U.S. Military Recruiting Records, WWII 8
Abstract
The U.S. Military Recruiting Records collection contains pamphlets, brochures, booklets,
magazines and journals, as well as posters and other miscellaneous materials, used
by the United States Armed Services in North Carolina to recruit men and women to
join military, reserve, and civilian military branches and programs during World War
II. The bulk of the collection consists of recruitment brochures and pamphlets for
the various military branches. Of significance in the collection are an original set
of recruiting materials for all female U.S. military branches.
The U.S. Armed Forces had established military recruiter stations and offices for
each of their branches in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, as their North Carolina
branch recruiter headquarters-most of which were on Fayetteville Street, just south
of the state capitol building. Most of the materials in this collection come from
the Raleigh U.S. military recruiting stations, which donated during WWII unused recruiting
pamphlets, brochures, booklets, magazines, and other miscellaneous materials to the
North Carolina Department of Archives and History then-growing World War II records
collection program. This included materials from wartime civilian programs such as
the U.S. Merchant Marines.
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- U.S. Military Recruiting Records
- Call Number
- WWII 8
- Creator
- United States. Army
- Date
- 1942-1945, undated
- Extent
- 1.310 cubic feet
- Repository
- State Archives of North Carolina
Restrictions on Access & Use
Access Restrictions
There are no restrictions on accessing this collection.
Use Restrictions
There are no restrictions on the use of this collection.
Preferred Citation
[Item name or title], [Box Number], [Folder Number], U.S. Military Recruiting Records, WWII 8, WWII Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.
Collection Overview
The collection contains pamphlets, brochures, booklets, magazines and journals, a poster, and other miscellaneous materials used by the United States Armed Services in North Carolina to recruit men and women to join military, reserve, and civilian military programs during World War II. The bulk of the collection consists of recruitment brochures and pamphlets for the various military branches. Of significance in the collection are an original set of recruiting materials for all female U.S. military branches. The collection is arranged in four series, based on division of materials services and programs, as well as by size of the materials. The series are as follows: Series I: U.S. Armed Forces; Series II: U.S. Wartime Civilian Branches; Series III: U.S. Military Women's Nursing Programs; and Series IV: U.S. Military Women's Branches.
Arrangement Note
The collection is divided into four series, based on the major divisions of the U.S. military's branches and civilian programs during World War II. The series are as follows: Series I: U.S. Armed Forces; Series II: U.S. Wartime Civilian Branches; Series III: U.S. Military Women's Nursing Programs; and Series IV: U.S. Military Women's Branches.
Historical Note
Prior the United States' entrance into World War II in 1941, the state of North Carolina
had some advocating in favor of a war records program to help document the world's
engagement in this major event. No formal records collection program was begun until
after December 1941. In February 1942, at the first meeting of the newly-reconstituted
North Carolina Historical Commission, North Carolina Governor J. Melville Broughton
stressed the importance of preserving the records of the state's part what they termed
the "greatest of all wars." The governor requested the Historical Commission to undertake
such a records collection program through the Department of Archives and History.
The Commission instructed their chairman and secretary to make a study of the possibilities
of conducting such a program, and to formulate methods of procedure for a statewide
program. The chairman and secretary immediately set to work and drew up a plan, which
was approved by all members of the North Carolina Historical Commission and presented
to Governor Broughton.
While no special appropriation was made by the North Carolina General Assembly for
this purpose then, the Historical Commission-by making readjustments in its staffing-was
able to employ a full-time person to begin the collection of World War II records
from around the state. In preparing is 1943-1945 biennial budget, the Historical Commission
included the salary of an additional employee for the work, together with funds to
cover travel, postage for sending and receiving materials, and other necessary expenses
for the war records collection program.
The Historical Commission's proposals received the support of the governor, and were
approved by the Advisory Budget Commission in its recommendations to the 1943 North
Carolina General Assembly. In his regular message to the General Assembly, Governor
Broughton specifically requested that the war records program receive adequate support.
The requested appropriation was made and became available to the Historical Commission
from the General Assembly on July 1, 1943. In the meantime, the Historical Commission
had employed Elmer D. Johnson, formerly of the staff of the University of North Carolina's
Library (now Wilson Library), on October 1, 1942. Johnson was assigned to work under
the direction of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History's secretary,
and was given the title of Collector of Records.
