a command post, and just waiting for the next assignment to move forward. 25:05 Interviewer: “what were your rank and your position, your job so to speak, within this organization?” Well, of course, I went in basic as a Private as everybody does unless they have had military training or been to a school. I was in basic until I got into communications then I ranked up as a Private First Class. So I stayed as a Private First Class the first year and a half or two years. After we got out of action I got a Corporal assignment. Interviewer: “But you were a Private there in Australia?” No, I was already a First Class. Interviewer: “You were in communications?” Yes, I was in communications, switchboard, I tried for radio, but couldn’t pick up the Morris code quick enough so I stayed right where I was. 26:03 Interviewer: “Let’s get an idea of where you fit into the scheme of things. The training is beach landings or you said setting up command posts. What were you doing though while this was going on?” Until we went up to Camp Cable, which was in the middle of Australia, Brisbane, we didn’t do more than I already mentioned, but once we got up to Camp Cable, we started stringing wire up in the woods and camps up there. We had to string wire from every company back to the command post. My training then was mainly just switchboard, maneuvering and stringing wire, beach defenses and things like that. 26:50 Interviewer: “Because it has relevance later on, in New Guinea, what does stringing wire consist of? What all is involved in doing that?” Well, it’s a paired wire that came on reels about 18 inch drums and about 6 inch in diameter. It was a field wire and you would climb a tree or a pole, whatever was in the jungle, of course there were no poles in the jungle, but at Brisbane we had some there. You would climb up, get it above the height of trucks or any equipment that was going to go through, tie it in and bring it all the way out to a company like I or K that was based about a half mile away from regimental that I was at. Regimental was a command post and everything had to go through us in order to be completed in their assignment. 27:44 6 �Interviewer: “With your experience in the telephone company, you could climb trees fairly easy. Did you have any kind of equipment that you had to use?” The same equipment, spurs and a belt. Interviewer: “So you would go up a tree and string it high enough so it doesn’t interfere with trucks and all that, come back down, walk the wire to the next tree and climb that tree?” There were usually 3 men climbing at a time, so the first man would tie in, the next man on the next tree would pull it up tight, tie it around the tree and the 3rd man then all 3 of us would come down and go on. The Jeep was right behind us. We had two types of field wire, a heavy one and a light one, but we used more light than we did the heavy because it stands to reason, a heavy reel, heavy wire is 10 times heavier than the smaller reel. 28:39 Were talking 80 pounds probably. Interviewer: “ did you have, I mean your climbing up a tree, your wiring stuff up, your going up and down, there’s a Jeep behind you, I realize your mind is geared towards your work, but did you have any sense at all of, your going to go into battle and do this?” No, I guess none of us ever feared or ever gave it consideration. We figured that eventually we would get into action, but that looked like it was a long time down the road. Basically because we didn’t get the maps and the information that the officers were getting. They didn’t want to alarm us I guess. Interviewer: “Did you have access to radio broadcasts, news papers, did you have any idea what was going on in the world?” Very little. Most of the information that I got came from home, people writing back to me and telling me what was going on. It wasn’t the day of the cell phone, where I could just pick it up and say “hello”. Interviewer: “I guess what I’m trying to get across is that particular period of time was really the dark days for America and all over Europe and all over Asia. Did you have any sense at that time, actually we were losing, was there any sense of that?” Well we got a little G.I. newspaper out once in a while and there would be information on the battles in there, but we never had a total picture. 30:18 Interviewer: “so what happened next?” Well, “where did I stop? Did I stop at training?” “Ya.” Interviewer: “You were stringing wires in Australia.” We were there about 6 or 7 months and we got a notice to pack up, we were going to go to New Guinea, of course they didn’t tell us where we were going. We got on our trains and went down to the boats and loaded up and in about 4 or 5 days we arrived at Port Moresby. After landing, we went to an area, there was a large hill behind us, background, and we stationed down below and set up camp there. It wasn’t more than 3 or 4 days and the flies were just horrible and we started getting dysentery, so it wasn’t long before they started calling it “dysentery ridge” up there because everyone was 7 �getting sick. Eventually we overcame it, got better rations there in the kitchen and from there they started assigning companies to go over the mountains. 31:38 Interviewer: “Let’s spend some more time on Port Moresby. This arrival into New Guinea, I take it, was much different than your arrival into Australia? Primitive, would that be accurate?” That’s pretty close to it. We’ve seen the first natives. Interviewer: “let’s talk about that. You arrive there on the beach and what do you see?“ Well, there was a little town called Port Moresby that had a few buildings and a few hotels like any other city, but we were stationed about 4 miles out from it. We would go into town once in a while with the wire Jeep to get supplies and come back. That was our only contact with the city at that time. Back where our bivouac area was or where we were camping, the natives were curious and would come in and we were curious to see them too. 32:39 One of our men from town here, Eddie Zelinski, got a parrot out of a cocoanut tree and boy those natives went wild. They couldn’t communicate, but they wanted that bird in the worst way. So we gave them the bird. They took a little cocoanut husk, lit that and held it over temporary and ate the remains of that bird. I guess they burnt the feathers off and all of us gagged and left. 33:09 The whole thing went too quick, we were moving out and were told we were going to fly over the mountain, well the 1st Bat---, I’m not sure, was it the 2nd Battalion that went over the mountain? I forget which one it was. They were able to walk across or tried to walk across, because the Japs were halfway up the trail and it took them 49 days. They secured the area, the Japs were in retreat, they flew us up to Dubador and we landed there, we flew in 40 hours while it took them 49 days to go through mud and rain, water and mountains. Then we had to walk 11 days to get to Buna. 33:59 Interviewer: “Let’s start with the arrival of your aircraft. You landed at an airfield? Give us an idea of what you’re seeing around you.” Well, I saw a lot of jungle on the flight going over and crossing those mountains. There was a grass field where the natives had trimmed the tall grass down. It was a rough landing, but it was land able. They had pretty smooth ground there for the approach, but as you got into where the grass was, it became a little rough and bumpy. 34:38 Our particular plane, as it came in, the right wing hit a branch out of a tree and it put a dent in it about the size of a football. The pilot said, “we were lucky, we didn’t lose the wing”. He took it gradually and the rest of us sat there shaking our heads. We landed and the first thing we see is wounded on a stretcher. They had carried him back that far and some of them came back on a Jeep on a trail that was built. We had now gone and talked to the guys that were wounded and that was our first taste of what it was like ahead. 35:25 We spent half of the day there organizing and then started up the trail. Interviewer: “How many men are you talking about?” In my company there were at least 250 men. Wartime strength. I would say 4 other companies came in and landed the same day we did. Probably close to 1,000 men. Interviewer: “What was the weather like?” 8 �It rained every day. All of a sudden a storm would come in, lightning, thunder. We always had sun immediately afterward. Your uniform would start steaming. 36:16 Interviewer: “Lets talk about what you’re wearing and what your carrying as your walking these 11 miles.” When I landed I was wearing fatigues that were green in color. A fatigue hat plus my full pack, a helmet and a trenching tool. We started up the trail, started going over another mountain, I was probably number 40 in the trail going up and by the time we had walked 2 days, the first night it started raining in the jungle and I sat in-between a tree that had fins like, my back against it, my shelter half on, sat there most of the night trying to get some rest. At that time I smoked and I used to light a cigarette under the poncho and just smoke so it wouldn’t show and to keep it dry too. We marched for about 3 days to get over this mountain. It was muddy, terrible conditions, you had to pull yourself up on trees or vines or whatever there was. We chopped out steps that the natives had made long before we arrived. Interviewer: ‘so there was some semblance of a trail?” Oh, yes, going up that part. I prided myself at that age; I was 6 feet tall and probably 180 pounds. I said, “I’m going to beat everybody up this mountain”, and I did lead, I got there within 100 yards of this village where they had a ration drop. When one of the cooks went bye me like I was standing still and the chuckled all the way. He said, “I was going to beat you really”, and I came in second anyway. Interviewer: “You mentioned ration drops, what is that?” Well, you can only carry so much food with you, so they would have a designated village and they would come over the village and kick out rations on parachutes. 