Vic Wilson's Combat Diary

A number of years ago I received the military archives of a family friend, Victor Wilson, from his wife, Margie. At the time she told me she didn't want to place the memorabilia with a museum because she felt like that would limit access to the materials and she wanted them to be more widely available.  During my time at Leander I used the materials as part of our Veteran's Day Display and in class when we studied World War II; today I am launching the first digital project from Vic's archives, his combat diary.

I have created a  3D Timeline movie which connects the events in the combat diary to Vic's photos. Although photos are not always 1:1 representations of the diary info (although there is some 1:1 correlation) I have tried to connect relevant photos that are representative of what is being discussed in the diary (for example, photos of planes with flak damage paired with a description of flak damage within the diary).

The material represented here is but a small part of the larger stash of materials that I am s-l-o-w-l-y digitizing. This is more of a labor of love than a research project and so I tend to work on it between semesters and during the summer.  My goal this summer is to get the photo albums online, along with some of the memorabilia Vic collected. Over the long term I hope to get everything digitized, from commendations and flight school, to war time service to post-war service within an interactive website that links the materials together (and to other relevant historical sources).

First, some context. Vic served as part of the U.S. Army Air Corp serving in the North African and Italian fronts between 1943 and 1944. During this time he participated in air raids on Anzio, Battapaglia, and Sicily, amongst others. The diary is Vic's combat story.

Merry Pigmas!!!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Loyd, Whitney & Chan

Parasailing on Cape Cod

Here they are, the long awaited parasailing pics! Thanks to Ellen and David for having us out to their place on Cape Cod for the 4th. It was a wonderful weekend.

Making adjustments

Ready for lift-off!

And Away We Go...

Coming in for a dip in the ocean

Back on deck

Enjoying the adrenaline rush!!

Gardening Rhode Island Style

 The first big gardening project is DONE!!!! It took about a month thanks to the abundance of rain this May/June, but I can now more or less sit back and maintain the new landscape.

The first phase was cleaning out the hosta bed that runs alongside the driveway. These puppies are huge and it took quite a bit of work to get just four of them out of the ground. These were already in place when we moved in last summer, however they didn't really like the direct sunlight and heat of July and they began to look rather sad by August. We had originally intended to dig all of them up and put in a massive spring/summer bulb bed but never quite got our act together.  I settled four taking out four of the eight hostas and planting two blueberries and two jalapenoes in between the hostas. We already have blueberries on the bush. 

The second task was to clean out the beds at the front of the house. Last summer we simply maintained the lanscape on a minimal level, and by this year many of the larger shrubs were horribly overgrown. I spent several hours crawling around under shrubs and hacking off branches with the lopper. The pile of limbs in the picture required 6 yard bags to clean up.

Another angle on the front bed. The azalea had been squished by the boxwood and cedar shrubs and was barely visible under all the green leaves. At least now it can spread its branches a bit. 

Finished bed! The hosta was almost invisible under the boxwood. Now that the boxwood has been trimmed up the hosta is much happier. The other side of the big bed was also trimmed up The MASSIVE boxwood to the left of the front steps was cut waaaaaay back. I've now got some daisies and camelias planted underneath to add some color.

The last major challenge was to get rid of the dead patch of grass that was rapidly taking over the front yard. The goal was to reduce the amount of actual  grass that had to be mowed AND add some color to a primarily green landscape.

Here's the finished product!

San Francisco, Part Deux

I'm finally getting around to posting the second round of pictures from AERA in San Francisco. I was joined by my Mizzou friends, Tony, Sarah and Greg and we had a blast. We started at Alcatraz and ended the day walking the Golden Gate Bridge. Beautiful weather the whole time. Enjoy!

Thanks to Greg we all got tickets after several minutes of group texting.

The Rock as seen from the ferry.

Looking back at the city.

Getting close. 

Warning sign 

At the dock.

The water tower still has the graffiti from the AIM occupation.

The prison from the outside.

 

 
The walk up is steep but beautiful. The gardens are currently maintained by volunteers.

Greg entering the prison.

Prison cell. They have a few that are furnished as well.

In the summer the prisoners could hear the music from the parties of the  well-to-do from across the bay.

Rows and rows of cells.

Main entrance for employees. Interestingly enough a number of employees and their families lived on the island. Children were ferried to school everyday and they often played on the parade grounds just outside of the prison.

Remains of a building

There is a cliff walk just below the administration building, The  island is a wildlife sanctuary and volunteer gardeners tend the grounds. The blooms were amazing and the birds everywhere.

LIght house from the cliff walk.

Ruins off the parade ground. SF in the distance.

The birds weren't camera shy. The bird below didn't move off the nest the entire time we were snapping pictures.

Birds propagating the species! 

View below the cliff walk.

The area just above this was the recreation yard.

Alcatraz took several hours. We were worried that we might not make it onto the next ferry, but luck was on our side and we headed back to the mainland. From there we grabbed taxis for the Golden Gate (after briefly considering making the trek on foot, let's just say glad we didn't!)

View from Golden Gate park on the SF side of the bridge

View from the pedestrian walk. We made it half-way then turned back .

Well that's the gist of it. I have more Alcatraz pics but they need some editing. Next update will showcase the first big gardening project of the year!