Elmer Johnson found that the first thing necessary was to plan the war records collection
work in detail. He made a study of what other states had accomplished in this field
during World War I, and had begun to do at the start of World War II. Johnson corresponded
with leaders in this work throughout the nation; made a study of the North Carolina's
World War I collection; and in general sought to obtain all possible information and
advice in laying the ground work for the World War II records collection program.
Sometime earlier there had been set up a state Committee on Conservation of Cultural
Resources, with the Department of Archives and History's secretary serving as chairman.
This committee was asked to serve in an advisory capacity in connection with North
Carolina's war records program.
A meeting of the Committee, which consisted of leading librarians, archivists, historians,
sociologists, and others in a position to advise, was held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina,
on November 12, 1942. Former World War I records collector for North Carolina, Robert
B. House, described his experiences and accomplishments in WWI, and various aspects
of the proposed WWII records program were discussed.
The Committee on Conservation agreed that the WWII records collecting should be on
as broad a basis as possible, and that it would be wisest to collect everything practicable
relating to the war and North Carolina. Later it was felt that materials having no
value as part of the collection could be discarded; the thinking was that it would
be better to collect too much than too little, and miss the opportunity to preserve
an important aspect of the war's history. The North Carolina Department of Archives
and History's Chapel Hill conference was of great value in outlining the broad principles
to be followed later in carrying out the records collection program. Early in December
1942, the North Carolina Office of Civilian Defense agreed to cooperate with the Department
in this work. Elmer Johnson, while keeping his office in the Department quarters and
continuing to hold the title of Collector of Records there, was also named Coordinator
of War Records for the North Carolina Office of Civilian Defense.
According to the procedure which had been decided upon, the North Carolina county
defense council chairmen appointed individuals within each county to serve as the
county's collector of war records. In a number of the larger counties, assistant war
records collectors were asked to handle various phases of the work or to cover different
parts of the county. The program received the cordial support of the North Carolina
Director of Civilian Defense, Robert L. McMillan, together with his office staff and
field representatives.
The war records campaign received the endorsement of many statewide and local organizations,
including the following: North Carolina Society of County Historians; North Carolina
Library Association; North Carolina Press Association; State Literary and Historical
Association; North Carolina Society for the Preservation of Antiquities; Garden Clubs
of North Carolina; North Carolina Federation of Home Demonstration Clubs; State Federation
of Music Clubs; Lions Clubs of North Carolina; North Carolina Congress of Parents
and Teachers; North Carolina Department of the American Legion; Institute of Government;
North Carolina Commission on Interracial Co-operation; Society of Mayflower Descendants;
and the North Carolina Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.
On the local level, assistance was obtained for the state's war records collection
program from community chambers of commerce, civic clubs, patriotic chapters, and
teachers' and other organizations. It was recognized at the beginning that there were
certain records which could not be included in such a collection-at least not at during
the war's operation. The records of various federal, state, and local governmental
agencies were in most cases a part of the regular official records series of these
agencies. These records could not be transferred to any such public records collection
program for the war, until the materials were no longer required for daily operations
of the war effort.
On February 15, 1943, Charlie Huss, who had formerly held an administrative position
with the Work Projects Administration and also the Federal Works Agency in North Carolina,
was employed as Elmer Johnson's successor as Collector of Records. She was given the
title of Collector of Records for the Historical Commission, and Assistant Coordinator
of State Department of Archives and History War Records for the Office of Civilian
Defense (with the secretary of the Commission now serving as Coordinator of War Records
for the Office of Civilian Defense). Huss saw clearly that it would be impossible
to direct a properly conducted program from a desk in the state capital of North Carolina.
She believed that it was essential to visit the various counties in order to make
sure that the local programs were properly inaugurated and handled. Huss began immediately
upon starting her position to make trips to different parts of the state, usually
visiting several counties on each trip. At first, she traveled by public carrier,
but this proved too difficult and so wasteful of her time that the necessary arrangements
were made for her to travel by automobile. It was realized that it would be impossible
to secure complete records from all the state's one hundred counties. Since the work
was entirely voluntary, with no compensation whatsoever to those at the county level,
it was obvious that in some counties an enthusiastic response would be obtained, while
in others little or nothing would be done. At the beginning, an attempt was made to
launch a program in every county, but later attention tended to be concentrated on
those counties which had shown their willingness to cooperate with the North Carolina
Department of Archives and History.
