World War II

This digital collection includes a sample of World War II materials from the Military Collection of the State Archives of North Carolina, including: posters; maps; correspondence from service individuals; correspondence written from North Carolina military installations, describing them in World War II; and official U.S. Marine Corps press releases on casualties and promotions of North Carolina Marines. 


After the Japanese Empire’s attack on the United States on December 7, 1941, the entire country mobilized for war as the country entered the fight in World War II. North Carolinians volunteered for military service, began rationing on the home front, raised money for war bonds, and joined local Civil Air Patrol units to guard the state from the enemy. New federal military installations like Camp Butner and Camp Davis were constructed in the state, and German and Italian prisoners of war were transported to newly built prison camps in North Carolina.

North Carolina schoolchildren ran scrap metal drives, created scrapbooks about their schools’ war service, and participated in patriotic celebrations in their communities. Young women in the state volunteered for USO clubs to support service individuals at local military installations; served on local defense recreation committees; joined the American Red Cross; and worked as community nurses. Patriotism was promoted through posters, swing dances, war bond drives, and parades in every North Carolina community.

Citizens raised “Victory” gardens, canned their own food, and rationed all sorts of goods throughout the war. Ships were built in Wilmington, airplane parts and gliders were made in Alamance County, and cigarettes for the troops were produced in Winston-Salem and Durham. Wooden gliders were used to train U.S. Army Air Force troops at Laurinburg-Maxton Army Air Base; anti-aircraft artillery units trained at Camp Davis; and airborne troops prepared for the Normandy invasions at Fort Bragg. The first large number of female Marines was stationed at Camp Lejeune as the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve. Wartime efforts continued in the state through 1946, after many service individuals finally returned to the United States from the European and Pacific Theaters.

Finding aids for World War II Papers are available on the State Archives website.

Panoramas

The World War II Panoramas digital collection consists of photographs from 1939 to 1946 of various U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and State Guard units stationed at North Carolina and non-North Carolina military instillations.

 

Panoramic photographs typically show servicemembers in full dress and occasionally holding a flag of their unit/division. They were commonly produced to document companies and battalions during training or before they were deployed and served as official military records and keepsakes for servicemembers.

 

This digital collection also includes photos of medical staff, dentists, Women Reserves, and African American units. It was curated from several military collections at the State Archives of North Carolina. Information about the original collections is included in the photographs’ descriptions.  

Letters

Maps

Newsletters

Posters

This collection includes an overview of World War I materials from the collections of the State Library and State Archives of North Carolina.

  • The materials from the State Archives include: posters; selected letters from the World War I Papers, part of the Military Collection;
  • Official Army Signal Corps Photographs, 1918-1919; photographs from the Warren C. McNeill Papers;
  • The World War I map collection from the World War I Papers, which contains more than five hundred maps and blueprints of various types. Of particular interest are the various maps with contemporaneous annotations by the officers who used them, such as the engineering drawings from the papers of Joseph Hyde Pratt and the topographical maps carried high above the trenches in the balloon of James A. Higgs.

Postcard, "When shall we meet again," to Warren McNeill, Sept. 14, 1918

Poster, Join the Air Service and Serve in France--Do it Now