38:20 Everybody would re-supply with the rations. In fact, I think that was one of the first causalities, one of the airplanes the Colonel was on crashed into the woods. There is quite a history about that flight. There is a place in Ohio, Franklin, Ohio that has a museum, General Gill, our commanding General, who was in charge at this time, it was his hometown. We would just; we couldn’t imagine what it was like ahead of us. We knew where we were at the present, but we knew we were going toward combat because we saw the Australians they had carried back. 39:14 The Australians were engaged and we took over the war from them. We relieved them. Interviewer: “did you hear the sounds of battle as you are walking?” No, not until we got up to the Buna area and Sanananda, we didn’t hear anything. No gunshots or artillery fire or anything like that. On the 11th day when we got there, we were in the rear of the Australians, they told us we were going to relieve the Aussies and take their positions over. That’s when we drove up, walked up into the positions. We had to string wire now because those outposts out there needed information. Sadly, there were no maps. Those officers that were civilians had nothing really, to work with, just a little plantation map showing where the cocoanut trees were, where the rivers were, where the trails were and the rest was all jungle. 40:21 Interviewer: “What was your job when you arrived there at that encampment in Buna?” 9 �The first thing everybody did was to dig a fox hole o you had a place to go in case there was any strafing of the enemy and by the enemy and after that we set up a switchboard probably 36 inches long and about 18 inches wide with about 12 drops across, which caught a crank and a little lever would drop down. Well, on the back of it were 2 posts where we had to put our wire and our Sergeants told us where to go. 41:00 Interviewer: “Now what was that hooked up to, in terms of the wire? Where were they going? Did you know or did you have any idea?” Oh yes, through the training we had, we knew we were going to put field phones out there for the officers and Sergeants to use. They would go out to all the companies. They would go out to outposts where artillery observers were spotting or air cover, so at times we’d be beyond the enemy lines or in back of them where the outpost was, so they could observe the enemy when they moved. 41:41 Interviewer: “In today’s age of digital phones and all this kind of stuff, lets try to get a better, clearer idea of – you are now in Buna, you’ve got this switchboard which has the ability of plugging in and that plug ties you into a wire which goes out to an outpost or goes out to another area?” That is correct. Interviewer: “this is physical wire, so if a bomb goes off and blows it us, you no longer have the connection.” That’s right. Interviewer: “So your now there, the wires are set up, what were you actually doing? Were you taking phone calls? Were you plugging in? I was never a switchboard operator. There were certain men that were assigned for that, but if you can visualize the switchboard having a little crank, if you crank it and it went around easy it meant there was something wrong, no one would answer on the other side, that wire was broken either by one of our troops stumbling over it or it was broken by an explosion or deliberately cut and until that happened we stayed right back in the command post. Once the Sergeant came up and said, “Bolt, Revada, you got to go out, the lines open”, so we’d go up to the switchboard, “which line is it? It beeps red, ok.” The lines were all tagged, we knew which one to follow and they would give us a 12 man squad to protect us while we were doing the looking for it and repairing it. That’s strictly what my duty was at that time. 43:33 Interviewer: “Now are you talking about actually leaving headquarters, following visually a wire until you come to the point where it is broken and then repairing it-----?” And coming back to the regimental headquarters. Interviewer: “Give us an example, do you remember the first time you had to go out?” I have to think for a minute. Interviewer: “If not the first, perhaps one of the memorable.” 10 �They were almost all similar, we’d get a rifle squad and follow it out and repair it. A couple of times we got ambushed, the rifle squad would do their job; they were assigned to spread out while we were repairing it. We always had a little bit of slack in the line so they could pull it back to the trail. When we strung it, as the company moved forward, we would always walk off the trail about 3 or 4 feet trying to conceal it, just stretch it on the ground. At that time we didn’t put it in trees in the jungle when you’re in action because obviously they would see it. 44:41 We would try to string it back off the trail. Interviewer: “Let’s talk about the ambush.” Well, an ambush is just what the word means. It’s the enemy sitting out there waiting for you, deliberately cutting the wire, you’d come out with your squad and they’d have 2 or 3 men on the trail set up with a machine gun and maybe half a dozen off the trail waiting for you to come through. I know of one incident that we got ambushed. Baker and Spencer from that rifle company were shot in the head, both of them. The Sergeant in charge said, “they’re dead, they’re hit in the head and there is no sense getting their bodies now, we’ll come back later.” So, we withdrew and sat there and called for mortar fire, mortar fire is a shell that is put in the barrel and flung forward, and they usually do the first round in smoke to see how close they are to you and maybe another round of smoke. All the mortars are adjusted to the degree and height and the Sergeant would say “fire” and maybe 50 to 100 shell would go in the jungle and they would take off and you could hear them screaming when it got in to close to them. 46:23 On one occasion, if you visualize a triangle, the wire was cut on the A-side, we got up to repair it when the lead scout held his hand up and said, “They’re setting up a machine gun!” I, being anxious to get back to the base said, “let’s charge them and throw grenades at them and get out of here.” The Sergeant said, “Oh no, no there’s too big of a company there.” So, in the triangle were going to walk back across to the B-side of the triangle and try to go up that way. Well, when we went down through the jungle, down off the trail, we walked through an area where they had camped overnight and it gave us a lot of information on the number of fires, cold ashes, their rations, rice and stuff they were eating, so they estimated probably 100 men were in that group. We got back to B-side, called in the information, told them we were coming back on the B-side and not to fire at us. That’s when the engagement started. I didn’t have a compass, but fortunately Sergeant did and he knew how to read it and he got us back safely. We still had to go up there and repair that wire. Well, when they threw all those mortar shells in there, that cleared a lot of that area, so then we went back that afternoon and repaired the wire. They estimated that they had killed about 40. I didn’t go onto where the shell were, the riflemen did. I did my job and went back. 48:13 That’s the type of ambush you could run into. Some days you could go out there and there would be nothing, but the wire broke because something, they needed a piece of wire for equipment or cut it, or grabbing it and walking up there, they might have broken it. Interviewer: “You were talking about calling back in, were you using crank telephones?” Yes, field phones. 11 �Interviewer: “So, you’ve got a wire that’s strung out there and it’s cut at a certain point. You would ---“ We would put it on our phone, the 2 terminals and just hand crank it, which had a small generator in it, and that would go to the switchboard, that current and it would drop a little square lever maybe and inch by inch and the operator would plug in and get the information from us. Interviewer: “Where did you go from there?” From Buna? Interviewer: “Ya.” Well, we stayed in Buna for something like a month and a half or 6 weeks and another division came up to relieve us, from Pennsylvania, and we were pulled to a rear area and spent New Years and Christmas in the rear area. If we had a little connection with the medical department, we could get some G.I. alcohol and make a little drink up with the orange synthetic juice they had there. From there we went back to Australia to regroup and rebuild and get paid, we hadn’t been paid in months and they took us down to a resort area, Tweeda and Coolingada and we were on that beach for about 5 weeks recuperating and enjoying the Australian cities. 50: 23 We would grab a train or a bus and go into the city for recreation on the week-end. We were issued new sweaters and new cottons and we really looked good compared to the way we looked 4 months ahead of that. We slept many a night with wet clothing and wet shoes that never dried out. Your feet looked all shriveled, so this time we were really living it up. 50.48 Interviewer: “Did you see combat again after that?” Oh yes, I stayed with the division from New Guinea we went back in January of 1944. We went to Saidor and made a landing there, went to Kope and made a landing there. Interviewer: “Lets talk about these landings.” Well, You would get on a LCI, a landing craft, and from a safe base you would start out for Saidor and make a land division, it’s just like the sound of it, it’s the same thing. The LCI would go up to the beach, drop the front end down and you would run out of it and up the beach. It usually was softened by artillery fire from the navy, air fire, air bomb, bombing and once you hit the beach you’d have an assigned area to secure. There was always a red, blue and white beach and whatever one you were assigned to you’d go in there and that’s where you set up your post, your command post. 52:00 Interviewer: “ Was there much resistance when you first arrived?” I can’t say there was any great resistance. There was fire of course and soldiers were hit and killed. They were not that heavily mechanized. The first wave always got the original fire. I was coming in on either the 2nd or 3rd wave of boats that were in there. It’s hard to tell you because people aren’t acquainted with any of it. Actually it was everyone running for safety to get up in the jungle. 52:39 It’s just what you have to do, you have to do. 12 �Interviewer: “So when you hit the beach, you’re hearing gun fire and I suppose you’re seeing guys getting hit?” Not too much, the first wave was pretty much up into the jungle already. Yes, we seen the ones that were killed laying on the beach. Interviewer: “Then you get into the jungle itself and you secure your area, what happens next?” Well, that’s where the battalion commanders call back and tell them what they’re facing. Then the headquarters officers stationed with us, the Colonels, they make a decision which way to move, which way to go, to call for artillery, or to call for bombing. On one occasion we were supposed to set on the red beach and when we went in and got maybe a mile into shore we heard planes approaching and we said, “oh, oh, here they come”, and it was our own planes bombing an air strip. The ground was just like jelly, we were laying there and we said, “this isn’t right, they’re almost hitting us.” Then the Captain came up behind us and said, “what the hell are you doing up here?” our Sergeant turned around and said, “ were trying to get to red beach” and he said, “you’re not even on red beach “, so we landed, we landed right, but instead of turning right, the Sergeants and officers took us to the left. 54:27 For once we knew what it was like right up at the front where the bombs were hitting. Interviewer: “So in terms of what your job was, were you running wire at this time or were you just part of the group moving forward?” We were part of the group that was moving forward and we were going to set up the command post, but after we told where are beach landing was over there, we razzed our Sergeants and officers quite a bit, set up our command post, dug our fox holes and waited for further orders to advance. 55:10 Interviewer: “You got the further orders to advance? Yes. Interviewer: “ Where did you go from there?” Well, we’d go up further into the jungle to drive the enemy back. Sometimes you would sit there 2 days, 3 days before you would move, before they found out how to get through the line and how to surround them. Remember again, they didn’t have no great maps like they did in Europe or any other country. Interviewer: “Some of the other Red Arrows were talking about the snipers as a constant threat, did you have a problem with the snipers?” Yea, we did. We had 3 or 4 sharp shooters in our company and we drew fire from the snipers and a couple of our men got hit and they got this sharp shooter up there to fire up there into the tree, they would wait for him to fire so they knew where he was. They would pick them off, but most of them would fall out of the trees into the earth, but some of them were tied in with a rope or vine or something. They were probably cautious; afraid they would fall out of the tree. 56:27 13 �Interviewer: “So, that particular battle was actually won, right? You guys got through?” Yea, they cut a line between the Aitepe and Saidor and the enemy were divided. We had them surrounded so they made an effort to get through and they picked them off as they came through. 57:08 Interviewer: “From there that island was secured?” Yes. Interviewer: “So, where did you go from there?” After we left Saidor, we went to Aitepe and from Aitepe we had the same experience there. We were there about 100 days, 3 months at Aitepe and from there we went to Morotai and did the same procedure, fight the enemy. Then from there we went to Morotai and at Morotai we were told we were going to be part of MacArthur’s division when he landed for returning so we practiced marching. Would you believe it, in the jungle? For about 2 weeks we were marching completely every day to make us look sharp and organized. 57:58 Well, that ‘s where were going to go, were going to go to Manila, but in the meantime on Leyte Island the Japs had broken through the defenses there and they needed another division. That was us, we were ready to go so we got rid of our cottons and all of our nice looking wear and put on the old uniform again. We made a landing on leyte in January of 1945 and secured the beach, went up the tail and it wasn’t long after that that we got into an engagement with the enemy. 58:41 We drove them back, you have to remember we were forced to face the most, well the Japanese Imperial Army was just like the marines best division, they’ve never been defeated and any obstacle they went to get they were successful. The 32nd division was the first division that defeated them completely every place we met them. 59:06 Interviewer: “I have talked to obviously to the infantry guys and other members of the “Red Arrow”, but when you go into an engagement with the enemy, what actually are you doing?” Well, what were actually doing is, communication was so vital because one Colonel had to know what one company is doing and what another company was doing so they could maneuver through the jungle and get behind the enemy lines, or wait for them to come down the trail. 59:37 I would string the wire, we would string the wire out so you had communications. They also had a radio operator with them with the old hand crank generator. They would send out Morse Code. Well, we’d wait until we got orders to move forward again to another area. 59:59 Interviewer: “I guess it may not be clear to people the kind of danger you were in, because while an infantry guy is literally there with a gun and he is looking to defend himself or his fellow soldiers, your mind has to be focused on that, but your also focused on getting the wire out into the jungle.” That’s true. Well, it’s a duty you have to perform. I was very fortunate that I was never hit. I was shot at, but I never was hit and I can honestly say I can’t remember ever killing an enemy Jap directly. I fired into the jungle like I was told to do, like I was supposed to 14 �do, but I never really walked up to a body and said, “this is one that I got”. By the grace of God I got through the way that I did. 1:05 Interviewer: “Now, that particular battle was what? You only alluded to it and it was a very fierce battle. You were up against the top Japanese force and your group overcame, that’s one of the reasons why the “Red Arrow” is so well known, because of that. Did you find that your enemy was as their reputation deserved, that they were a fierce enemy to fight against?” 1:33 They were very well trained, they were very clever and they were very well camouflaged. They use to come out of spider holes; you never knew where they would be next. Our division took great pride in that we accomplished as much as we did. At all our reunions, we get together we occasionally talk about it. Yes, we walk with pride. 1:59 Interviewer: “You know one thing that is kind of hard to get across is that if you’re in an environment that Europe for example, your fighting house to house, jungle fighting is completely unique. You have the weather against you, major tropical diseases, malaria and what not. We haven’t even talked about malaria and things like that. Were there people around you who were affected? Were you affected?” Well, I fortunate in one way, there was myself and a man by the name of Bonzell, we were the last 2 to get malaria in our company. 2:39 Strange as it must be, I got malaria in the hospital. I was taking my pills faithfully, they were atabrine, it’s like synthetic quinine and it kind of controlled the mosquito bites. I went into the hospital for yellow jaundice and while I was in there, about 2 weeks, I woke up one night with the shakes, cold then hot. I hollered out to the ward boy and he came down and said, “what?” I said,” can I have some medicine, I got a fever?” He said, “OK’ and he brought me medicine and they wrote it in the report. The Captain came down the next day and talked to me. He said,” have you ever had malaria before?” I said,” never” and he said, “have you been out of the hospital?” I said, “no I haven’t, I stayed right in the hospital.” “Have you had any visitors?” “No.” He said, “oh nuts.” I said, “what’s the matter?” He said, “I’ve got to call for spraying the whole hospital area because you got malaria right here in the hospital” 3:54 So the rest of the day they were spraying the whole area with planes to get the mosquitoes that were in there. I also had a amoeba dysentery, it’s the worst kind of dysentery you can get. It’s a little parasite that clings to the bowel wall and ulcerates it. It eats away at the bowel and I had that. It took something like maybe 4 months for it to clear up. It’s unbelievable how miserable you can be with all these diseases and illness. Interviewer: “One of the things that is really amazing that I heard from the other members of the “Red Arrow” group was that even if you did have malaria on the line, that didn’t necessarily you were going home or into the hospital.” No, it didn’t help you a bit. You had to stay. I can remember my buddy, Joe Ravadas, in the fox hole next to me, he was a Corporal at that time and my boss, he had a 104° fever and I took care of him and brought him canteens of water, I tried to give him food to eat, but you had to have more than 105° to get back to the base to the hospitals. 5:13 There were times we had maybe 50 to 100 men in the front on our flank and most of them had malaria. They just had to sweat it out. 15 �Interviewer: “And still fight. That is the hard thing. Malaria makes you so weak that a gun becomes very hard to handle and still having to shoot it and defend your life, it’s hard to even imagine.” 