Transcript of an interview with Evelyn Myers McCune, nurse, concerning her experiences as a civilian secretary with the State Department in Washington, D.C., before the and during World War II. McCune discusses her educational background; decision to take a position with the State Department in early 1941; adjustments in moving from a town of 2,500 people to the nation's capitol; personal observations of the activities at the Japanese embassy on December 7, 1941; wartime living conditions, rationing, and transportation adjustments; social life; comments and observations of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Japanese ambassadors Saburo Kurusu and Kichisabura Nomura, Ambassador Joseph Grew, and Eleanor Roosevelt; working with diplomatic codes; incident involving President Roosevelt's stamp collection; and her decision to join the Cadet Nurse Corps, 1944.

Interview with Major Anna K. Schelper, a Army WWII veteran from San Antonio, Texas. Schelper discusses her parents, growing up, her education and becoming a nurse, joining the Army Nurse Corps, experiences serving throughout the Pacific Theater, service in hospitals after the war, continued education and promoting, and reflections on her career and being a servicewoman. In appendix are Schelper's Army service record, a letter from two former patients to the 23rd Field Hospital, a scan of some of her letters which were printed in a book, and a scan of some sections from The Army Nurse Corps: Yesterday and Today by Mary M. Roberts.

Interview with Barton B. Wallace, Jr., engineer and Army veteran (Quartermaster Corps Graves Registration Service-China Zone), concerning his experiences with Recovery Team No. 4 in the recovery of the remains of American military personnel in China, 1945-46. Appendix consists of letters, chronology, Separation Qualification Record, and extracts from various forms.

Interview with Thomas Jenny, a Marine Corps and Air America pilot from Miami, Florida, who served in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Jenny discusses his interest in aviation, entering the Naval Flight Training Program, flight training, joining the Marine Corps, assignment to Korea, working for Pan-Am, joining Air America, and flying a variety of aircraft and missions from Thailand and Laos.

Transcript of an interview with William D. Whitson, a businessman and an Army Air Corps veteran (442nd Bomb Squadron, 8th Air Force), from Denton, Texas, concerning his experiences as a B-17 pilot in the European Theater during World War II. Whitson discusses flight training, his flight from the U.S. to Grafton-Underwood, England, his personal relationship with Curtis Le May, his missions and German defenses, his nineteenth mission and crash landing, and his twenty-fifth mission.

Phantom in the Sky is the story of a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the back seat of the supersonic Phantom jet during the Vietnam War—a unique, tactical perspective of the “guy in back,” or GIB, absent from other published aviation accounts. During the time of Terry L. Thorsen’s service from 1966 to 1970, the RIO played an integral part in enemy aircraft interception and ordnance delivery. In Navy and Marine F-4 Phantom jets, the RIO was a second pair of eyes for the pilot, in charge of communications and navigation, and great to have during emergencies. Thorsen endured the tough Platoon Leaders Course at Quantico and barely earned a commission. He underwent aviation and intercept training while suffering airsickness issues—and still earned his wings. Thorsen joined the oldest and most decorated squadron in the Marine Corps, the VMFA-232 Red Devils in southern California, as it prepared for deployment to Vietnam. In combat, Thorsen felt angst when he saw the sky darken around him from anti-aircraft artillery explosions high above the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On his first close air support mission in support of ground troops (the majority of his Marine aviation missions), he witnessed tracers whiz by his …

Interview with Lyle Specht, a Marine Corps veteran, concerning his combat experiences with the 6th Marines at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, and Okinawa in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

Interview with Alvin O. Berg, Jr., World War II-era Army Air Forces veteran, as part of the Tarrant County War Veterans History Project. The interview includes Berg's personal experiences of childhood and education, enlisting in the Army Air Forces, training as an aviation cadet and service at various stateside bases, fighting in the Pacific theater, having a postwar career in minor league baseball, returning to service during the Korean conflict, and having a career as a pilot for American Airlines.

Transcript of an interview with Fiske Hanley, an aeronautical engineer and Army Air Forces veteran (398th Bomb Squadron, 504th Bomb Group, 313th Bomb Wing, 20th Air Force), concerning his experiences during World War II, including as a flight engineer aboard B-29s in the Pacific Theater and as a prisoner-of-war of the Japanese.

