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Stories from the Children and Grandchildren of War

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Every day we hear about another WWII veteran who has died. Some go silently and almost no one notices. Other more “famous” veterans are given a big fanfare after they depart this world. There is another group of individuals who are aging and passing away each day that no one is talking about.

The children of veterans and soldiers who were Killed In Action.

With those veterans and their children also go their stories.

Last year the World War II Research and Writing Center released a book to help families and researchers, put on paper, the stories they heard or know about WWII. Stories from the World War II Battlefield: Volume 3 Writing the Stories of War.

This book contains organizational tips to help you organize your research and over 500 writing prompts to help you get the stories on paper. There is even a section for the Children and Grandchildren of War, to help you record your stories. Here are a few of the prompts to get you thinking about your stories. Want more, order the book today.

Growing up I heard stories about my Grandma T. being a Rosie the Riveter. I heard about my Grandma Libbie raising three children on her own while my Grandpa Joe was in the Naval Armed Guard. When he returned home, he was changed forever. The entire family’s life changed and that change carried through the generations in our DNA. These are things I think most family historians/genealogists and military researchers do not touch because it will bring up painful memories for someone or cause pain within ourselves. Yet, we must explore these stories so we learn the lessons of the past and create a better future.

Sample Writing Prompts for Children of War

  1. What lessons (positive and negative) were passed down through the family because of the war?
  1. What habits remained in the family after the war? Which habits were started because of the war or even earlier, during the Great Depression? Consider food storage, recycling, using everything until it had no use for anything.
  1. What kind of fear did you experience during the war?
  1. If you were born prior to the war, how was life different when the soldier was at war?
  1. How did family life change when the soldier returned after the war? Did your parents remain married?

Sample Writing Prompts for Grandchildren of War

  1. What lessons were passed down through the family because of the war?
  1. What habits remained in the family after the war? Which habits were started because of the war or even earlier, during the Great Depression? Consider food storage, recycling, using everything until it had no use for anything.
  1. What stories did you hear about your grandfather or grandmother who served in the war?
    1. What was your perception of that individual?
    2. How did your perception change after you started researching his or her service?

Are you writing the stories of your family and digging deeper than the basic facts? Please share your experiences with our readers.

© 2017 World War II Research and Writing Center

An Inspiring Woman

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Today is International Women’s History Day. Who are the women in your family that you are remembering or honoring today? How did those women change your life?

There is one woman who is very special to me and inspired me to continue moving forward in a time of great change and sadness for me. Her name is Virginia, or Ginny. Ginny married my cousin, Flying Tiger Robert Brouk, in November 1942. Three weeks after they married, she watched him die in a plane crash as he trained pilots in Orlando, Florida. After Robert’s funeral, no one in the family knew what happened to her. When I began researching Robert’s story, I posted a message on the Flying Tiger message boards in 1996. In 2005, nine years later, Ginny emailed me. The rest is history as I wrote Robert’s book and then others before my marriage collapsed and I became a single mother.

I visited Ginny for the first time, a few months before I moved and started my new life. We spent only three days together, but we laughed, told stories, and only cried a little. Listening to how she coped with life after Robert’s death and moved forward, rather than giving up, inspired me. I wasn’t planning on giving up but in moments of great change and emotion, a lot of things run through your mind. Ginny gave me strength to move forward with less fear.

In 2013 I started writing my book series, “Stories of the Lost.” I asked Ginny if I could write her story, so it could inspire the world. At first she was hesitant because she told me she didn’t do much. She wasn’t [a man] on the front lines with a gun. I responded that she DID make a difference. Her choice to join the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), like many others during the war, allowed women of future generations, including mine, to have more choices in life than to be housewives, nurses, or teachers, all common life paths in the 1940s for women. She gave women of future generations the choice to join the military and serve their country. Ginny contributed to the war effort just as everyone else did and her service should be remembered.

