We are fortunate to have a collection of primary source materials in the archives of the Center for the Study of War Experience. These include videorecordings of collected oral histories along with copies of memoirs about war experience. Lists of selected memoirs are available below. Contact Nathan Matlock at nmatlock@regis.edu or at 303-964-5192 to schedule an appointment for using these resources.
The library is pleased to announce the addition of Archives Unbound, a significant collection of primary resources. The 16 subject collections include a wealth of primary sources, including letters, diaries, government documents, and other records. The collections that may be of particular interest for the study of wartime experience include:
These collections include primary source materials such as diaries, letters, and historical news articles.
American Decades Primary Sources (Reference E 169.1 .A471977 2004; 10 vols.)
A Decade of American Foreign Policy: Basic Documents, 1941 - 1949 rev. ed.
(1st Floor Gov Pubs S 1.69:415)
Documents of German History (Reference DD 3 .S55)
Documents on German Foreign Policy (1st Floor Gov Pubs S 1.82 :D/)
Foreign Relations of the United States (Reference KZ 233)
Hidden Holocaust: Gay and Lesbian Persecution in Germany. 1933-45
(Reference HQ 76.3 .G4 H6613 1995)
Historic Documents of World War II (Reference D 735 .L3)
Hitler’s Third Reich: A Documentary History (3rd Floor Books DD 256.5 .H536 1981)
Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt (3rd Floor Books E 806 .R749; vols.2-4, 10-13; see also Denver Public Library)
Source Records of the Great War (3rd Floor Books D 521 .H6 1923a; 7 vols.)
Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949 (Reference KZ 235.3)
Trials of War Criminals (1st Floor Gov Pubs D 102.8; vols. 3, 5-15)
Greenwood Library of American War Reporting (Reference D 5 .G84 2005; 8 vols.)
Lande, Nathaniel. Dispatches from the Front: the American War Correspondent
(3rd Floor Books PN 4784 .W37 L36 1995)
Pyle, Ernie. Brave Men (D 811.5 .P88 1944a)
Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism, 1959-1975 (3rd Floor Books DS 559.46 .R46 2000)
Shirer, William L. Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941
(3rd Floor Books D 811.5 .S5 1941)
Search the library catalog for more books on war correspondents.
American POWs in Korea: Sixteen Personal Accounts (3rd Floor Books DS 921 .S65 1998)
Dyess, William E. Bataan Death March: A Survivor’s Account (3rd Floor Books D 805 .P6 D93 2002)
Voices of the Vietnam POWs (3rd Floor Books DS 559.4 .H68 1993)
Zincke, Herbert. Mitsui Madhouse: Memoir of a U.S. Army Air Corps POW in World
War II (3rd Floor Books D 811 .Z56 2003)
Search the library catalog for more books on prisoners of war.
Bradley, Omar Nelson. A Soldier’s Story (3rd Floor Books D 756 .B7)
Cook, Haruko Taya. Japan at War: An Oral History (3rd Floor Books D 811 .A2 C62 1992)
Dryden, Charles W. A-Train: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman (3rd Floor Books D 790 .D78 1997)
Duffy, Francis Patrick. Father Duffy’s Story (3rd Floor Books D 570.9 D8)
Gaulle, Charles de. War Memoirs 3 vols. (3rd Floor Books D 761 .G3733)
Kardoff, Ursula von. Diary of a Nightmare: Berlin, 1942-1945 (3rd Floor Books D 811.5 .K3653 1966)
Knoke, Heinz. I Flew for the Fuhrer (3rd Floor Books D 787 .K613)
Kovic, Ron. Born on the Fourth of July (3rd Floor Books DS 559.5 .K68)
Rickenbacker, Eddie. Fighting the Flying Circus (3rd Floor Books D 606 .R5 1965)
Saint-Exupery, Antoine de. Pilote de Guerre (3rd Floor Books D 788 .S3 1942b) [In French]
Waddington, Mary King. My War Diary (3rd Floor Books D 640 .W18 1917)
Ward, Joseph T. Dear Mom: A Sniper’s Vietnam (3rd Floor Books DS 559.5 .W368 1991)
Search the library catalog for more personal narratives.
[Note: these titles contain secondary analysis along with some primary sources]
And Justice for All: An Oral History of the Japanese American Detention Camps
(3rd Floor Books D 769.8 .A6 A67 1999)
Battlefield Chaplains: Catholic Priests in World War II (3rd Floor Books D 810 .C35 C76 1994)
Double V: The Civil Rights Struggle of the Tuskegee Airmen (3rd Floor Books UG 834 .A37 S36 1994)
Doughboy War: The American Expeditionary Force in World War I, ed. by James H. Hallas. (3rd Floor Books D 570 .D68 2000)
Our Mothers’ War: American Women at Home and at the Front during World War II
(3rd Floor Books D 810 .W7 Y45 2004)
Resilience and Courage : Women, Men, and the Holocaust (3rd Floor Books D 804.47 .T43 2003)
A World without War: How U.S. Feminists and Pacifists Resisted World War I
(3rd Floor Books D 570.1 .E27 1997)
World War II and the American Indian (3rd Floor Books D 810 .I5 T69 2000)
In history, primary sources are those materials created as close to the historical event as possible. Military documents, treaties, foreign policy documents, presidential (or other executive officer) papers, reports by war correspondents, letters, diaries and memoirs all represent primary sources for war experiences. Other sources, like editorials, articles from popular magazines, or other resources from the time period can be used to understand the context of historical events. The following is a selection of primary sources available at Regis: