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| WWI photos retrieved in our trip this October. |
This past week Mark and I traveled to Knoxville, TN, home of the 117th infantry regiment which was part of the 30th Division during World War I. Walter fought in the 117th and we wanted to research this regiment to learn more about the men, officers and campaigns during the Great War.
We spent several hours at the Knoxville County Library, looking at microfilm of 1918 newspaper articles about the 117th during the war. There were many interesting contemporary accounts of the battles in which the 117th engaged, including personal letters of the men involved, which we copied for our records.
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| Newspaper article describing the breaking of the Hindenberg Line in France. The 117th Regiment was part of this battle. |
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| More about the battle. |
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| Homecoming celebration in Knoxville for 117th regiment at the end of World War I. |
We also researched at the McClung Special Collections in the library. This section has old files, including the papers of General Tyson, head of the 59th Brigade which included the 117th and 118th infantries. At the McClung we were also able to review microfilm of the Tennessee World War I Gold Star records of Tennessee men killed in the War.
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| General Tyson. in middle. |
From Knoxville we headed to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.. We spent two and a half days at the Archives copying Signal Corps Official Photos from World War I and Signal Corps films taken during that time period.
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| National Archives II, College Park, Maryland |
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Emily Haddad researching photos at the National Archives.
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Mark and I met with Mitchell Yockelson, the military historian who wrote the book, "Borrowed Soldiers," which was so helpful in our research of the II American Corps assigned to the British in 1918. The 30th Division and the 27th Division were both part of II Corps. Mitch directed us to very interesting areas of research and photos at the National Archives. It was great to finally meet him in person and to discuss the documentary and a possible future trip to the WWI battlefields in France with him as our guide.
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| Mitchell Yockelson, author of "Borrowed Soldiers," and Emily Haddad at the National Archives. |
All in all it was an amazing trip; we learned a tremendous amount and were able to collect a large amount of visual material which will make our film come alive and allow us to really expand the information on our website. We look forward to our next trip to the National Archives, probably sometime in the spring of 2013.