5:35 It’s possible the human body can stand that much pain and misery and still be able to fight, you’re right. Interviewer: “what happened when you got out of the hospital?” Well, I had lost, I was probably down to 120 pounds, I’d grown a mustache and I went back to the company street where they were based in leyte and walked up the street and I hollered “hi Jim how are ya?” and the guy said, “who are you? Are you a replacement?” and I said, “no, I’m Bolt” and he said, “no you’re not Bolt, I don’t recognize you.” I said, “I am” and he said, “you’re so skinny.” That’s what happened, that diarrhea did that. In fact they had me on baby food for something like 30 days to see of they could stop it. I wasn’t allowed any solid food. 6:35 They hand out a yellow slip for the baby food and a red slip for the meat, so when you went through you had to give a slip. I traded a couple of times with guys who were playing cards and didn’t want to go to dinner. I said, “give me your red slip, I got to have something to eat solid.” That is some of the humor that happened down there. 6:55 Interviewer: “So after you got out of the hospital, you went back to your unit. What happened then?” Well, I got back to the unit; they were in a rest area cleaning their equipment and doing the things that you do in a rest area when we got orders to leave Leyte and go to Luzon and to go up the Villa Verde trail. Around January of 1945 we went up to the Villa Verde trail, our landing was safe because it had already been secured, and we came in and talked to a few of the natives in this village while we waited for further orders and the enemy had a bonsai attack, which is an all out attack. They scream and they run at you and fire at you. I kind of figured they took a little dope to get that high they really worked them up. We had to go forward to get the land we had lost on the trail, so we went forward, our division did and we started our mopping up from May of 1945 to August of 1945. That gave us a total of 660 days of combat, which no other division had done. 8:19 That’s where I discharged or started my return, at Luzon in the Philippines. Interviewer: “So you never got a chance to watch MacArthur’s return?” No, I didn’t see it. Some of the men of our division did get to see it. Interviewer: “Yes, Janicki told me he was on the beach when he came.” Yea, he was on the beach when he came. Interviewer: “That was a great story he told by the way, you’ll have to watch it. Let’s talk about these banzai charges. I know what one is, but try to give us an idea for someone who has no idea what that means.” Well, it’s an all out attack. The Japanese soldiers work themselves into a frenzy. “Do you know if they were using dope or anything? You don’t know either?” We suspected 16 �that they did because they came charging at us like they were insane, just disregarding their lives at all; they just keep coming, charge, charge. Interviewer: “Were these like bayonet charges or fire?” Bayonet and fire, they were running. Interviewer: “They just come out of the jungle? Tearing at you and you have to just shoot and shoot?” Yea, I didn’t get in on the shooting end of it. 9:44 From the stories I heard from the other men, they would fire their machine guns, the barrel would get red hot and they would have to either replace the barrel or get another gun. They just kept coming. Interviewer: “Where were you when these were happening? You were at the command post?” Yes, I was at the command post. Interviewer: “So you’re actually part of the team that is hearing this.” Yea, were about ½ a mile behind the line. We could hear the firing and the shelling and grenade explosions. It wouldn’t last too long, maybe 15 minutes and we were either successful or defeated. 10:26 Interviewer: “Was there any sense throughout, I know this is a very difficult question to answer, but you were listening to all the different communications and your part of the communications team, was there any sense at all that you guys were winning or losing?” Well, we knew we were winning because we were advancing. As for the information that was fed back to us, it was very little except casualties, a couple of times we had to help carry them out, grave registration was part of our company. They would go out and dig the holes, take the dog tags, mark it on a map where the bodies were so you could recover them later. It was difficult only because where we were we knew that a company was successful or not, the rest of the information was just passed down verbally. 11:28 Interviewer: “So, finally you get a chance to go home?” Ok, I had—the first group that went out had—I think, if I remember correctly, had to have 88 points or something like that. You got points by the time you were in the service, the number of months you were in combat. Unfortunately if you were in the hospital that didn’t give you 2 points, it only gave you 1 point, so I wasn’t one of the first ones to get out. 12:04 We got mail from the guys that were the first ones out with the higher points. The National Guard would have higher points because they were in the state longer than we were. I was up on the front when I got informed that I would be going out in July, first it was June, then they, in the period of the month of June, they changed the procedure for points and that’s when I lost points because I was in the hospital, so I got the feeling that I would never get home. 12:42 I had written to Virginia, the girl I was engaged to, I wrote to her and told her that she should get on with her life because I was never getting out. I was discouraged, depressed and she wrote back, “I’m going to wait no matter how long it is”. So, that kept me going and made me feel better. Finally July came and I was called up and they said, “we want to give you 17 �your staff Sergeant rank, I was a T5, they said, “ were going to give you a Staff Sergeant rank”, and I said, “What for?” and they said, “Well, you going back and there’s a rank open.” I said, “I don’t want the rank, just get me out of here.” So, I went back to Manila in July and waited for the boats. We were there about a week and they loaded the boats and I started home. 13:44 We arrived at Hawaii about the 1st of August, maybe the later part of July, we sat in the harbor there while they took on water and supplies and we weren’t allowed to go into Hawaii, just a certain designated group that probably were Colonels or higher up or Captains were permitted to go. That of course caused a lot of distress and hollering, the guys were yelling at them when they got on the boat to go into shore. 14:20 We were there only overnight then the next morning we took off and arrived at San Francisco about the first of August. We were taken to an auditorium and we were offered a 30 day vacation in Miami Florida then get a discharged later, lose that wanted to didn’t go to Miami, they only had 6 men stand up out of about 1,000 in the auditorium that took the vacation and we kind of booed them and told them there would be another 30 days, but I think they kind of won up because I got out of the service on August 6th. I had a couple other buddies with me and they said, “where are we going to meet you?” We went alphabetically and their names were lower than ours. We said, “at the first subway station and the first bar that is closest to the subway station under the stairway. We’ll wait for you there.” So, we did. We got out about 1:30 that afternoon and they arrived about 3:30 and they wanted us to stay and have a few drinks and we said, “no, were going into Chicago and we’ve got to hurry.” So, we went into Chicago and unfortunately the train schedule wasn’t in our favor. It was already loaded and we had to stay overnight. 15:46 So, all of us had a party that night and we got haircuts, massages, facials and all that, the whole works. The next day was August the 6th, I forgot august the 6th was the day we went into Chicago. I told you about the atomic bomb being dropped, well that’s the day I got out of the service. The papers said it would be over within weeks and they were right. Then we got into Chicago and left on august the 7th on a train for Grand Rapids and of course it was a milk run, every station we had to stop, railroad station. I got to Grandville oh, about I’d say just about dark, dusk about 7:00 at night and I knew the next stop was our Union Depot here and of course I had my barracks bag with me and my supplies that were in the bag, things that I had saved. 17:02 Interviewer: “ In uniform?” Yes, in uniform. When I arrived at the Grand Rapids depot I was going to walk and my legs were shaking, I couldn’t walk so I threw the old barracks bag over my shoulder and started running down the tracks. I was able to run better, I ran into the depot and there was my mother and father, Virginia, my wife to be and her family, all my relations and friends that were there waited for us to come and from there we went to my folks house and had coffee and cake. 17:38 That was the end of my military career. I was finished. Interviewer: “I know it is very difficult, but just for the families record, not the historical record, try to give us an idea of what it was like when you ran into that depot and there they all were?” Well, it was something I was waiting for, for years. My heart was racing and I looked at my folks, they were 5 years older, 41/2 years older, my dad was in his topcoat, he looked great, he had a hat on and a cigar in his mouth. My mother had her big hat on and she was crying of course, I hugged them both and my sisters were there and I hugged them. I 18 �didn’t find Virginia, and I thought,” where is she?” She was hiding behind someone to see if I would ask for her I guess, I had a sinking feeling right ten and there that there was something wrong if I didn’t see her, I though, “ oh, oh she’s married to somebody else and didn’t tell me or something.” It turned out all right. 