A Page a Day
The George Wilson Diary
For nearly every day during the course of a year, George Wilson of the 98th Seabee Battalion wrote in his diary detailing the Battle of Tarawa, occupation of the Gilbert Islands, the mostly unknown "Second" Pearl Harbor, meeting the President of the United States, and mundane life in the Hawaiian Islands. He kept a valuable record of the Pacific War not only through the diary, but photographs as well which numbers almost 400.
The Everett Anderson Diary
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Everett Anderson served with the 66th Bomb Group during World War II. Although he didn't write every day, he gave detailed accounts of training and his harrowing missions. He discussed tangling with German ME-109 fighters and having a few close calls. He would take part in the Ploesti Oil Field Raid on August 1st, 1943 and was killed when his plane, Scrappy II, went down. The last days he wrote in the diary were torn out by Army Air Corps Intelligence.
From the Lowry Collection
The Arthur Tobiason Letter Collection
As a part of the First US Army in Europe, Arthur Tobiason would have a front row seat to the Invasion of Europe and the eventual defeat of Nazi Germany. He served in France, Belgium, and Germany documenting his thoughts and his desire to come back home alive. His letters have been saved and are now available to provide a window into the liberation of Europe.
The Clifton Rabideau Letter Collection
Clifton Rabideau was a part of the 3rd Marine Division during the Battle of Iwo Jima. He wrote to his wife almost every single day during the Battle and he wrote frequently of the conditions. He would survive the War and come home where a scrapbook full of his letters from Iwo Jima would be waiting for him. He even discusses the death of Medal of Honor recipient John Basilone.
Paul Tatsuguchi's Diary from Attu
Paul Tatsuguchi was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1911. He studied in California training to be a physician before World War II broke out. He returned to Japan just before the attack on Pearl Harbor and was drafted for the Japanese Imperial Army serving for several years. He would be sent to Attu in the Aleutian Islands and write the only surviving Japanese record of the battle in a diary day by day. He was killed on the last day of fighting and his diary was transcribed into copies for US servicemen. These were originally ordered to be destroyed, but some survived such as the one in the collection. The whereabouts of the original diary are unknown.
Story Coming Soon!
Laura Tatsuguchi-Davis - Hays, Otis, Jr., Alaska's Hidden Wars, University of Alaska Press, 2004, p. 35.