Easy day today. I got up late, so I didn't go to breakfast. I had crackers and pastry snacks in my room. We boarded the bus and headed to the National Archives II in College Park, Maryland. One of the groups today described it as "a really secure library on steroids. Did I mention security?" We had to. Show photo IDs every time we entered a room, couldn't take paper or folders in, and had to have our papers that we did take approved.
The goal for today was to investigate the primary source records that related to our silent heroes time of service. And I should clarify that an archive is not a library, the archivist working with us today was very adamant that that was the wrong word. An archive holds records.
Volunteers had been assigned various groups and had already found the relevant records for us. C and I looked at pictures of Utah Beach and Cherbourg. We went to the map room where we found the original burial place of Eston. He was buried at St. Mere Egliese after he was killed, and then later moved to the official battlefield cemetary. After lunch (sandwiches) and a video, and we do have a DVD of news reels and situation maps to utilize, we went to the text room. We were actually pretty lucky. Our volunteer, Denise, said she found more stuff on Eston than the other soldiers. Probably because he made it off the beaches. We looked through about six boxes of records directly related to the 4th division or the 12th infantry. Thanks to the historian of the 12th regiment veterans association, I already had a lot of the information, including the history of the 12th regiment written by Colonel Gerden Johnson. Either Col. Johnson wrote a lot of the infantry reports or he relied on them heavily for his book, because often the wording was exactly the same, I was telling Denise how I had obtained a copy of the book, and she looked a little crest fallen because we had already found a lot of the information she found for us.
What we still don't know that I want to know is when did Eston become part of the 12th Regiment. I know he was with the 113th on April 1, 1944, and is "somewhere in France" on June 17. I had let our contact know this information ahead of time, and the volunteers said they really couldn't find information from the archives on the 113th. I did find that the first replacements joined the 12th on June 14. Our contact with the veterans association told us Company B was a rifle company, so Eston was probably a rifleman. C is not satisfied with the word probably and wants to know for sure. Our volunteer did brag on us for providing the battalion and company, and I believe C may finally understand Division-Regiment-Battalion-Company-Platoon-Squad hierarchy after looking at this stuff.
We finally found some stuff about the 113th and Denise is going to take a look at it to see if we can find out more information about Eston. It appears the only place I could definetly get this would be to go the archives office in St. Louis to look at unit rosters and morning reports.
I also found "how to write a good battlefield narrative" and made a copy of that for our English teachers.
We returned to campus, had dinner, a briefing meeting on travel for tomorrow, because that's when we leave for France, and were sent back for packing and laundry. The kids did a D-Day Planning Simulation. I had started a load of laundry while we ate and am typing this while it dries. It's still early, but I do still have to completely pack. Did I mention we leave for France tomorrow? Today's steps: 6183, but it is just 7 o'clock and I still have to pack.
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