18:51 Interviewer: “Well Martin, I just want to say thank you very much, not only for the interview, but as I say to a lot of vet, my father was one as well, we wouldn’t have the freedoms that we have today if you had not done the things that you did for us and for your country. Were going to end with a request that you made about setting the record straight about the name Bolt. I didn’t forget, I didn’t forget.” It was interesting when my sisters went into nurses training, nobody could pronounce the name Bult, it’s B U L T, so she went in to register at nursing as the name Bolt so she told her dad about it and he said, “that’s ok because your name will change anyway when your married.” All the girls continued with Bolt, it sounded better than Bult and I went in service, I went to school under Bolt, when I went into the service, I went in under Bolt and while I was in service the FBIO came up to the house and said, “where’s Minzol Bult?” That’s the Dutch name for Martin. “Where’s Mr. Bult, he didn’t register and we can’t find him”, and she said, “my son’s in New Guinea”, they said, “no, no”, they didn’t believe her at first. Finally they talked to some other witnesses and neighbors and civil authorities they knew and they realized that I was in the service. 20:30 When I got home I went back to the telephone company and I had to show, to get my job back, I had to show my birth certificate to make sure, it was some form they had to have, so I brought my birth certificate over there and he said, “what’s this? Is that a typo error?” No, I said,” it’s Bult and he said, “you can’t be employed here other than under the name of Bolt, you’ll have to get it changed legally”, and I thought, “ oh no, not that”. He said, “all your insurance papers, all your discharge papers, everything on the record is under Bolt so your going to have to change it if you want to continue working here or go under Bult”. 21:11 So, I went home and told dad the situation it was and he said, “don’t bother, just go change it and legally make it Bolt, I can understand it.” So, I went back down to the city hall and had it changed legally to Bolt. There is quite a bit of difference between Minzo Hindrick Bult and Martin Henry Bolt. Interviewer: “That’s for the record, thank you so much, that was wonderful.” . 19 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bolt, Martin (Interview transcript and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bolt, Martin Description An account of the resource Martin Bolt served in the 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd (Red Arrow) Division, during WW II. This interview covers his training and army life in both the US and in Australia. He tells of his unit's campaigns through New Guinea, Morotai, and the Philippines. Bolt's main job was to run communication wires from unit headquarters to the front, often close to the front lines or along jungle paths suited for ambushes. He offers detailed observations regarding a variety of aspects of jungle conditions and warfare. This interview was used in the documentary, "Nightmare in New Guinea." Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boring, Frank (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Michigan. National Guard. Infantry, 126th World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-07-20 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BoltM Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b29e4d227a961d77aafa03c1875c0447.jpg f1c577d016b7d8e96998fde138dfaf4f Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Merrill_EastmanAlbum_3_1911-1915_033 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1913-08-03 Title A name given to the resource Bolt's boat house Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of Bolt's boat house on Alexandria Bay, New York. Water damage is visible on the image, which was scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource Alexandria Bay (N.Y.) Boats Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/57aacb08905f449f89b3c32467b3e301.mp4 0cc1b90dc25c91fe1629ed7af5a036a0 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/94dcc0f15ab633f81d5acdbe8e0b2da0.pdf 1475df7446bf496246f5c3e7b59d2fe8 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: Other veterans and civilians Interviewee name: Harry Bolthouse Length of Interview: (00:06:20) Pre-Enlistment  Background o Born in Grand Rapids, 1930.  Family o Had four brothers. o Mother was a housewife; father a carpenter.  Education o Was in school before enlisting. o No other family who served in the military. Enlistment and Training  Why he joined o Doesn’t remember why he joined.  Where he went o Thought that the departure was horrible, went by train. o Went to Fort Meade, Maryland.  Living conditions/Training o Trained in Tank Driving. o Didn’t like the food and the social-life was non-existent. o Was the only one in his barracks to attend church. o Has cerebral hemorrhages since he was five; has lost a lot of memories so he doesn’t remember much. Active Duty/After the Service  Became worse after having brain surgery/ � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bolthouse, Harry R. (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bolthouse, Harry R. Description An account of the resource Harry Bolthouse is a World War II veteran who served in the U.S. Army from 1948 to 1949. Although unable to recall much of his service experience, due to his cerebral hemorrhages, he was able to share pieces of his pre-enlistment and enlistment. Among the things he does remember and discusses briefly are his days in basic training learning how to drive a tank while at Fort Meade, Maryland. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Mitchell, Whitney (Interviewer) Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-05-30 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BolthouseH Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e65905a0a08f3d982e23f9b38f93c190.jpg cb7634fd971e4a183d5d12a69a67cda3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Faces of Grand Valley Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource University Communications Description An account of the resource A non-comprehensive collection of photographs of Grand Valley faculty, staff, administrators, board members, friends, and alumni. Photos collected by University Communications for use in promotion and information sharing about Grand Valley with the wider community. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960s - 1990s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived GV012-03. University Communications. Vita Files Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copryight Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University College administrators College teachers Colleges and universities -- Faculty Michigan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context GV012-03 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BolthouseJames Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. University Communications Title A name given to the resource Bolthouse, James Description An account of the resource James Bolthouse, Admissions Subject The topic of the resource Grand Valley State University – History College administrators Michigan Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived University Communications. Vita Files, 1968-2016 (GV012-03) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. Special Collections and University Archives Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/15410dc99fc7ed5078ec808eda3a1dcf.m4v c90055343321e8b41b57df8c21045d8d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/cf1b65153eacd5e3ffb6d761450c31c9.pdf 7d200fcfae94b3846e6482e9d6213be2 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Bruce Bond Vietnam War 54 minutes 6 seconds (00:00:18) Early Life and Awareness of the Vietnam War -Born in Charlottesville, Virginia on December 2, 1950 -Grew up in Charlottesville -He enjoyed his high school experience -Involved in football and baseball -In high school he was aware of the Vietnam War -A girlfriend’s brother was in the military police in Vietnam -He followed the news on Vietnam -Several boys from his high school went to Vietnam -Two of them were killed there -He graduated from high school in 1969 (00:02:04) Enlisting in the Army -He enlisted in the Army when he was still in high school -As soon as he graduated he went to basic training -He knew that he couldn’t pay for college with a sports scholarship -Felt that the GI Bill would be the best way to go to college -His father had been in the Air Force, so he knew from experience he didn’t want to join that -He also had no interest in becoming a Marine either (00:03:09) Basic Training -Basic training began in early summer 1969 -He was sent to Fort Gordon, Georgia for basic training -His first thought was, “What have I gotten myself into?” after being greeted by drill instructors -He adjusted to basic training and enjoyed it -He hunted when he was younger, so rifle training came easy for him -Trained with the M-16 assault rifle, M72 LAW (rocket launcher), M-60 machine gun -Basic training lasted eight weeks -Trained with a mix of draftees, enlisted men, and National Guardsmen (00:04:35) Advanced Infantry Training -He took advanced infantry training (AIT) at Fort Gordon as well -His specialization was as an infantryman -He enjoyed his AIT experience -In AIT he trained with a wider array of weapons -Received land navigation training and how to live in the field -This also involved learning how to go out on patrols -AIT lasted another eight weeks (00:05:13) Deployment to Vietnam -At the end of AIT he was allowed to go home for thirty days of leave -After his leave he reported for his deployment to Vietnam -He had received his deployment orders at the end of AIT �-He knew from the start he would probably wind up in Vietnam -Officially being deployed didn’t shock him -In a way he was looking forward to going to Vietnam -His instructors in training