I also explained what LOST meant in the context of my books. Not that you’ve lost your mind or your car keys, but you lost something important that could not be recovered. She lost her husband after three weeks of marriage. All their dreams of the future were gone. My grandfather came back from the war changed and spent the rest of his life in a VA hospital. He lost seeing his boys grow up. My grandmother, his wife, lost her husband in a sense and became a single mom. My cousins who were in their early 20s and died in the war lost their futures. No love, no college, no adventure.

Two books were written and published by early 2014. Stories of the Lost and The Tiger’s Widow. Stories of the Lost contains four stories of my family members who died in service. Robert’s story is in this book. Ginny’s story continues in The Tiger’s Widow, in which we hear a little of Robert’s story and move through Ginny’s experience. It is a good idea to read Robert’s first so you understand everything that happened.

Ginny’s book, The Tiger’s Widow, begins with the following, which illustrates how souls can help and heal each other. The one thing I never expected when I wrote her story, was to end up as part of the story. You’ll have to buy the book if you want to know what happens.

Five Hearts Joined Together

Love knows no boundaries of time and space or life and death. It exists forever in our hearts as we remember and honor those who have gone before us. Through those memories we pass life lessons on to the next generation. We teach others there is light after darkness, hope after despair, and love is the glue that puts shattered hearts back together. This is a story of five hearts separated by time and space; hearts which would meet in the perfect moment. It is a story about never ending love that lived on even after death.

A famous pilot met a young beauty and the two fell in love, Robert and Ginny. Their love soared with the eagles. Their time together was brief but they lived so fully in love in the moment, it is as if nothing but death could have broken them apart. Then death knocked on their door and a plane fell from the sky in a fiery ball. One heart silenced on earth but lived forever in death. One heart shattered into a million pieces.

A year later on another continent, two brothers fought a war, Harvey and Fred. The boys grew up as orphans and wanted a heart to come home to. Fred flew a bombing mission over Austria and was lost, listed as missing for a year. Harvey feared the worst and waited for word which came a year after Fred went missing. A brother’s love lived on after death.

Less than a year after Fred went missing, Ginny found Harvey. A chance meeting and two hearts became one. Pieces of Ginny’s shattered heart started to glue back together, slowly at first and then more quickly. Harvey’s heart had finally found its home with Ginny. He was no longer an orphan or alone. They found each other during a time of war when the world around them collapsed in chaos. Together they created a new world filled with joy, love, and the memories of those lost before their time.

Almost 65 years later, another heart emerged. A young woman trying to start a new life after her heart was shattered. She and Ginny, now a widow for the second time, connected. Little did they know the impact that meeting would have.

Five hearts separated by time and space that met in perfect time, would change the lives of all they touched. Their love would span decades. Their life lessons would provide hope to others in the future.

Five hearts joined forever.

© 2017 World War II Research and Writing Center

CRASH Airwar Museum Program 25 February 2017

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Last Saturday, 25 February 2017, I gave my third WWII program on research and writing at the CRASH Airwar Museum near Amsterdam, Netherlands. We had a bit of a glitch as I brought my brand new laptop and didn’t realize it only had the HDMI port. The museum didn’t have that cord or connection to their beamer. Sometimes technology just doesn’t mesh. We made things work and I spoke for an hour on research and told many stories.

Stories have more impact than screen shots of documents.

Capture people with stories full of emotion and you cannot go wrong.

The room was almost filled and I met a lot of new people. I was also able to speak with some I met on previous engagements at the museum. CRASH is one of my favorite places to speak because the men who run the museum and programs are fantastic. It feels a bit like coming home when I am there. The museum collection is amazing too. If you have not visited the museum, I encourage you to do so.

Sebastiaan Vonk, founder of the Foundation United Adopters American War Graves (Stichting Verenigde Adoptanten Amerikaanse Oorlogsgraven,) attended to sell my book Faces of War to benefit the foundation’s programs.  I signed several books after the program ended and had the opportunity to speak with several people.

Friends old and new at the CRASH Museum.

