• Military
  • Mar30

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    According to the Brief History of World War Two Advertising Campaigns War Loans and Bonds:

    On May 1, 1941, the first Series E U.S. Savings Bond was sold to President Franklin D. Roosevelt by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau. On January 3, 1946, the last proceeds from the Victory Bond campaign were deposited to the Treasury. The War Finance Committees, in charge of the loan drives, sold a total of $185.7 billion of securities. This incredible mass selling achievement (for helping to finance the war) has not been matched, before or since. By the end of World War II, over 85 million Americans had invested in War Bonds, a number unmatched by any other country.

    There were eight War Loan drives in total –

    June 12, 1944 marked the beginning of the most ambitious war financing campaign. The $16 billion goal of the Fifth War Loan was the largest of the eight, but by its conclusion on July 8, 1944, $20.6 billion had been sold. It came at a critical time, as the tempo of war had increased dramatically. Production rates were hitting new peaks, while availability of goods was low and consumer earning rates were high. An estimated $42.7 worth of advertising was contributed towards the loan campaign, which served to thwart inflation as well as to finance the war.

    With such an ambitious goal and over $16.7 billion raised in the previous four ward bond drives, they must have realized they needed some serious tactics for getting people to pony up more money for the war.

    Reading through some Queens newspapers today, I happened upon an advertisement by a partnership of Gertz Department Store and Textron to sell war bonds with a decidedly unique slant: When you buy the bond, you can fill out a note directly to Hitler or Tojo and they’ll insure it gets shipped overseas and inserted in a live bomb!

    Now THERE’S some bang for your buck!

    Put Your Name on An Invasion Bomb Ad.21.JUN.1944.LI Daily Press.Page04

  • Nov11

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    Our thanks and prayers go out to all the Veterans today.


    Veteran's Day Thanks & Prayers

  • Sep25

    4 Comments

    I have been helping a friend lately by looking to see what I could put together for her family tree. Luckily for her, almost immediately a torrent of records began to pour from the online coffers, so the tree began to fill up quite nicely.

    As is often the case, there are a few records that may be for parallel persons of similar name, so definitely some work to do on locking those down as properly vetted and assessed.

    XBut, in the short run I found an interesting thing: both her great grandfather, and his father both seemed to have served in the Fighting 69th volunteer infantry – although the elder was before the Civil War, and the younger in World War I.

    While looking at information for what appears to be the younger Francis Kearney’s stay in a a “National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers”, I found something slightly puzzling.

    His history at the home lists him as being “Admitted” on May 4, 1925, and then on Oct 31, 1926 his Cause of Discharge is “Dropped.”

    Francis Kearney Military Home Record DetailThe images for these records come in pairs of pages, and I quickly noticed that the next fellow’s record has many entries for “Discharged” and “Transferred”.

    Anyone out there in the genealogosphere have any knowledge on the term “Dropped” in this context? Hmm.

    Record Citation:

    “United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-21051-37678-11?cc=1916230&wc=MMRT-VYX:n30335972 : accessed 25 Sep 2013), Togus, Maine > Register no. 18000-19499 > image 262 of 771.

  • Oct23

    2 Comments

    A quick post for today: I have been trying to get my great uncle Michael Edward Tierney’s military records from NARA for awhile – even though I had everything but his shoe size and army serial number I kept getting the response “Not enough information to find his records.”

    I was surprised at the response, actually since I included his birth and death dates, known addresses, parent’s names, burial location and his division and other Army info from his headstone. But I suppose there’s no cross-referencing for those old records

    But, it wasn’t until Ancestry recently published the U.S. National Cemetery Interment Control Forms, 1928-1962 that I finally turned up his Army Serial Number, and that unlocked the box.

    I received about 48 pages of records, and even with duplicated info I have a fair bit of research to go through and write up. But for now I thought the service pay card below was an interesting thing to post – the soldiers were paid $1.00 a day when stationed in the US and $1.25 when overseas. Great Uncle Michael was paid a total of $416.50 for 337 days of service, including stints as a Wagoner in the Meuse-Argonne offensive and in the St. Die Sector of France.

    (Updated later: looking at the records again, it appears this card may be a pay adjustment and not the complete pay he received during his service. There are some other records that mention $15 per month – and what looks like the application to receive this money was from several years post-war in 1925.)

    WWI Army Pay Card for Michael Edward Tierney