While such a plan left something to be desired in that the war records collection
would not be complete, it was impracticable to carry on an active campaign in every
North Carolina county.
An effort was made, however, to see that the work was actively conducted in at least
one county in every major section of the state: the Tidewater, the bright leaf tobacco
belt, the cotton-growing counties, the Piedmont manufacturing area, and the mountain
district. Likewise, Charlie Huss undertook to cover certain key counties where particularly
important war activities were being carried on. In July 1943, the additional funds
appropriated by the North Carolina legislature became available. Nell Hines, formerly
a teacher of history with a master's degree in history from Columbia University, was
employed to assist in the North Carolina war records collection program.
This made it possible for Huss to spend a large part of her time in the field, and
by the end of 1945, she had visited 85 counties and towns in every part of North Carolina.
Huss held conferences with local collectors and their assistants, setting up committees,
arranging group meetings, addressing various gatherings, enlisting the co-operation
of the local newspapers, and arousing public interest in the work.
The records of African-American communities, military personnel, schools, businesses,
universities and colleges, and other groups, in North Carolina (which constituted
27% of the state's total population during WWII) did not receive sufficient attention
in most localities from the local populations in regards to records collection program.
A special arrangement was made late in 1943 between the North Carolina Department
of Archives and History with Dr. John Hope Franklin, of the then North Carolina College
for Negroes' Department of History in Durham, North Carolina (present-day North Carolina
Central University), in which Dr. Franklin agreed to head the program for the collection
of North Carolina's African-American war records for the state.
During World War II, all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces established recruiting
stations throughout North Carolina. The recruitment programs in the state involved
visits to local high schools to recruit young men between the ages of 16 and 18, during
which visits the recruiters handed out numerous brochures, handouts, flyers, and magazines
that promised the young men adventure, honorable service to their country, military
educational opportunities, and skilled position appointments and training that would
translate after military service into a civilian career.
Women began to be recruited into specific female-only military branches during World
War II to fill the personnel shortages facing the U.S. Armed Forces. Women served
in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, Women's Army Corps (WAC), Army Air Forces, the Navy's
Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), in the Marine Corps Women's
Reserve, and in the Coast Guard (SPARs). Although not officially members of the U.S.
Armed Forces, Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) provided critical support for
the war effort. Other women worked with the military through service with public and
private organizations, such as the American Red Cross, the United Service Organizations
(USO), and the Civil Air Patrol.
By the end of the war, women served in most non-combatant jobs in the U.S. Armed Forces,
including positions that had not existed at the start of WWII, including scientific
and technological positions. Women were in every U.S. military service branch, and
were assigned to every combat theater. Military nurses and WACs served overseas throughout
the war. WAVEs, SPARs, and Marine Corps Women's Reserves were restricted from overseas
assignments until near the end of the war, when they were sent to the Hawaiian and
Alaskan territories (then, because there were not yet U.S. states, were considered
to be "overseas" service).
The U.S. Armed Forces had established military recruiter stations and offices for
each of their branches in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, as their North Carolina
branch recruiter headquarters-most of which were on Fayetteville Street, just south
of the state capitol building. When the North Carolina Historical Commission began
collecting war records and materials to document the state's experiences in the war,
the Raleigh U.S. military recruiting stations donated unused recruiting pamphlets,
brochures, booklets, magazines, and other miscellaneous materials to the North Carolina
Department of Archives and History then-growing World War II records collection. This
included materials from wartime civilian programs such as the U.S. Merchant Marines.
Many of the materials that came to the State Archives were stamped with the office
location on their cover or inside pages of the miscellaneous publications.
Contents of the Collection
1. U.S. Armed Forces
Scope and Content:
Series I contains recruitment materials for the official five branches of the U.S.
Armed Forces during World War II. Covering the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Air Force, U.S.
Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Coast Guard, the series contains booklets, pamphlets,
handouts, journals, and magazines that provided information for recruiting purposes
to individuals interested in enlisting in the U.S. military, particularly men who
wished to choose their branch of service rather than wait to be drafted during WWII.
