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Tank Corps documents



Listserv members:

I am currently involved in a project that entails bringing together previously unpublished materials related to personnel who served in the United States Army Tank Corps during World War I.

FYI, this project began when a friend of mine ran across a previously unknown diary of a Lieutenant Henry Hawes, who served in the Tank Corps in Britain and France during 1918-1919. The only other Tank Corps diarist that I am aware of was George S. Patton, then a field grade officer. (Incidentally, Hawes did not have a high opinion of the future general.) I have searched through many AEF records in the National Archives and as well as Patton's papers at the Library of Congress. Among the most interesting are a number of personal experience reports written by officers in the Tank Corps in the weeks following the Armistice. However, of all of the officers that served in the Tank Corps, I've only located about 35 of these reports.

As a supplement to the materials I've already located, I'd like to ask if anyone on the list is either in custody of or aware of any other diaries, personal letters, photographs or other documents that shed light on the experiences of individual soldiers who served in this short-lived part of the Army during the Great War. Proper credit, of course, will be given should this project come to published fruition.

Thanks all!


Patrick R. Osborn

(Archivist, The National Archives at College Park)

11300 Narrow Trail Terrace
Beltsville, MD 20705

posborn133@aol.com
patrick.osborn@nara.gov