Interview with Robert Seidel, a Army Air Force WWII veteran from Elkhart, Indiana, who served in the 763rd Bomb Squadron in the European Theater. Accompanied by his wife Helen, Seidel discusses his family, the start of the war and joining the Air Corps, training as a flight engineer, assignment to the B-24 and deployment to Spinazzola, Italy, flying combat missions, life at the base, ditching his aircraft near Salzburg and getting captured, being interrogated, internment at Stalag Luft IV, liberation, and returning to the US. In appendix are three photos of Seidel, his B-24 crew, and their aircraft, Seidel's papers from when he was a German prisoner, his POW log book, the official narrative report of the mission he was lost on, and a letter from his family while he was in Italy.

Interview with Army Air Forces veteran Leslie W. Bray, Jr. The interview includes Bray's personal experiences about the China-Burma-India Theater during World War II, youth during the Great Depression, flight training, being designated as the commander of the 16th Combat Cargo Squadron, stationing at Sylhet, India as part of his assignment to the CBI Theater, supplying the British 14th Army in Burma, flying difficulties due to weather conditions, various transfers, and flying "The Hump." Bray also talks about his early aspirations to become an aviator, initial failures to pass the Air Forces physical examination, his assignment to Troop Carrier Command, flying C-47s with the 1st Troop Carrier Group, his appointment as assistant group operations officer for the 10th Troop Carrier Group, Air Force School of Applied Tactics, the training of replacement units at various Air Force installations, the deactivation of the 16th Combat Cargo Squadron, and his postwar Air Force career and retirement as a general officer.

Interview with airline pilot and Army Air Forces veteran Robert W. Wilson. The interview includes Wilson's personal experiences about being B-25 pilot in the Pacific Theater during World War II, basic training, college preparatory courses, flight training, and various missions. Wilson talks about his pre-war job experiences, flying conditions over the Owen Stanley Mountains, Operation OBOE, leave time in Sydney, Australia, the move to Palawan, Philippines, missions to French Indo-China, attitudes and feelings towards the deaths of comrades, and postwar adjustments. The interview includes an appendix with supplementary documents.

In 1944 and 1945, Tom Faulkner was a B-24 pilot flying out of San Giovanni airfield in Italy as a member of the 15th Air Force of the U.S. Army Air Forces. Only 19 years old when he completed his 28th and last mission, Tom was one of the youngest bomber pilots to serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. Between September 1944 and the end of February 1945, he flew against targets in Hungary, Germany, Italy, Austria, and Yugoslavia. On Tom’s last mission against the marshalling yards at Augsburg, Germany, his plane was severely damaged, and he had to fly to Switzerland where he and his crew were interned. The 15th Air Force generally has been overshadowed by works on the 8th Air Force based in England. Faulkner’s memoir helps fill an important void by providing a first-hand account of a pilot and his crew during the waning months of the war, as well as a description of his experiences before his military service. David L. Snead has edited the memoir and provided annotations and corroboration for the various missions.

WASP of the Ferry Command is the story of the women ferry pilots who flew more than nine million miles in 72 different aircraft—115,000 pilot hours—for the Ferrying Division, Air Transport Command, during World War II. In the spring of 1942, Col. William H. Tunner lacked sufficient male pilots to move vital trainer aircraft from the factory to the training fields. Nancy Love found 28 experienced women pilots who could do the job. They, along with graduates of the Army’s flight training school for women—established by Jacqueline Cochran—performed this duty until fall 1943, when manufacture of trainers ceased. In December 1943 the women ferry pilots went back to school to learn to fly high-performance WWII fighters, known as pursuits. By January 1944 they began delivering high performance P-51s, 47s, and 39s. Prior to D-Day and beyond, P-51s were crucial to the air war over Germany. They had the range to escort B-17s and B-24s from England to Berlin and back on bombing raids that ultimately brought down the German Reich. Getting those pursuits to the docks in New Jersey for shipment abroad became these women’s primary job. Ultimately, more than one hundred WASP pursuit pilots were engaged in this vital …

Interview with engineer and Army Air Forces veteran Shuford M. Alexander, Jr. The interview includes Alexander's personal experiences about being a fighter pilot in Italy during World War II, basic training, flight training, various assignments and transfers, Operation STRANGLE, being shot down by flak over Piacenza, and being rescued by Italian partisans. Additionally, Alexander talks about his link-up with a British A-4 Mission and his attempt to reach Allied lines, his betrayal by a German agent and his subsequent capture, escaping and continuing his search for Allied lines, his observations and opinions about the partisans, a second encounter with a British A-4 Mission, the Martani family in the village of Tosca, his group's trek through mountain snow to reach Allied lines, meeting with British paratroopers and with African-American soldiers from the 92nd Infantry Division, and his reunion with his squadron in Pisa. The interview includes an appendix with a narrative by Alexander.