Several friends attended the program and our plan was to have lunch afterward. I met a couple who adopted a grave at Margraten. This couple planned to meet me at the program because we had been talking already with the family member of the soldier. The stories they told me were incredible and moving. Not enough stories are told or written about what civilians went through during the war in Europe. Not enough stories are passed down so families can heal their wounds of war, which are invisible in many cases, but felt, through the generations.

As we walked out of the museum, two program attendees who I was not previously friends with on Facebook, stopped to ask questions. We invited them to join us for lunch. Our lunch became not just a gathering of old friends but new ones and many stories were shared across the table. It was FANTASTIC!

How does it get any better than doing what you love, teaching, healing souls, and making new friends at the same time? I look forward to visiting my friends and teaching at the CRASH museum in the future.

© 2017 World War II Research and Writing Center

WWII Program Saturday at the CRASH ’40-’45 Museum

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International WWII historian, speaker, and author Jennifer Holik, will be presenting Stories of War at the CRASH Air War and Resistance Museum ’40-’45 on Saturday 25 February at 13.00. Her program will be a combination of WWII research and tips on writing the stories. Admission to the museum is € 3,50 per person and that includes the lecture.

During 1944 and 1945, thousands of men and women serving in the U.S. Army, Army Air Forces and Navy, fought to defeat Germany and liberate Europe. Their stories are those of life and death, hope, friendship, love, memories of those left behind, and dreams of the future.

Many questions surround the service history of these men and women. How does one conduct research from Europe? What records are available and how can they be accessed? How can individuals connect with families of the fallen, the sweethearts, or who shared their homes during the war? And finally, how can we preserve their stories? In this engaging and informative presentation, Jennifer shares:

  • A trip through time, exploring the service history of several Army and Army Air Forces personnel.
  • Resources to search prior to obtaining military records.
  • Information on obtaining Official Military Personnel File and the Individual Deceased Personnel File.
  • How to reconstruct service history.
  • Resources for the Prisoners, the Missing, and the Dead.
  • Tips on weaving military, genealogical, family, and historical records together to create a story.
  • A formula for writing a military story.
  • Writing prompts to get your writing flowing.

The Foundation United Adopters American War Graves (Stichting Verenigde Adoptanten Amerikaanse Oorlogsgraven)  will bring a limited number of my book, Faces of War: Researching Your Adopted Soldier, to the event and have a limited number books available that day for sale. The foundation will donate all proceeds to its The Faces of Margraten tribute at the Netherlands Cemetery.

Jennifer will have a limited number of copies of her writing book Stories from the World War II Battlefield Volume 3: Writing the Stories of War.

© 2017 World War II Research and Writing Center

Genealogical Information in the WWII IDPF

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I’ve written before on the Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF) in both what documents they contain and how to access them. I have examples of these files under RESEARCH on this website. Today I’d like to talk about the genealogical information you can find within this file.

Many genealogists tend to avoid WWI or WWII research because they believe that all the records burned and nothing can be found (that is wrong). They also avoid it because it is too recent and not much is online. For those genealogists with family members who died in service or are still MIA, you are missing out on a lot of information by not doing this research.

Genealogical Information in IDPFs

  • Vital records information: birth and death dates and places. Sometimes marriage or divorce documents are also included. One file also contained a Marine’s Adoption records.
  • Health and dental history.
  • Photographs.
  • Vital records for family members. I have seen death certificates for parents and birth certificates for younger siblings.
  • Legal papers. I have seen FBI search results, mental hospital admittance paperwork, police reports, and probate documents in these files.
  • Change of Address forms. When the next of kin moved while a soldier was in service, they submitted change of address forms. This allows researchers to trace families after the 1940 census.
  • Family details. The IDPFs almost always contain handwritten letters from family members. Sometimes these letters talk about other siblings of the soldier who are in service.
  • Military details. The entire military service record is not included, but in cases where a soldier was MIA or still MIA, his training information is included in the documents.

