The Second Air Division Digital Archive

The Second Air Division Digital Archive gathers together more than 30,000 historic photographs, letters, diaries and memoirs relating to members of the Second Air Division of the United States Air Force.
One of three divisions of the Eighth United States Army Air Force (USAAF), at its full strength the organisation controlled 14 heavy bomber airfields in Norfolk and north-east Suffolk, along with five fighter airfields. Sadly, nearly 7,000 of its personnel lost their lives in the line of duty between 1942 and 1945.
Split into sections such as ‘Aircraft and Equipment’, ‘Places’ and ‘War and Remembrance’, notable documents found by browsing the site include a mission diary kept by Richard Vincent of the 445th Bomb Group (Tibenham), plus letters of condolence received following a fatal training session crash that killed nine crew.
However, the resource also provides access to more lighthearted records, showing the close links between the airmen and local communities. An entire sub-section is devoted to war brides and weddings, while an extensive photo gallery reveals how airmen held a rodeo event at Norwich City FC’s Carrow Road ground.
The digitization of these records has been made possible through a generous donation from the legacy of Bernard Newmark, a veteran of the 458th Bomb Group (Horsham St Faith) made through the Second Air Division Memorial Trust.

 

Royal Voluntary Service Records Project

The Hidden Histories of A Million Wartime Women project went live on Kickstarter throughout May with the target of £25,000 to digitise the first 28,000 pages of diaries from 1938 to 1941. Public support has been so overwhelming that the charity hasn’t just met its target, but superseded it having raised £27,724 thanks to the 705 backers who kindly donated.

These pledges have given Royal Voluntary Service the opportunity to reveal a vivid insight into life during World War II. For the past six years, our archivist and a team of volunteers at Royal Voluntary Service has been sorting and protecting the diaries but thanks to public donations, a specially trained staff member will now begin digitising them ready for publication on their website in July 2017.

Within two years of the outbreak of the Second World War, 1-in-10 women had set aside their own lives to volunteer and help others as members of the Women's Voluntary Services (WVS).   These ordinary women who volunteered for the charity played a vital role on the Home Front and worked tirelessly to contribute towards the war effort. As well as sewing, cooking and helping the community recover after raids, they learnt new skills such as extinguishing bombs, driving in the black-out and making clothes from dog hair.

One example out of the thousands of diaries describes a major Blitz in Bath between 28 and 29 April 1941. This saw volunteers fit 80 children with masks and issue 205 helmets for babies. The centre also served 3,350 meals and helped coordinate housing for more than 9,000 people made homeless following the raids. One volunteer from the centre had lost her home and all of her belongings during the blitz but turned up to volunteer the following morning. She also sent a brave telegram to her soldier sons reading “bombed out, but still smiling,” so not to worry them.   Several other examples are also available on the project's page.

Inside History Magazine

The latest issue of Inside History Magazine is hot off the press and now available digitally. Campaspe Regional Library members can download this and past issues free through our Zinio subscription.  Not a member?  Check your local library to see if they have the magazine available digitally or in print.
Included in this issue :

• How to date photographs
• A rare diary revealing Melbourne society in the 1860s
• The colonial life of Samuel Thomas Gill
• A guide to the Western Front battlefields
• How to write your convict's life story

Suffragette Memorabilia at the NLA

The National Library has launched a crowdfunding campaign, asking for people to donate so that a significant collection of documents and memorabilia chronicling the suffragette campaign can be digitised.

Suffragettes in a police wagon in London, 1913

South Australian Bessie Rischbieth was a feminist and social activist who was fascinated by the militant actions of the British suffragettes. Australian women had already won the right to vote in 1894, two decades before Britain, and Rischbieth made several trips to London to see the UK movement gain momentum.  Before she died in 1967, she donated her entire collection of memorabilia to the National Library of Australia.
Between 1900 and 1914 around 1,000 British suffragettes were imprisoned because they refused to pay fines for crimes such as vandalism. Several prisoners went on hunger strikes; the British government released these women to avoid liability for any deaths. Many of the released women were then force-fed.
It wasn't long before Bessie was swept up with the whole whirlwind of passionate speeches in packed venues and marches through the streets of London. Over the years, Rischbieth made other trips to London, (right up until the 1950s), and she religiously chronicled the fight of suffragettes, keeping an enormous amount of documents, newspaper clippings, posters, photographs, pamphlets, suffrage periodicals, postcards and suffragette items.  The collection also includes personal letters from Vida Goldstein (instrumental in getting the right for women to vote in Australia), embroidered banners and cloths. There's also Letitia Withall's medal for 'valour' after she went on a hunger strike for the right to vote, as well as suffragette Louise Cullen's Holloway Prison brooch.

Letitia Withall's medal for 'valour'

Louise Cullen's Holloway Prison Brooch 1908

Provenance - The Journal of the Public Records Office of Victoria

Provenance is a free journal published online by Public Record Office Victoria (PROV). The journal will publish peer-reviewed articles, as well as other written contributions, that contain research drawing on records in PROV’s holdings.
The purpose of the journal is to foster access to PROV’s archival holdings and broaden its relevance to the wider Victorian community.
The records held by PROV contain a wealth of information regarding Victorian people, places, communities, events, policies, institutions, infrastructure, governance, and law. Provenance provides a forum for scholarly publication drawing on the full diversity of these records.
Some recent articles include :

• Doing their bit helping make Australia free’: mothers of Aboriginal diggers and the assertion of Indigenous rights by Patricia Grimshaw and Hannah Loney

• Beyond failure and success: the soldier settlement on Ercildoune Road by James Kirby

• Lithium and lost souls: the role of Bundoora Homestead as a repatriation mental hospital 1920–1993 by Cassie May

•  ‘She had always been a difficult case …’: Jill’s short, tragic life in Victoria’s institutions, 1952–1955 by Cate O’Neill

WDYTYA First World War Army Research Guide

To mark 100 years since the start of the Battle of the Somme, the wonderful people at Who Do You Think You Are Magazine are making their First World War Army research guide available to download completely free of charge as a PDF document.
Written by Phil Tomaselli and originally published in their July 2014 issue, the 10-page printable PDF has been fully updated to include the latest records released on the web during the First World War Centenary so far.