had been Vietnam veterans, so they helped prepare him -Made sure that they knew how to set up ambushes, call in airstrikes, and eat rations -He reported in Seattle, Washington and stayed there for three days -From Seattle he flew to Vietnam and landed in Cam Ranh Bay -In Cam Ranh Bay he received his orders and a couple days of in-country training -The in-country training basically served as an introduction to being in Vietnam -The first two things that he noticed was how hot it was, and how the country smelled -Overall, it was a cultural shock for him -He arrived in Vietnam in September 1969 (00:09:10) Assignment to 58th Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog) -In Cam Ranh Bay he received his orders to join the 58th Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog) -It was a part of the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division at Camp Evans -Going into his assignment he wasn’t sure of what to expect -At Camp Evans he was assigned to a dog and received handler training from another handler -Handler training lasted two weeks -The dog was a German Shepherd whose name was Jim Dandy -He had already been trained, but he had a bad attitude (bit everyone) -If he (Bruce) couldn’t get Jim to cooperate Jim would be put down -After spending two hours with Jim they became a perfect match (00:12:34) Dog Handler Training -Started off with simple commands -Sit, heel, come -Moved on to running the obstacle course together -Consisted of crawling in tunnels, jumping obstacles and getting over low walls -The simple training lasted about three, or four, days -Jim was an off leash dog which meant he could go a short distance away from Bruce in the field -If Jim was off the leash in the field Bruce would communicate with hand signals -He learned how to recognize Jim’s signals -Finding a booby trap, spider hole, enemy ambush, or a sniper -At night they walked the perimeter of Camp Evans as part of the training -Jim was incredibly good at finding the tripwires to booby traps -After they forged a bond together Jim was incredibly protective of Bruce -He had always been good with animals, so the training wasn’t too difficult -The other men were impressed by how obedient Jim was with Bruce (00:17:34) Jim Dandy’s Background -Jim came from Texas -His family had donated him to the Army -Received training at Fort Benning, Georgia and was deployed to Vietnam -Somewhere during that time is when Jim became aggressive and violent -Jim was specifically used as a scout dog -Walking point with their handler looking for ambushes, or other signs of danger -There were other dogs used for finding mines, search and rescue, or searching for drugs -Jim was never bothered by gunfire �-He was fed a mix of canned and dried dog food -This added food weight and water weight to Bruce’s rucksack (00:20:37) Operating in the Field -They would go out to the field together and meet the commanding officer of a unit -They were never assigned to a specific unit, just worked with unit’s that needed them -He served with units in the 1st/506th, 2nd/506th, and all of the units in the 3rd Brigade -During helicopter rides Jim was calm and even friendly -Allowed the helicopter crewmen to pet him -He would go up between the pilot and copilot and let them pet him -They would stay with a unit for about a week and then return to Camp Evans -The length of the assignment varied with each unit -After a certain amount of missions dogs needed to return to Camp Evans for an extended period -This was especially necessary when they were operating in the mountains -When they were in the field Jim would have to take 15-20 minute breaks -This was to keep him from getting too worn out -In the field Jim would routinely find North Vietnamese, or Viet Cong, bunkers -He was also good at finding booby-traps and enemy ambushes -There were times where they would go into the field and they didn’t find anything -In the field he always had to walk point with Jim (walking in front of the unit) -The other troops welcomed them because they knew a scout dog increased survivability -The only problem was that the troops always wanted to pet Jim -Jim was never okay with that and bit troops that tried to pet him -Difficult for the troops because a dog was a symbol of home and normalcy (00:27:07) Unit Rotation -After they got done in the field they would return to Camp Evans by helicopter -After a mission they would stand down at Camp Evans for about half a week -There were twenty man-dog teams in their platoon available for field work -Sometimes the demand for a scout dog team was so high they only got back for a day, or two -At Camp Evans Jim always stayed by Bruce’s side -Jim was only left alone when Bruce went to shower, or to the mess hall -They even slept in the same room together -During the monsoons their missions slowed down -It was too hard to get out to the field because it was too hard to fly in the rains -Aside from transportation the dogs couldn’t pick out scents as well in the rain (00:31:20) Firebase Ripcord -He and Jim were sent to Firebase Ripcord in early June 1970 -About one month before the start of the Battle of Ripcord on July 1, 1970 -They would leave the base in the morning for patrols and return in the evening -Just patrolled the area around Firebase Ripcord -Being in the A Shau Valley was a dangerous and foreboding assignment -The A Shau Valley roughly divided Vietnam and Cambodia -Had to stay alert at all times -On Ripcord the first time for about three, or four, days then they would rotate to other firebases -Whenever they returned to base they would swap information with other handlers -He always felt invincible with Jim at his side �(00:35:45) Jim in the Field -When Jim found a booby-trap he would sit -If he found an enemy position the hair on his back stood up and he looked in that direction -At that point Bruce would go and alert the rest of the patrol to Jim’s discovery -If they were in a valley it was harder for Jim to smell -If they were on a hill, or any elevated ground, Jim could pick up scents much easier -If Jim found something the patrol would then make a plan of attack to deal with the threat -Whenever the found something Jim would stay quiet and never gave away their position (00:38:10) Getting Wounded -He was with Bravo Company of the 1st/506th when he was wounded -He and Jim left to go into the field on June 30, 1970 -They went out to the helipad with another handler and his dog -As the helicopters came in the other handler and his dog boarded the first helicopter -Bruce and Jim boarded the second helicopter -Bruce had originally planned to board the first helicopter -On July 4 the other handler and his dog were killed in action by a booby trap -It has haunted Bruce to this day to think about that -Bruce and Jim were with Bravo Company in their night defensive position (field camp) -Getting ready to go out for patrols, nothing was happening in the area yet -Jim picked up a scent and alerted them to a Vietnamese presence just to their left -As Bruce went to alert the commander a satchel charge exploded in the center of camp -It was either an attempt to kill the officers, or kill Bruce and Jim -The Vietnamese knew scout dog teams were highly valued -After the satchel charge exploded they started taking rocket propelled grenade fire -In the fighting eighteen men were wounded and one man was killed -When the fighting began and Bruce got hurt Jim became frantic -By the time the medic reached Bruce, Bruce had to hold down Jim to calm him down -In the fighting Bruce had shattered his left foot and took shrapnel in his right leg and back -Jim began to lick Bruce’s foot to try and heal him -They were both medevaced out of the field -It was the only time that Jim didn’t do well on a helicopter (00:45:19) Leaving Vietnam -He and Jim made it back to Camp Evans -Before being treated for his wounds he took Jim to his quarters and made sure he was fed -He refused being evacuated because he wanted to stay with Jim -He had extended his enlistment for six months just to be able to stay with Jim -Against his wishes he was sent to the 95th Evacuation Hospital -A few days later he woke up on a C-130 bound for Yokohama, Japan -There was an ugly confrontation because he wanted to go back -Spent two months in the hospital in Japan -From Japan he was sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. -He wound up spending over a year there -He had to learn to walk again -Basically, he had been in worse shape than he thought he was (00:47:48) Post-War Service -After being released from Walter Reed he was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia �-Worked with the military police and their dogs -He had tried to go back to Vietnam, but his request was denied -His wounds prevented him from going, and the withdrawal was starting -At Fort Benning he worked as a trainer for the canine units -Later on he joined the 11th Special Forces Group in Richmond, Virginia -It was a reserve unit at the time -He reenlisted and had gone into the Army Reserves -When the 11th Special Forces Group was deactivated in 1994, he left too (00:49:55) Jim’s Fate -After Bruce left, the Army attempted to reassign Jim to a new handler -No matter what they tried Jim would not cooperate with a new handler -One day Jim broke out of the kennel and started to go towards the aid station at Camp Evans -Bruce thinks that Jim was going to look for him -Eventually the troops were able to capture Jim, and he was put down -In retrospect he feels that it was a better fate than what happened to the other dogs -At the end of the war service dogs were given to South Vietnam -Intention was to have the South Vietnamese use them like the U.S. had -Instead the South Vietnamese troops killed and ate the dogs -Now service dogs are retired and allowed to be adopted by a former handler (00:53:00) Life after the Army -He got out of the Army and became a police officer -He worked in a police K-9 unit for a few years -After K-9 work he worked as a detective and on a SWAT team -He worked in Richmond, Virginia as well as in South Carolina -He made police work his career and wound up retiring from it � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_BondB1690V Title A name given to the resource Bond, Bruce (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-10-10 Description An account of the resource Bruce Bond was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1950 and grew up there and attended high school there. After graduating from high school in 1969 he enlisted in the Army. He trained at Fort Gordon, Georgia, as an infantryman, but when he went to Vietnam he trained as a scout dog handler and was assigned to the 58th Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog), which was part of the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, based at Camp Evans. He and his scout dog, Jim Dandy, served on patrols with different units of the brigade, and took part in the actions around Firebase Ripcord in 1970. Bruce was wounded on June 30, 1970, and was sent to the US for treatment. He requested reassignment to Vietnam, but wound up as a scout dog instructor at Fort Benning, Georgia, for the remainder of his enlistment. