Creation of Archives, Holdings, and Research Centers

Library shelves are full of thousands of books about the same dozen units, battles, or campaigns in WWII. The two repositories of unit records, published histories and key leaders’ papers are the National Archives II in College Park, Maryland, and the US Army Military History Institute (MHI) at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. Both are extremely valuable sources of information, but the Archives are strictly controlled to preserve the documents and are very tedious to work in; the MHI is located in an obscure location in south-central Pennsylvania. Using the resources at these sites is therefore difficult, expensive, time-consuming . . . so they are often not used by authors. The result is therefore often “recycled history” about the same old themes, battles, and units, or, worse, simply bad history.

If veterans of less-well-known units want their accomplishments -- and those of their fallen comrades -- to be remembered, then the creation of an accessible, comprehensive, and well-maintained collection of historical documents is the one sure way to encourage scholarship and promote the dissemination of knowledge!

The Guiding Principle: “The history that is easy to write, will be written.”

What Aegis Can Do

-- Identify and coordinate with potential host organizations (universities, foundations, military units)

-- Copy, collate, prepare, and package documents for use by researchers.

      -- Unit operational, intelligence, and personnel records

      -- Maps and overlays, digitized and combined for unparalleled usefulness.

      -- Personal recollections -- Documents pertaining to opposing units

      -- Pertinent records of higher headquarters and adjacent units

       -- Photographs, motion pictures, unit newspapers