This story appears in the July/August copy of the Library of Congress Magazine.
On Okinawa, Marines chat about the weather as machine-gun rounds zip overhead. On Iwo Jima, tanks clank ashore under heavy fire. In Nagasaki, an American general instructs Japanese officers to honor the terms of surrender.
These are the sounds of the Marine Corps at war, preserved in thousands of hours of recordings made on battlefields of the Pacific Theater during World War II, then stored away for decades. In recent years, the Library has given them new, digital life and made them accessible in its Recorded Sound Research Center.
The Marines — using Library training and recording equipment — sent two-man teams into combat during the war to document the experiences of troops and provide real-time accounts of some of the toughest fights in Corps lore: Kwajalein, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima, Okinawa.
During lulls in the fighting, the correspondents would talk to Marines: What did you do in the fight? Anything you’d like to say to the folks back home? Many of the recordings were quickly transferred to vinyl, sent to the States and broadcast on radio to Americans anxious for news about loved ones serving on faraway shores.
All of the recordings — made at first on wire and later on film stock — were transferred to vinyl by the Marines after the war, then sent to the Library for safekeeping. During the 1960s and ’70s, Library technicians transferred the vinyl records to reel-to-reel tapes.
Then the tapes just sat, mostly unused.
Beginning in 2010, the Library and the Marines jointly undertook a project to give the recordings a digital format — and a new audience. Audio engineers at the Library’s Packard Campus digitized the tapes, and interns broke the digitized recordings into segments and created a descriptive record for each. The digital files were ingested into the Library’s archive and copies sent to the Marines.
Interns at Quantico then created detailed summaries of the contents and linked the recordings to photos, articles and records from the Corps archives — documents of the war as Marines heard it and lived it on far-flung battlefields across the vast expanses of the Pacific.
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Comments (6)
I feel frustrated and pretty dumb as I cannot figure out how I can listen to these recordings…
Hi there,
Don’t be! The recordings, so far, are available only on site, not online. Frustrating, I know, but we’re getting there!
Best,
Neely
What a great article. My uncle flew a glider on D-Day. Since it was a glider upon landing he joined in the fight.
Another good friend of mine was a radio-operator on Iwo Jima the day the famous photo was taken.
World War II has always fascinated me. The things those men went through to preserve our life & liberty along with saving the world.
When they say the “Greatest Generation” that is still an understatement.
Very happy to read via this blog that history is being preserved for future generations!
Cary Michael Cox
As an Australian citizen, look forward to historic WWII sound tracks of US military personnel, published by The Library of Congress.
The Pacific Theatre has both military historic interest and current political messages for democracy and Free World liberties.
Operation Vengeance [Pearl Harbor, belligerent, Adm. I. Yamamoto shot down, Bouganville jungle, near Australia ] as well as the Guadalcanal and Solomon Island Campaigns, are also historic and geo-political topics of interest.
Thank you, to The Library of Congress for the building of priceless WWII resources, to capture people’s imagination.
Hello, I’m a highschool history teacher and I thrive when I can make history come to life. I was wondering if these recordings will be available for online use soon? I’m nearly positive these would be an excellent resource thats kids would really engage with. Thanks so much I live the LOC and its seemingly infinite resources.
Hi Cory,
So glad you’ve discovered the wonders of the LOC archives!
Alas, there are no immediate plans to put these online — the archive is vast and the list is long — but here’s a guide to researching what’s online in our Recorded Sound Division for other things your students might like: https://www.loc.gov/rr/record/research.html
You can also use the “Ask a Librarian” feature to help locate other material that your students might like. (They really do get back to you quickly; I’ve used it for help on research). Here’s the link: https://ask.loc.gov/
Finally, the Veterans History Project has lots of multimedia material you might want to explore, too: https://www.loc.gov/vets/
Best,
Neely