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bond, Bruce Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McGregor, Michael (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bc3d2744af3bf9b70ac3b6a3b383b384.jpg 4fea9b0e9ca267930d95334adb76594a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Merrill_LS00223 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource circa 1930 Title A name given to the resource Bone implement--Piltdown Description An account of the resource Black and white lantern slide of a sketch diagram of a bone implement, Elephas antiquus, found at Piltdown, England. Subject The topic of the resource Lantern slides Archaeology Tools Drawings Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/599314ac92b1ca30f6330f99cba05e7b.jpg b33bfad81fd46c1d420e33fa270d811d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert H. Merrill photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1909/1950 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-222 Description An account of the resource Photographs, negatives, and lantern slides digitized from the papers of engineer and archaeologist Robert H. Merrill. A Grand Rapids native, Merrill held an accomplished career as a civil engineer. He founded the company Spooner & Merrill, which held offices in Grand Rapids and Chicago. From 1919-1921, Merrill lived in China, working as Assistant Principal Engineer on a reconstruction of the Grand Canal - the oldest and longest canal system in the world. Merrill became fascinated by archaeology, and among other projects, he traveled to the Uxmal Pyramids in Yucatan, Mexico, with a research expedition from Tulane University. Merrill's photo collection includes images of his travels and projects, friends and family. Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Merrill_FilmPacks_12_010 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1937-10-02 Title A name given to the resource Bones of mastodon find Hughes of Barry County Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph (damaged negative) of mastodon bones in an excavation site. Subject The topic of the resource Archaeology Archaeological sites Excavation Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Robert H. Merrill papers (RHC-222) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Merrill, Robert H., 1881-1955 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4bf5f1dec2acf9c0363078c4f7c684e1.mp4 af1f8c387173008f47768a8a77b4847a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/f678926067e4b7b2f204c009adf84e85.pdf e51f8e9fadb6c8d523f847efab498fde PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview World War II Richard Bonge (1:05:24) Introduction (00:22)               Richard was born in Holland, Michigan on August 21, 1917. His father worked at a shoe factory for 16 years, once his health began to deteriorate he had to quit and buy a farm. The family moved to the farm in 1926. Richard lived at this farm until he left for the war in 1942. During the depression, it was “hard scratching” but they got by. Their farm was 40 acres, with 2 horses that both were killed in a barn fire along with five or six heads of cattle and a few pigs. The barn was a total loss. To make ends meet, Richard’s father worked a second job unloading coal from a train for 12-14 cents a ton. Richard was never able to finish high school; he made it through the first half of tenth grade. (2:36) During high school, Richard heard a state trooper speak, inspiring him to become a police officer, but because he didn’t have a high school diploma he was ineligible to be a state trooper. Instead he became the local constable in the township that he lived when he was 21 years old. Along with being the constable, he was also helping on the family farm. (4:35) He bought a used John Deere tractor, which he used to work on his families farm and also did custom work with it. Eventually making enough to buy rubber wheels to replace the original steel ones that came with it. Richard heard about Pearl Harbor being attacked the night of December 7th while listening to the radio. He immediately thought he would be drafted. His mother told him he wouldn’t because he had asthma. (5:48) Richard met Ruth in 1938, she lived in Chicago. She was 18 or 19 and he was 20 or 21. After dating for awhile, they were engaged in 1942. The schools taught current events, so people were caught up on Hitler and what was happening in Europe. (7:50) He was drafted in May 1942. Upon receiving his draft notice, he didn’t enlist, and instead let God have his way. Training (9:00)    After being drafted, Richard was sent to St. Louis, Missouri to Jefferson Barracks, he was there for three weeks. He was then shipped out to Lincoln, Nebraska. Before leaving Michigan, he was sent to Fort Custer. �              At Jefferson Barracks, he had to perform physical testing, written testing, general background knowledge, and he was sent to the rifle range for one day. He had fired a gun before, but never a high powered rifle like in the military. (10:36) While Richard was shooting, an officer that was standing behind him watched him fire several shots then told him “Damn good shooting, soldier”. In Lincoln he attended the Airplane Mechanics School. He was in the first class that was conducted at the base. He learned the basics of every aircraft. This school lasted seven weeks. Upon completion of this basic course, he was transferred to Chanute Field in Illinois to choose a specialty field, which was propellers. (12:09) He had four schools to choose from at the time: Power Plants, Propellers, Instruments and Parachute Rigging. Chanute Field was located 100 miles south of Chicago. Discipline and drill were not strictly enforced during this time. (14:13) The first instructor he had there would often say “Let’s don’t be for doing that”. All the instructors were military, not civilians. He was working on the propeller mechanisms, which can change the pitch of the aircraft. (16:11) While in Brazil, he witnessed a plane that had its propeller shatter on the runway. At Chanute Field, about 2,000 permanent personnel were stationed on the base. Bombers and transport planes would often fly into the base. (18:00) Richard was at Chanute Field for four weeks. While there he caught pneumonia, and he spent five weeks in the hospital. Once he had recovered, he had to finish his last two weeks of school. First Unit (19:00)      After he graduated from propeller school, he was sent to Love Field in Dallas, Texas. He was assigned to the 5th Ferries Command to the 62nd Ferry Squadron. They began transporting their aircraft to England. When he arrived at Love Field, he was placed on a detached service to the guard squadron. After two weeks he was sent to Florida where he learned that he had been transferred to the Corps of Military Police. They remained in Boca Raton for a month training. (21:00) Richard was then transferred again to the 1208th Military Police Company in New Orleans. After one week, the first Friday night after Easter in 1943, he boarded an old troop carrier that belonged to the United Fruit Company named The Algonquin. One of the sergeants in his company told him that he was sent to France during World War I on that same boat. They were sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They sat in the harbor for six days, and they were not allowed to leave the boat. The men would amuse themselves by throwing quarters over the side of the boat and watched as local children would dive down and bring up the coins in their teeth. (23:10) �     The ship then brought them to Trinidad, where they remained for a month. At Fort Reed, which was located inland, the men conducted training there in close-order drill, mechanics of arrest, and whatever the officers could think of to keep the men busy. Once his unit had received other orders, they boarded a much larger ship, the General Clem. Clem was a Michigan volunteer who rose to the ranks of General in the Civil War. Richard claims that Clem wanted to reenlist for World War II, but was told he was too old. [John Lincoln Clem died in San Antonio, Texas in 1937 at the age of 86] (25:05) His ship sailed in a convoy that consisted of around 15 to 20 ships. Once they had a U-Boat scare when one of the ships began dropping depth charges. He never knew if they got it or not. They were on the first ship for 21 days, and 14 days on the second. Natal, Brazil (26:48)                 They were sent to Natal, Brazil which was the home of an Air Transport Command Base that was in the early stages of being built. (27:08) The base was about five or six miles outside the city limits. The military sharpened tree saplings, which was supposed to be a defense against parachuting Germans who might try