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Happy Birthday, Marine Corps! And, the Marine Corps Combat Recordings

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Contemporary photo of older man holding a framed black and white photo of a young man in military uniform and cap.
Photograph of Jahue Mundy holding a framed portrait of himself in uniform. Mundy served with the Marines in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Jahue I. Mundy Collection, Veterans History Project, AFC2001/001/57918.

A belated Happy Birthday to the US Marine Corps. On November 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress voted to create two battalions of Marines to assist with amphibious operations, and to serve on land and at sea. Click here to access digitized narratives from more than 1200 Marine Corps veterans in the Veterans History Project archive.

To celebrate 239 years of the few and the proud, I collaborated with my colleague Karen Fishman, Research Center Supervisor for the MBRS Division, to explore a fascinating collection of World War II field recordings: the Marine Corps Combat Recordings. During the war, Marine Corps correspondents stationed in the Pacific Theater were given recording devices by the Library of Congress in order to document indigenous oral traditions and the military’s activities on islands such as Guam, Saipan, and Iwo Jima. The resulting recordings–including interviews with troops and the sounds of live battle–are nothing less than breath-taking.

To find out more–and listen to clips from the recordings–head over to Now See Hear! for the full blog post: Earwitness to History: The Marine Corps Combat Recordings.

Semper fidelis!

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