Every file has similar documents but is also different. They range from 10-20 pages to over 375. That’s the largest file I’ve seen and it just arrived yesterday. To access these files, read the articles linked above about the IDPF.

Have you used the IDPF for your genealogical research? What information, secrets, and military history did you discover?

© 2017 World War II Research and Writing Center

2nd Lt. David Baird Finch – Stories of War Submission

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This is a guest post written by Baird (Barry) Otis Barr-Finch. His father’s story was originally posted on AWON’s website and is reprinted here with his permission.

My Dad, David Baird Finch was born in Atkinson, Illinois, on June 5, 1912 to James Madison Finch and Kate Nichol Finch. His father was a Congregational Minister, farmer and sometimes county Judge, so that the family moved around a lot, mostly in Nebraska. Dad completed his high school years at Bellwood Nebraska, where he played basketball. He attended one year of high school at Caldwell, Idaho, where his parents retired. He attended Wayne College in Nebraska for a while. He was the youngest of eight children and spoiled by all with a lot of attention and affection. His two oldest brothers served in the Army during World War I. The oldest, Robert was killed in France in the Battle of Belleau Wood 6/6/18. He is buried at the American Cemetery, and the other brother, Durell, received permanent injuries from gas.

Dad was considered to be very charming and a strong bond existed with all the family. It is quite apparent from the letters they wrote about him and the few stories that have been told about him, that he was the kind of man they all admired greatly.

He played semi-pro baseball in the Midwest during the 1930’s and since work was hard to get, he worked with the Civilian Conservation Corps. He also worked with a surveying crew and the Bureau of Reclamations at Caldwell, Idaho.

In 1937, he joined the Idaho National Guard 116th Calvary Unit where is was a Sargent. When the war began, Being older and unmarried, the military had a huge need for officers. He was asked to resign from the National Guard and joined the regular Army.  He attended the Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia. After graduating in 1942, he went to training camps at different locations around the country, one of which was Fort Lewis, Washington. His outfit served in the Aleutian Campaign after getting his commission.

While at Fort Lewis, he met my mother, Zelpha Galloway Hawkins, who was living in Seattle with her five-year-old son, Ed. As Dad said in a letter to his sisters, they “fell for each other pretty hard.” They were married in the Chapel at Fort Lawton, Seattle. Much of their remaining days together were carried on through the mail, and while some of those letters survived, most of them “disappeared.” Of course much of their correspondence was about me and my brother. Before I was born, all they could talk about was how excited they were about having a little “girl.” They didn’t even have a boy’s name picked out so they had to scramble to find one. Dad did get to be at the hospital at the time of my birth on March 27, 1944, but he was not allowed to hold me, even after he tried to bribe one of the nurses. He did write to his sister about how “proud” he was of his family.

Soon thereafter, he was sent to the Pacific where the invasion of the Philippines was being planned. After the initial landing on Leyete, Philippine Islands, on October 20, 1944, as part of General MacArthur’s invasion. On November 13, 1944 he was sent on a mission in the foot hills west of Guinarona to determine the location and strength of enemy positions. The patrol had to cover ground thick with tall grass and bamboo thickets. Approaching a high ridge, they were suddenly hit by deadly machine gun and mortar fire at close range. The enemy was strongly entrenched and well concealed by the thick brush. Realizing that he was greatly out numbered and his position extremely perilous, he started withdrawing his men to safety. To do this, he had to expose himself to enemy fire. Hit by sniper fire, he died almost instantly. The men he had so bravely given his life for brought him back to the American lines. His captain wrote that “David had won the admiration of officers and the respect and affection of his men by his sincerity, his courage, and cheerfulness.” Another comrade wrote that “his loss to the Co. was a great blow, as the men liked and admired him so much. He was well liked and thought of by his fellow officers too.” He was buried in a temporary grave on Leyete. Later his remains were taken to a central cemetery on Leyte and in 1947 his remains were taken to Manila where the decision was made to put his remains in the Manila American Cemetery there along with 17,200+ men.

