Wright Museum
           of WWII History

Wright Museum Collection Illustrates Yuletide in WWII

(Published December 2007)

The U.S. is now in the midst of its fifth holiday season since the first American troops were deployed to Iraq—and the seventh since the U.S. began its offensive in Afghanistan. With thousands of Americans still serving overseas, the Wright Museum’s vast collection provides a window onto how their grandparents celebrated Christmas on the home front and the frontlines.

During WWII, Christmases were marked by a shared longing for a time when cherished loved ones would return home. “When the war is over” became a recurrent catchphrase that took on added meaning during the holidays.

At right: War Bonds Christmas Poster - Since relatively few consumer goods were available due to the demands of wartime production, the holiday season actually presented Americans with the opportunity to save.

(Published November 2007)

As unprecedented numbers of Americans heeded FDR’s call to service following the attack on Pearl Harbor, millions of red-bordered flags began appearing in windows across the country. Flags bore one blue star to represent each family member serving in the U.S. military.

The flag was a carryover from the First World War. Its simple but potent design was created by Army Captain Robert L. Queissner, who had two sons on the front lines. The flag quickly became a kind of visual shorthand that communicated a family’s powerful and personal commitment to the war effort.

At right:  WWII posters frequently used service flags as a kind of visual shorthand in acknowledging the breadth of America’s shared sacrifice.

During World War II, the practice of displaying the service flag became even more widespread. Concurrently, in 1942, the Blue Star Mothers of America was founded as a veteran support organization. Their work was part of larger effort to send care packages to overseas servicemen. Blue Star Mothers also provided assistance to families that encountered hardships resulting from a son or husband’s war-related absence.

Donated Collection Helps Wright Museum Tell the Personal Side of WWII

(Published October 2007)

A diary, a makeshift rosary, and an altar fashioned out of cocoanut leaves illustrate one soldier’s experience of the Pacific war in 1942.

Eldred L. Butler, PFC, Company K, 182nd Infantry, lived in Salem, Mass., where he enlisted in the Army on February 28, 1941. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was deployed to the Pacific, arriving first in Melbourne, Australia. Over the next several months, he’d serve in New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Guadalcanal, and the Fiji Islands.

Butler kept a diary chronicling his experiences during his first year in the Pacific. A devout Catholic, he regularly attended masses held at an improvised altar made out of locally-available materials. Sunday services occasionally could not be held if no priest was available, as Butler frequently noted in his journal. The diary is part of a recent bequest that was made to the Wright Museum by his family.

At right: Pencil and pastel sketch portrait of Eldred “Al” Butler.

Celebrating the WWII-era Contributions of Navy's "Fighting Seabees"

(Published September 2007)

Wrench and hammer in hand, the tommy gun-toting “Fighting Seabee” is among the armed services’ most easily recognizable insignia.

Established in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the Seabees are the Construction Battalions of the U.S. Navy. The Seabee name itself is a “backronym” of the pronunciation of “CB.”

As America prepared for an unprecedented global military undertaking, war planners recognized early on that base construction, road building, and the creation of other infrastructure would be needed—particularly in parts of the world where the U.S. had little or no prior physical presence.

At right:  “Folk art” Seabee, gift of C. Bruce Wright. Wright Museum Collection.

Soldier Folk Art Documents the Personal Side of War

(Published August 2007)

In the hands of the right man, a spent 75mm artillery shell is a potent medium of artistic expression.

Soldier-made trench art is a subcategory of what decorative arts scholars call folk art. Trench art objects are as varied and unique as the artists who created them but are unified by their use of materials readily available to soldier-craftsmen. Artillery shells, bullets, shrapnel, and even aircraft parts have all been transformed into one-of-a-kind pieces of folk art.

More commonly associated with WWI, the practice of fashioning useful and often ornate pieces from military scrap continued into the Second World War. During the previous conflict, however, soldiers—many of them with metalworking backgrounds—had unprecedented amounts of downtime. Stalemated in trenches between battles, soldiers on the frontlines could distract themselves during the long, fear-filled hours spent waiting for the enemy to attack.