Houston Blue offers the first comprehensive history of one of the nation’s largest police forces, the Houston Police Department. Through extensive archival research and more than one hundred interviews with prominent Houston police figures, politicians, news reporters, attorneys, and others, authors Mitchel P. Roth and Tom Kennedy chronicle the development of policing in the Bayou City from its days as a grimy trading post in the 1830s to its current status as the nation’s fourth largest city. Prominent historical figures who have brushed shoulders with Houston’s Finest over the past 175 years include Houdini, Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, O. Henry, former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, hatchet wielding temperance leader Carrie Nation, the Hilton Siamese Twins, blues musician Leadbelly, oilman Silver Dollar Jim West, and many others. The Houston Police Department was one of the first cities in the South to adopt fingerprinting as an identification system and use the polygraph test, and under the leadership of its first African American police chief, Lee Brown, put the theory of neighborhood oriented policing into practice in the 1980s. The force has been embroiled in controversy and high profile criminal cases as well. Among the cases chronicled in the book are …

The AEF in Print is an anthology that tells the story of U.S. involvement in World War I through newspaper and magazine articles—precisely how the American public experienced the Great War. From April 1917 to November 1918, Americans followed the war in their local newspapers and popular magazines. The book’s chapters are organized chronologically: Mobilization, Arrival in Europe, Learning to Fight, American Firsts, Battles, and the Armistice. Also included are topical chapters, such as At Sea, In the Air, In the Trenches, Wounded Warriors, and Heroes. “Some of these stories are real gems. Irving Cobb’s account of the sinking of the SS Tuscania, for example, is absolutely riveting, and the same can be said of William Shepherd’s description of life aboard US Navy destroyers in the Atlantic, Floyd Gibbons’s narration of his wounding at Belleau Wood, and George Pattullo’s roll-out of the Sergeant York legend.” —Steven Trout, author of On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance. “The well-written and evocative articles bring the war to life.” —Jennifer Keene, author of Doughboys, the Great War, and the Remaking of America.

From book jacket: "Submissiveness is not my role, but certain platitudes on certain occasions are among the innocent deceits of the sex." A strong character with a fervent belief in woman's changing place, Lucy Holcombe Pickens (1832-1899) was not content to live the life of a typical nineteenth-century Southern belle. Wife of Francis Wilkinson Pickens, the secessionist governor of South Carolina on the eve of the Civil War, Lucy was determined to make her mark in the world. She married "the right man," feeling that "a woman with wealth or prestige garnered from her husband's position could attain great power." She urged Pickens to accept a diplomatic mission to the court of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, and in St. Petersburg Lucy captivated the Tsar and his retinue with her beauty and charm. Upon returning to the states, she became First Lady of South Carolina just in time to encourage a Confederate unit named in her honor (The Holcombe Legion) off to war. She was the only woman to have her image engraved on Confederacy paper currency, the uncrowned "Queen of the Confederacy."

This is the first serious biography of a man widely considered one of Texas’—and America’s—greatest songwriters. Like Jimmie Rodgers, Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, Townes Van Zandt was the embodiment of that mythic American figure, the troubled troubadour. A Deeper Blue traces Van Zandt’s background as the scion of a prominent Texas family; his troubled early years and his transformation from promising pre-law student to wandering folk singer; his life on the road and the demons that pursued and were pursued by him; the women who loved and inspired him; and the brilliance and enduring beauty of his songs, which are explored in depth. The author draws on eight years’ extensive research and interviews with Townes’ family and closest friends and colleagues. He looks beyond the legend and paints a colorful portrait of a complex man who embraced the darkness of demons and myth as well as the light of deep compassion and humanity

During World War II the United States mobilized its industrial assets to become the great “Arsenal of Democracy” through the cooperation of the government and private firms. The Dallas Story examines a specific aviation factory, operated by the North American Aviation (NAA) company in Dallas, Texas. Terrance Furgerson explores the construction and opening of the factory, its operation, its relations with the local community, and the closure of the facility at the end of the war. Prior to the opening of the factory in 1941, the city of Dallas had practically no existing industrial base. Despite this deficiency, the residents quickly learned the craft of manufacturing airplanes, and by the time of the Pearl Harbor attack the NAA factory was mass-producing the AT-6 trainer aircraft. The entry of the United States into the war brought about an enlargement of the NAA factory, and the facility began production of the B-24 Liberator bomber and the famed P-51 Mustang fighter. By the end of the war the Texas division of NAA had manufactured nearly 19,000 airplanes, making it one of the most prolific U.S. factories.

In 1990, Ann Mix began her search to find out about her father who had been killed in World War II. She discovered that, of the servicemen who died in that war, 183,000 were fathers. During her search, Mix met others whose fathers had been killed and few of them had much information about their fathers. As a result, Ann founded the American WWII Orphans Network to locate war orphans and become a depository for sources of information about WWII servicemen who were fathers. Senator Robert Dole, who had fought in the 10th Mountain Division with Mix’s father, assisted the network as a National Advisor until 1995, helping it to become a true humanitarian organization. War orphan Susan Johnson Hadler, a psychologist, began a collaboration with Ann to collect the stories of the orphans when she discovered there were no statistics on the number of children and no studies on the effects of their fathers’ deaths on their lives. Records which could have helped sociologists, psychologists, and historians were simply nonexistent. Mix and Hadler began to interview war orphans, who nearly all reported having felt the awkwardness with which America treated the subject of their fathers. At a young age, …

This is the WWI memoir of Ward Schrantz, a National Guard officer and machine gun company commander in the Kansas-Missouri 35th Division. He extensively documents his experiences and those of his men, from training at Camp Doniphan to their voyage across the Atlantic, and to their time in the trenches in France’s Vosges Mountains and ultimately to their return home. He devotes much of his memoir to the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, in which the 35th Division suffered heavy casualties and made only moderate gains before being replaced by fresh troops. Schrantz also describes the daily life of a soldier, including living conditions, relations between officers and enlisted men, and the horrific experience of combat. Editor Jeffrey Patrick combines his narrative with excerpts from a detailed history of the unit that Schrantz wrote for his local newspaper, and also provides an editor’s introduction and annotations.

Established in Waco in 1968, the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum honors the iconic Texas Rangers, a service that has existed, in one form or another, since 1823. Thirty-one individuals—whose lives span more than two centuries—have been enshrined in the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. They have become legendary symbols of Texas and the American West. In The Ranger Ideal Volume 3, Darren L. Ivey presents capsule biographies of the twelve inductees who served Texas in the twentieth century. In the first portion of the book, Ivey describes the careers of the “Big Four” Ranger captains—Will L. Wright, Frank Hamer, Tom R. Hickman, and Manuel “Lone Wolf” Gonzaullas—as well as those of Charles E. Miller and Marvin “Red” Burton. Ivey then moves into the mid-century and discusses Robert A. Crowder, John J. Klevenhagen, Clinton T. Peoples, and James E. Riddles. Ivey concludes with Bobby Paul Doherty and Stanley K. Guffey, both of whom gave their lives in the line of duty. Using primary records and reliable secondary sources, and rejecting apocryphal tales, The Ranger Ideal presents the true stories of these intrepid men who enforced the law with gallantry, grit, and guns. This Volume 3 is the finale …

his anthology collects the ten winners of the 2020 Best American Newspaper Narrative Writing Contest at UNT’s Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. First place winner: Christopher Goffard, “Detective Trapp” (Los Angeles Times) is about a complicated murder investigation and its human impact. Second place: Annie Gowen, “Left Behind: American Farm Families in Crisis during Trump’s Trade War” (The Washington Post) tells about a despairing farmer’s suicide and aftermath. Third place: Jennifer Berry Hawes and Stephen Hobbs, “It’s Time for You to Die” (Post & Courier) presents a gut-wrenching drama of America’s deadliest episode of prison violence. Runners-up include Peter Jamison, “The Confession” (The Washington Post); Mark Johnson, “House Calls and Rarest of Diseases” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel); Nestor Ramos, “At the Edge of a Warming World” (Boston Globe); Noelle Crombie, Kale Williams, and Beth Nakamura, “No Mercy” (The Oregonian); Tara Duggan and Jason Fagone, “The Fisherman’s Tale” (San Francisco Chronicle); Jenna Russell, “Brilliant, Faithful, Undaunted” (Boston Globe); and Charles Scudder, “Guardians: When Evil Came Through the Door” (Dallas Morning News).