Items of interest include a handout, titled First 7 weeks in the U.S. Marines, that details what a new U.S. Marine Corps recruit would experience during basic
training (see Box 1, Folder 12). Another unique piece in the series is a booklet titled
Men Make the Navy, in which the benefits of joining the U.S. Navy are explained to prospective candidates
(see Box 1, Folder 9). In addition, this booklet provides detailed descriptions of
life on the Navy ships, the jobs available to enlistees, and the uniforms a recruit
receives upon entrance into Navy service.
U.S. Wartime Civilian Branches
Scope and Content:
Series II contains recruitment materials for the U.S. Merchant Marines, a civilian
branch of the U.S. Navy during World War II. The Merchant Marines were composed of
U.S. civilian mariners, and a fleet of U.S. civilian and federally owned merchant
vessels. These fleets were managed by either the federal government or private businesses,
and engaged in commerce and transportation of goods and services in and out of U.S.
navigable waters. The Merchant Marine was responsible for transporting cargo and passengers
during peacetime. During WWII, the Merchant Marine served as an auxiliary to the Navy,
and was involved in delivering military personnel and materiel for the U.S. military.
Under the U.S. Maritime Commission created in 1936, the U.S. Merchant Marines participated
in all fronts of World War II by providing necessary supplies to American and Allied
troops. From 1939 to 1945, the U.S. Maritime Commission built 5,777 merchant ships,
which consisted mostly of cargo carriers and tankers. Merchant Marines were not recognized
as members of the U.S. Armed Forces, and their wartime Merchant Marine service did
not count as official military service under the terms of the federal draft instituted
in WWII. Many Merchant Marines were forced to serve four years in the U.S. military
(two years active, two years in the reserves) after 1947 when the draft was reissued
nationally. Series II contains various recruiting booklets, and two issues of the
U.S. Merchant Marine publication, Polaris magazine, which was handed out in Merchant Marine recruitment offices to potential
volunteers (see Box 2, Folder 4).
U.S. Military Women's Nursing Programs
Scope and Content:
Series III contains recruiting material for women's nursing programs within the U.S.
Armed Forces during World War II. With less than 1,000 Armed Forces Nurses at the
start of World War II, a large recruitment push began by the military to cover the
growing needs of medical care during combat situations. While early volunteers for
military nursing programs had to be a U.S. citizen and a registered nurse with experience,
as the war progressed regulations loosened and experience in the civilian nursing
field was not necessary. With the demand for nurses increasing and a fear of the collapse
of the civilian nursing practice seeming a possibility, the U.S. military began recruiting
volunteers to attend school in the Cadet Nurse Corps.
An example of the problems in military nursing at the time is the U.S. Army. Six months
after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, there were 12,000 nurses
on duty in the Army Nurse Corps. Few of them had previous military experience, and
the majority reported for duty ignorant of Army operational methods and protocol.
It was not until July 1943 that Lt. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, Commanding General of
the Army Service Forces, authorized a formal four-week training course for all newly-commissioned
Army nurses. This program stressed Army organization; military customs and courtesies;
field sanitation; defense against air, chemical, and mechanized attack; personnel
administration; military requisitions and correspondence; and property responsibility.
From July 1943 through September 1945, approximately 27,330 newly inducted nurses
graduated from fifteen Army training centers.
Nurse anesthetists were in short supply in every theater of operations, so the Army
developed a special training program for nurses interested in that specialty. More
than 2,000 nurses trained in a six-month course designed to teach them how to administer
inhalation anesthesia, blood and blood derivatives, and oxygen therapy as well as
how to recognize, prevent, and treat shock. Nurses specializing in the care of psychiatric
patients were also in great demand. One out of every twelve patients in Army hospitals
was admitted for psychiatric care, and the Army discharged approximately 400,000 soldiers
for psychiatric reasons. The Surgeon General developed a twelve-week program to train
nurses in the care and medication of these patients.