My mother remarried in 1946 to another “Vet.” While I bonded with him as my “Dad”, and he adopted my brother and myself, I was allowed the freedom to get to know the memory of my fallen father. My step-father once told me many years later that my Father was the one true love of my mother’s life. I had a good relationship with most of my fathers siblings, who lived nearby. It took taken 55 years to come to a point of healing that I have today and realize how much I missed knowing a great man. I can now be so thankful for his life and all the blessings I have received because of him. He is my hero.

This is a short story of my father, who died in WWII. I am the author and sole owner of this narrative. I want to share his story so that his sacrifice will not be forgotten. This story appears on the AWON (American World War II Orphans Network) Father’s page. AWON is dedicated to preserving the memory of our fallen hero fathers. The sources of this story come from oral stories told by family members, from letters written by family members, military comrades, and from Military records.

Do you have questions about this story? Please contact Barry for more information.

Would you like to share your story here? Please read how you can do this.

© 2017 Baird (Barry) Otis Barr-Finch & World War II Research and Writing Center

Share Your Soldier’s Story

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The World War II Research and Writing Center receives a lot of messages and emails from people seeking information about a soldier. Some people really just want someone to hear the story they have to tell. Others need assistance in locating a record, identifying people in a photograph, or locating family members. Many have no idea where to begin their search in the U.S. or Europe. And a few have traveled to Europe to walk in their soldier’s footsteps, stood in historic places, or are preparing to travel.

Everyone has a story.

Last August I launched a program, Honoring World War II Service Together, to help bridge the gap between American and European genealogists and WWII researchers, to help educate researchers and preserve more stories of war before they are lost in time. Part of the mission of the work I do in the U.S. and Europe, is to help others tell their stories of war. Whether you are a family member, grave adopter, tour guide, researcher, genealogist, film maker, photographer, or anyone else interested in the stories of war, I invite you to tell your stories.

I am taking guest article submissions for the World War II Research and Writing Center’s website. To have your story considered for publication on the website, it must contain the following:

  • The story of the soldier, sailor, or Marine, you wish to share written in English.
    • No more than 1000 words.
  • Include one or two photos to accompany the story. You must have rights to these photos and provide a caption and source of the photo.
  • Tell our readers why are you interested in this soldier’s story. Are you a family member, grave adopter, re-enactor, other.? Please explain why sharing this story is important to you.
  • Provide details about his or her military service and life.
    • Please add a section at the end of the story telling our readers what sources you used to tell the story so our readers learn about other record sources. Everyone comes to a story through different avenues. (IDPF, OMPF, newspaper articles, family members, letters, Morning Reports, Mission Reports, War Diaries, photos, etc.)
  • If you are a grave adopter, were you able to connect with this soldier’s family? How did that experience help you and the family learn about the soldier, the war, and answer questions that may have been buried for years?
  • Important! What questions do you still have or what information are you seeking?
  • How can people contact you if they would like to learn more or share information with you?
    • Please include your email, website, or Facebook page if you have one so people can contact you directly.

Submissions can be emailed to info@wwiirwc.com with the subject STORIES OF WAR SUBMISSION – please put the story in the body of the email. Photos can be attached. If your story is selected to be posted, you will be notified.

© 2017 World War II Research and Writing Center

Looking for an American Soldier in Dijon 1944/1945

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This is a guest post written by a woman in France looking for an American soldier. Please contact her directly via her email listed in this article.

Hello, I am looking for an American officer, who was in the tanks, in Dijon in the years 44 / January 45, he would have been killing towards the pocket of Colmar.

In January or February 45, his jeep would jump on a mine … I have no element on his battalion … apart from the two photos in uniform, would it be possible to finally put a name on my photos.

I am at your entire disposal if you have any questions for me.

I thank you in advance.

Email: Marie-antoinette Sainte-croix

© 2017 World War II Research and Writing Center