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Sources for the History of World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Louis Morton
Louis Morton
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College
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Extract

The student of World War II, even if he confines his study to a limited period or a narrow aspect of the purely military side of the war, is confronted with an enormous body of records and an imposing array of published works and official documents. The testimony, exhibits, and other data assembled by the Joint Congressional Committee investigating the Pearl Harbor attack, for example, filled 39 thick volumes; the published record of the Nürnberg Trials, 56 volumes. For the World War II years alone, the Army, it has been estimated, retained more than 17,000 tons of records, and also possesses an undetermined but large quantity of prewar records essential to an understanding of the wartime period. When to this total is added the extant records of the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps, the result is a truly staggering mass of paper calculated to dismay rather than hearten the historian.

Type
Research Note
Information
World Politics , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , April 1961 , pp. 435 - 453
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1961

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References

1 An excellent brief account of the problems involved in the use of military records is Van Riper, Paul P., “A Survey of Materials for the Study of Military Management,” American Political Science Review, XLIX, No. 3 (September 1955), pp. 828–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 For a general description of the problems involved in the use of federal records, see Brooks, Philip C., “The Historian's Stake in Federal Records,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLIII, No. 2 (September 1956), pp. 259–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Useful in this connection are Bethel, Elizabeth, “Early Records of the War Department General Staff,” American Archivist, XVIII (October 1945), pp. 241–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Huber, E. L., “War Department Records in the National Archives,” Military Affairs, VI, No. 4 (Winter 1942), pp. 247–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Among the Army's publications are Guide to Records of the Adjutant General's Department, 1040–1945 (1950); Guide to the Records of the Office of the Secretary of War, 1939–1946 (1949); Descriptive List of Studies of the USAF Historical Division (1956); Inventory of Certain Records of U.S. Army Forces in the Far East and U.S. Forces in the Philippines, July 1941—May 1942 (1952). The Navy's contribution is a short pamphlet entitled Brief Guide to U.S. Naval History Sources in the Washington, D.C., Area (1957). On the question of access to the records, see Army Regulation 341–230, Hqs., Department of the Army, 5 November 1958 (with changes), which outlines the procedure to be followed in requesting permission to use classified records.

5 Present plans call for moving the World War II Records Division to the Old Pension Building in Washington, D.C.

6 The War Records Division is organized into various branches, including the World War I Branch, the Civil War Branch, and the Navy Branch, each of which maintains indices and files for its holdings.

7 This collection is described in “Preliminary Checklist, Records of the War Department General Staff,” prepared by Elizabeth Bethel (mimeographed).

8 For a description of the system, see War Department Decimal File System, compiled under the direction of the Adjutant General, rev. ed., Washington, D.C., 1943, and supplements.

9 Maj. Gen. Julian F. Barnes, “The Organization and Activities of the U.S. Army Forces in Australia”; Lt. Gen. Millard F. Harmon, “The Army in the South Pacific”; Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., “Narrative Account of the South Pacific Campaign, 20 April 1942–15 June 1944” (typescripts).

10 For a description of these records, see Dagmar Horna Perman, “Microfilming of German Records in the National Archives,” American Archivist, XXII (October 1959), pp. 433–43, and the article immediately following by Francis Lowenheim, surveying the existing guides to the microfilmed German records. See also Fritz T. Epstein, “Washington Research Opportunities in the Period of World War II,” ibid., XVII (July 1954), pp. 223–37.

11 Captured German Army documents are generally above the division level; most of the records for units below division fell into Soviet hands and are probably in the possession of the East Germans. The German Air Force collection—the so-called von Rohden Collection—was brought together at the Air University for use in writing a history of German Air Force operations. A microfilm copy is in the Library of Congress. German Air Force technical documents are located in Akron, Ohio.

12 For a list of these monographs, see the Accession List prepared by the Office of Military History, which has on file copies of both the Japanese and the English version. There are about 180 volumes in the series, a number of which have been reproduced for limited distribution. The series is unclassified and available for use in the Office of Military History.

13 Personal History Statements, 2 vols.; Interrogations of Japanese Officials on World War II, 2 vols.; Statements of Japanese Officials on World War II, 4 vols.

14 The original collection, comprising 7,000 linear feet, is described by James Morley, W., “Check List of Seized Japanese Records in the National Archives,” Far Eastern Quarterly, IX, No. 3 (May 1950), pp. 306–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 The most useful of the strategy volumes are Butler, J. R. M., Grand Strategy: September 1939—June 1941 (1957)Google Scholar, and Ehrman, John, Grand Strategy: August 1943—September 1944 (1956).Google Scholar One other study in the British series that should be consulted is S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, projected in three volumes, of which two have been published.

16 Fleet Admiral Leahy, William D., I Was There, New York, 1950Google Scholar; King, E. J. and Whitehill, Walter Muir, Fleet Admiral King: A Naval Record, New York, 1952Google Scholar; Arnold, H. H., Global Mission, New York, 1949.Google Scholar

17 For Army units, see Unit Histories of World War II (1950), issued by the Office of Military History; Unit Histories of World War II and After: U.S. Army (1953), issued by the Adjutant General; and Dornbusch, C. E., compiler, Histories of American Army Units, World Wars I and II and Korean Conflict (1956).Google Scholar For Navy and Marine units, see Post-War Souvenir Books and Unit Histories of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Construction Battalions, World War II (1953), compiled by Mr. Dornbusch and issued by the Naval History Division.

18 See Max L. Marshall, “A Survey of Military Periodicals,” an M. A. thesis prepared at the University of Missouri, 1952, which describes 89 military periodicals; a copy is in the Army Library in the Pentagon.

19 A Selected and Annotated Bibliography on U.S. Naval History, Naval Biography, Naval Strategy and Tactics, prepared by the Naval History Division, Washington, D.C., 1956; Robert G. Albion, Maritime and Naval History: An Annotated Bibliography, published by the author, 1951; Ellinger, W. B. and Rosinski, H., Sea Power in the Pacific, 1936–1941, Princeton, N.J., 1942.Google Scholar

20 Among the many other books on Pearl Harbor are several that deserve particular note for a variety of reasons: Rauch, Basil, Roosevelt: From Munich to Pearl Harbor, New York, 1950Google Scholar; Millis, Walter, This Is Pearl! The United States and Japan, New York, 1947Google Scholar; Morgenstern, George, Pearl Harbor: The Story of the Secret War, New York, 1947Google Scholar; Chamberlin, William H., America's Second Crusade, Chicago, 1950Google Scholar; Sanborn, Frederick C., Design for War, New York, 1951Google Scholar; Davis, Forrest and Lindley, Ernest K., How War Came, New York, 1942Google Scholar; and Barnes, Harry Elmer, ed., Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Caldwell, Idaho, 1953.Google Scholar