Public health administrators as well as the American public believed that the increasing
demands of the U.S. armed forces for nurses were responsible for a shortage of civilian
nurses. Responding to these concerns in June 1943, Congress passed the Bolton Act,
which set up the Cadet Nurse Corps program. The U.S. government subsidized the education
of nursing students, and promised that following graduation they would engage in essential
military or civilian nursing for the duration of the war. The government also subsidized
nursing schools willing to accelerate their program of study and provide student nurses
with their primary training within two and a half years. Cadet nurses spent the last
six months of their training assigned to civilian or military hospitals, which helped
to alleviate the critical civilian nursing shortage on the American home front.
An interesting item in this series includes a recruitment booklet for the U.S. Military
Cadet Nurse Corps, detailing the history and regulations of the program (see Box 2,
Folder 8). The series also contains a pamphlet noting the benefits of nursing experience
in the civilian practice, once a nursing cadet's military service was completed (see
Box 2, Folder 5).
U.S. Military Women's Branches
Scope and Content:
Series IV contains recruiting material for women's military service branches during
World War II. Almost 400,000 women served the armed forces-a number that exceeded
the total male troop strength from 1939. Women enlisted for the duration of WWII,
plus six months of service. This was done in order to free male soldiers for combat
by filling jobs that matched the cultural perceptions of what constituted women's
natural abilities, such as clerical work and jobs requiring focused attention to detail
and specific motor skills. Items of note in the series include a WAC G.I. Bill of
Rights, detailing post-service benefits from the Army (see Box 2, Folder 11). There
is also in the series a handout which notes what clothing the Marine Corps Women Reservists
would be issued to wear during their U.S. military service (see Box 2, Folder 9).
2. Oversized Materials
Scope and Content:
Series V consists of oversized items, such as a large magazine and a large newspaper,
originally folded and stored in regular file folders within the collection. The oversized
items have been arranged by size within the corresponding size of archival storage
boxes and acid-free folders. One item of interest in the series is an advanced personal
copy of The Navy Plan for National Security for North Carolina Governor R. Gregg Cherry. The copy, containing a hand-written note
by Governor Cherry (which he wrote on the front cover) details the steps to be taken
should an attack against the United States occur (See Oversized Box 1). It was one
of the first post-World War II emergency action programs in case of foreign enemy
attack developed as the Cold War with the Soviet Union was beginning to develop by
1945. Other items in the series include a single issue of The Wright Take-Off newspaper, a camp publication for troops located at the U.S. Army Air Force's Wright
Field in Fairborn, Ohio (outside Dayton, Ohio). There is also a poster that graphically
details the decorations and service ribbons of the U.S. Armed Forces during World
War II (See Oversized Box 1).
Subject Headings
Acquisitions Information
The materials in the collection were acquired in multiple parts between 1942 and 1946 by the North Carolina Historical Commission under the auspices of the North Carolina Department of Archives and History. The materials were donated to the State Archives as North Carolina historical wartime materials for the state's war records collection project. Most of the recruiting materials came from the Raleigh, North Carolina, recruitment stations for all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II.The records in this collection were collected under the funding appropriations authorized for the World War II state records collection project in the 1943 North Carolina General Assembly. In his regular message to the General Assembly, North Carolina Governor J. Melville Broughton specifically requested that the war records program receive the financial support. The requested appropriation was made and became available to the Historical Commission from the General Assembly on July 1, 1943, under Senate Bill 11 (1943), Chapter 530. The collection of these wartime records by the North Carolina Department of Archives and History was authorized through Section 5i of Senate Bill 154, Chapter 706, "An Act Conferring Emergency War Powers on the Governor. . . ."
Processing Information
The materials in this collection were originally organized alphabetically by the name of the U.S. military branch or wartime civilian service program in regular file folders. However, the materials for all of the military branches were originally mixed together in the folders. For example, there was no distinction on the folder titles or in the finding aid between women's nursing recruiting materials and women's reserve corps recruiting materials.
This collection was reprocessed in 2016 to make the materials more discoverable through improved description. Added detailed description was provided at the item level for some published and unpublished materials. Items were re-foldered depending on the items' condition and preservation needs. The collection title was changed to more adequately identify the original use and purposes of the materials in this collection. All branches and civilian programs have been clearly divided and labeled in the collection and on the finding aid. Oversized items have been relocated to Box 3 (Oversized), and an item too large to fit in a large archival box was relocated to an oversized folder.