MacArthur Memorial Newsletter

JULY 2022

New Collections Added to MacArthur Memorial Archives

Recently, the MacArthur Memorial Archives and Library acquired two large collections that add valuable chapters to Philippine and World War II History.

Jane Doner Fredrickson Collection

Jane Doner Fredrickson was a former civilian internee of Japanese prison camps in the Philippines on the islands of Cebu and Luzon. Living on the island of Cebu with her parents and sister in 1941, as a teenager she was caught up in the maelstrom of the Japanese conquest of the Philippines. Her father made the trip south to Mindanao to help U.S. and Filipino forces and was separated from his family. Jane’s mother then took her daughters on a trek through the jungle to hide with other Americans. Eventually captured by the Japanese, they ended up in Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila until liberated by the First Cavalry Division on February 3, 1945. Jane had long been associated with the MacArthur Memorial and after her passing in 2019, her son Craig donated the collection she had amassed since her days in Cebu. He brought her original camp diaries and memorabilia to the MacArthur Memorial Archives in the suitcase Jane used from Cebu to Manila. Seventeen shelf feet of correspondence, diaries, journals, manuscripts, periodicals, photos and publications now make up Record Group 174: Papers of Jane Doner Fredrickson, Civilian Internee in the Philippines.

George Munson Collection

After three years of shipping materials from Washington state to the MacArthur Memorial Archives in Norfolk, VA, the George Munson Collection is finally in one piece in its new home. Twenty-four shelf feet in the MacArthur Memorial vaults are now occupied by Record Group 162: Papers of George Munson, Collections of the Harbor Defenses and Coast Artillery units of Manila and Subic Bays, Philippines. The collection includes materials on Corregidor, Fort Hughes, Fort Frank, Fort Wint, Fort Drum; the 59th, 60th, 91st and 92nd Coast Artillery Regiments; Coastal Artillery and Field Artillery during the siege of Bataan-Corregidor; hundreds of interviews, manuscripts, diaries and rosters of personnel that witnessed the campaign; engineering reports on the construction of all the forts; and postwar assessments of all the forts.

Both collections are still being processed but are available to researchers. If you would like more information about these collections, please email the MacArthur Memorial's Archivist.

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New Podcasts

Maine's 103rd Infantry Regiment in WWI

The 1916 National Defense Act – a piece of legislation that a young officer named Douglas MacArthur helped the U.S. Army lobby for – laid the groundwork for National Guard units to be activated into Federal service. In 1917, as the United States prepared to fight in Europe, National Guard units were activated into Federal service. Maine’s 103rd Infantry Regiment was one of these units and it would see service in France as part of the 26th "Yankee" Division. To discuss the experience of the 103rd Infantry Regiment during World War I, the World War I Podcast interviewed Captain Jonathan Bratten, command historian of the Maine Army National Guard and author of To the Last Man: A National Guard Regiment in the Great War. LISTEN

The Approaching Storm

America’s path to World War I was complicated. Most Americans could agree that America should have a more dynamic international role – but that meant different things to different people – and it wasn’t just a debate between the traditional interests or political parties. Powerful progressive forces splintered over the nation’s response to the war. To discuss America’s entry into WWI in the context of this debate – the World War I Podcast sat down with Dr. Neil Lanctot, author of The Approaching Storm: Roosevelt, Wilson, Addams and Their Clash Over America’s Future. LISTEN

Diplomatic Detainment in WWII

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declarations of war against Japan, Germany and Italy, the Roosevelt Administration had to figure out what to do with hundreds of Axis diplomats in the United States. While this was worked out, the detainees, their families, and staffs had to be held somewhere secure. They were ultimately sent to remote luxury hotels in the United States, in the hope that this would encourage reciprocity in the treatment of American diplomats detained abroad. To explore this fascinating episode in WWII history, the MacArthur Memorial Podcast interviewed Harvey Solomon, author of Such Splendid Prisons: Diplomatic Detainment in America during World War II. LISTEN

MacArthur and Krueger

General Walter Krueger is somewhat of an enigma to many people today because he rarely appeared in the communiques coming out of the Pacific during WWII and was seemingly uninterested in publicity or politics. General MacArthur compared him to Stonewall Jackson, but MacArthur biographer D. Clayton James compared him to George McClellan. So who was Krueger? How valuable was he to MacArthur - and what was their working relationship like? MacArthur Memorial historians Jim Zobel and Amanda Williams recently sat down to discuss Krueger and his WWII partnership with MacArthur. LISTEN

Latest Films

MacArthur and the USN/USMC in Korea

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