William B. Richard World War II letters, 1945.

Format:

Other

Author/Creator:

Richard, William B.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Army Air Forces.

United States.

World War, 1939-1945--India.

World War, 1939-1945.

Genre:

Manuscripts, American.

Correspondence.

Penn Provenance:

Purchased from Kurt Kitasaki, 2010.

Physical Description:

1 box (.25 linear feet)

Place of Publication:

1945.

Biography/History:

William B. Richard was an American airman who served in the 1346th Army Air Force, stationed at Tejgaon, Dhaka in then-British India, in the China-Burma-India theatre of World War II. During his duties at Tejgaon, he was a non-commissioned officer and was promoted from corporal to sergeant in 1945.

Summary:

The collection consists of 15 letters written by Corporal (later Sergeant) William B. Richard to his mother, Mrs. Sarah Richard in Akron, Ohio, between February 12 and November 2, 1945. The letters are arranged in chronological order and housed individually with their original air mail envelopes. The letters consist almost entirely of brief mentions of day-to-day affairs of Richard's tour of duty, such as the weather, goings-on about camp (such as music and psychology classes or movie showings), and other letters he has received and intends to answer. Each letter contains a postscript, which can feature a request for his mother to say hello to his friends back home, a reminder for her to get her eyes and teeth checked, and occasionally an additional story about Richard's day. Following the postscript is a post-postscript which contains an additional farewell. There are no mentions in any of the letters of any contemporary events relating to the war, such as the defeat of Germany or the atomic bombings of Japan. The subject matter of the letters is routine and repetitive. The collection may be of incidental interest to historians of the South-East Asian theatre of World War II and the lives of American airmen during the war.

OCLC:

898216394