to attack the base. Two runways were also being built there, each a mile long in the form of an X. Natal was used to ship supplies all over the world, to such places as Europe, North Africa, India, China and Burma. (29:20) Surrounding Natal, the area was very poorly with some people earning 15 cents a day. Richard was earning $50 a day, once a month. (31:05) Shortly after being in Brazil, Richard was promoted to Staff Sergeant and was commander of the guard. At the base, the MP’s were in charge of security, with one company designated for town patrol, which would keep order in the nearby town amongst the men who were there on leave. Natal was a very poor town that only offered whorehouses and beer establishments for the men stationed there. (33:18) A USO was built later, but he rarely went there. Richard was never on town patrol, until the last three months he was in Brazil. He was sent to a different base where he was in charge of town patrol. He had to work from noon till around 11pm. The town was Sao Luis, close to the Amazon. This base also had Blimp Duty for one week at a time. The landing crew had to assist in helping the blimp land. Richard was in charge of getting the crew to and from the landing zone. (36:12) In Natal, security risks ranged from men jumping the fence and going to unauthorized villages, getting killed or contracting a venereal disease. Once he found the Navy Base Commanders [?] and tried to arrest them, one of the men ran, Richard ordered the man to halt and then fired a shot and the man hit the ground. Thinking that he hit the man, he asked where he had been shot. The man replied that he hadn’t, rather he had tripped and fallen over a barbed wire fence. (39:38) The man was later found guilty and was sentenced to ten days for resisting arrest and assaulting a superior. �            Richard mentioned that the base in North Africa was shut down for two weeks due to a malaria outbreak. Once it had been cleared, the base continued operations and people stuck in Natal were shipped out. (41:23) He had quite a bit of contact with the locals, and learned a lot a Portuguese. He still remembers some of it today. The base had many Brazilian civilians that worked there doing laundry and working in the mess hall. Once he was called to an accident that occurred off base, involving a 6x6 truck carrying local workers. The driver lost control and rolled the truck, which had an open back. It was carrying around 25 or 30 people and Richard crawled underneath the back end to look for any survivors but couldn’t find any. (44:40) The base had around one plane crash a week. Most of the time there were no survivors. One crash involved a B-24 that crashed and was engulfed in flames. The plane was carrying ammunition. The survivors were removed and taken to the hospital before Richard got there. (46:58) Another crash that he remembers was a B-29 that was hard to find, and when he did find it, they were unable to access it because of the swamps. Richard was told to stay at the road and not let anyone pass except fire and ambulance crews. Two men approached him, he told them “You can’t go there” but they continued to advance, he sharply yelled “Halt” and he pulled out his weapon. Finally the two stopped and he found out that it was the commander of the base. The officer that posted Richard there assured him he would not be in trouble for following orders. (48:52) Richard was married on October 10, 1945. (51:06) They were married in Evergreen Park, Illinois. He was discharged in November 1945. Richard just spoke with a man he served with who just turned 91. They had a tornado where he lives in Georgia. This man often served on town patrol, and he once got into a fight with a drunken sailor and had his nipple bitten off, but it was later reattached. (54:31) Richard recalls that his commanding officer, Lieutenant Glass, was sending home a .30 caliber carbine rifle. (56:26) He was sending it home in pieces, and Richard reported it. The postmaster in Miami, Florida was contacted and he stopped the package and sent the others back. The man was court-martialed and he pleaded not guilty. He was found guilty and convicted. Later, it was discovered that he had sent home many other things as well. They had the FBI search the man’s parents' house and his wife’s house, and discovered the items. (59:09) Brazil had many tropical diseases, and malaria nets were used to keep away the mosquitoes when he was in a transient camp. Back in the States (1:01:51)   After the war, Richard worked for his brother at a wheel alignment shop. He was sent to school to learn about alignment and he worked the job for about three years. When business there slowed, he got a job working for the Holland Police Department and continued with that job for 15 years. (1:02:43) �   Many of his calls were domestic disputes and he was sent without back-up. At the time, many officers had been killed on such calls so he eventually quit. After he quit the police department, he worked for 14 years at General Electric. He was forced to retire because of arthritis in his upper spine. Looking back on his military service, [video cuts off before interview is finished] (1:05:23) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bonge, Richard (Interview outline and video) Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bonge, Richard Description An account of the resource Richard was born in Holland, Michigan on August 21, 1917. He was drafted into the Army in 1942. He was sent to aviation mechanics school and specialized in propellers. He was stationed at Love Field in Dallas, Texas as a part of the 5th Ferries Command to the 62nd Ferry Squadron. Shortly after arriving however, he was attached to the guard squadron and eventually was transferred to the 1208th Military Police Company in New Orleans, Louisiana. Richard was sent to Brazil where he worked as base security in Natal. He remained there until his service ended in 1945. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Air Corps Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BongeR0121V Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/adce7b38b0643f33b34f6b3969c9110b.jpg 5169fd3c3bf3f79e664a56950bc26aa9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Douglas R. Gilbert Photographs Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R., 1942-2023 Description An account of the resource Photographs scanned from negatives and transparencies from the Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183). Douglas R. Gilbert (b. 1942) is an American photographer from Michigan. He was born in Holland, Michigan and is the son of Russell W. and Carmen (Andree) Gilbert. Gilbert earned a B.A. in social sciences and art at Michigan State University in 1964, an M.S. in photography from the Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1972, and a M.S.W. from Salem State College in 1993. He is married to Barbara (McDonald) Gilbert, and has three daughters, Robyn, Rachel, and Anne. Gilbert took a serious interest in photography at the age of fourteen. In 1963 he joined the staff of Look magazine in New York as the second youngest photojournalist in the magazine's history. As a Look photographer from 1964 to 1966, he photographed folk musician Bob Dylan, the Newport Folk Festival, Simon and Garfunkel, the New York City Financial District, the children and facilities at the Manhattan School for Seriously Disturbed Children. From 1967 to 1969, Gilbert did several shoots, including that of folk singer Janis Ian for Life magazine. After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1969 to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, Gilbert conducted notable photo shoots of business and political figure Lenore Romney, and pursued more personal and artistic photography, focusing on urban and rural landscapes in Illinois and Michigan. He then joined the faculty of Wheaton College, where he taught from 1972 to 1982. In 1993, Gilbert graduated from Salem State College, Massachusetts, with a Masters in Social Work, and later pursued a second career as a psychotherapist. Douglas Gilbert died in June 2023. Throughout his photography career, he pursued both freelance commercial work as well as artistic work. His art photography is characterized by its classic black-and-white format, and features people, places and objects shot great attention and sensitivity. Gilbert's works are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and the Grand Valley State University Art Galleries, as well as in numerous private and institutional collections. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1960-2011 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="%E2%80%9Dhttps%3A//gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783%E2%80%9D">Douglas R. Gilbert Papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Subject The topic of the resource Photographs Photography -- United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Image Type The nature or genre of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-183_I155-0005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gilbert, Douglas R. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1968-08-08 Title A name given to the resource Bonhoeffer burial site, Schwäbisch Hall, Germany Description An account of the resource Black and white photograph of the interior of the church where a relative of Karl Bonhoeffer's burial site is located in Schwäbisch Hall, Germany. Bonhoeffer was the father of of German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a member of the anti-Nazi resistance. Scanned from the negative. Subject The topic of the resource Bonhoeffer, Karl, 1868-1948 Schwäbisch Hall (Germany) Burial--Germany--Schwäbisch Hall Black-and-white photography Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/783">Douglas R. Gilbert papers (RHC-183)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960s Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives