Marshall Magazine: Fall/Winter 2024 - Digitization Special
Dr. Paul A.
Dr. Ashley
Marshall is the magazine of the George C. Marshall Foundation. We encourage the reproduction and use of articles contained herein, as well as submissions. Direct correspondence and requests to P.O. Box 1600, Lexington, VA 24450.
Telephone: 540.463.7103
Website: www.marshallfoundation.org
Editor: Glen J. Carpenter
Email: editor@marshallfoundation.org
Contributors: Glen J. Carpenter, Melissa H. Davis, Paul A. Levengood, Alex Parran, Matthew Turner, Ashley Vance, John W. Wranek, III
Cover: A newly-digitized and restored portrait of General George C. Marshall
Left: Detail of a poster by artist Kenna Terrizan in support of the Marshall Plan, 1950
DEAR FRIENDS,
At the very heart of the George C. Marshall Foundation are the personal papers of its namesake. And since our founding in 1953, my colleagues past and present have dedicated themselves to sharing this treasure trove with the world. The first stage was the gathering of these materials — from General Marshall himself and from the federal entities in which he worked—and bringing them together here, in Lexington, Virginia, where they could be used by researchers and authors. This process began in 1953 and was largely complete by the late 1970s.
The second stage was to increase access to the papers through the publication of the seven-volume The Papers of George Catlett Marshall. This project began in 1977 and was completed almost 40 years later, in 2016. This compendium ultimately included meticulous annotations to 3,869 of the most significant documents in the collection.
Now, as you will read elsewhere in this issue of Marshall, we have moved to the next stage of sharing George C. Marshall’s papers with the world. In 2023, we launched the digitization of and assignment of metadata to each of the 165,000 documents in this collection. Although we envision this as a multi-year project, we will be rolling out the results in waves, with the first coming early in 2025.
We have engaged in this project at great cost because we believe that it represents the next logical step in furthering our mission and ensuring that the contributions and character of a great man are accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. His legacy deserves no less.
Paul A. Levengood, President
2024 has been a remarkable year for the Marshall Foundation, and chief among its achievements has been the digitization of the George C. Marshall Papers—an initiative unprecedented for an archive of our size. To commemorate the completion of the first phase of this important effort, this issue of Marshall takes a soup-to-nuts look at how the library is getting it all done. Melissa Davis, director of Library and Archives, will walk you through best practices and the preparation for digitization. Next, Alex Parran from Backstage Library Works discusses the technical process of document scanning. Two Marshall Foundation stalwarts, Dr. Ashley Vance and Matthew Turner, present their experiences as metadata technicians once scanning is complete. The exploration ends with a show-and-tell featuring seven newly-digitized documents—and an opportunity to win a book of Marshall’s wisdom.
I am excited to announce major changes to the Marshall Foundation’s publications next year. Beginning in January, our monthly e-newsletter, “Marshall Moments,” will feature one substantial article per month. Pieces that would ordinarily be shared exclusively in Marshall will be delivered directly to your inbox on the last Thursday of every month. The best articles will be included in future issues of Marshall—but you will not have to wait to read them.
I hope you enjoy this special issue of Marshall, and best wishes for the new year.
Glen J. Carpenter, Director of Communications and Multimedia
DIGITIZATION
PRESERVES THE PAST
by Melissa H. Davis
Doctor Forrest Pogue and a team of researchers worked on the four-volume George C. Marshall biography for more than twenty-four years; the first volume, Education of a General, was published in 1963 and the last volume, Statesman, in 1987. Research required traveling to the archive holding a resource and spending days or weeks poring over materials, so research projects were limited to those with financial backing or who were lucky enough to live near the needed archival collection. If an archival resource remains in hard-copy form, research is still performed in this manner.
So how can we make the research process more accessible and practical at the George C. Marshall Foundation library? By scanning the extensive George C. Marshall Papers and uploading them to the library catalog. The process of digitization will make each of the approximately 165,000 documents, comprising about 250,000 pages, searchable and immediately available to
anyone with an Internet connection from anywhere in the world.
This project is gigantic, and the scanning of each page is the easy part. Backstage Library Works of Pennsylvania transports the boxes containing the Marshall Papers documents to their facility in Bethlehem where staff scan each document using professionally accepted standards and state-of-the-art equipment. The boxes are then returned to the Marshall Foundation, and the real work begins!
For a document to be searchable within the library catalog, it needs to be part of a catalog record containing information specific to that document. This information is called “metadata,” and is defined by the National Information Standards Organization as “structured information that describes, explains,
locates, or otherwise makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an information resource.”
The metadata for each document in the Marshall Papers includes the individual scan number, correspondent names, date, location, summary of the document, and subject headings—search terms that allow the user to find the document. Subject headings come from a controlled vocabulary; a list of selected terms used for all documents connected with the topic. For the Marshall Papers project, we opted not to use the more traditional Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), as their complexity can be an unnecessary barrier to searching. For example, the LCSH term for the 1944 invasion of France is “World War, 1939–1945 —D-Day, 1944 (Normandy invasion).” The controlled vocabulary we are creat-
Melissa Davis and Tanziha Tasnim load Hollinger boxes of papers to be digitized by Backstage Library Works.
ing uses the natural-language terms “D-Day,” “Operation Overlord,” “Operation Neptune,” “Cross-Channel Invasion,” and “Normandy Invasion,” all of which connect to the documents associated with the invasion. The names, location, and subject headings all link to other items on the same topic, which are of great assistance to the searcher.
The first thirty-nine boxes of Marshall Papers that have been scanned so far cover the years 1938–1945, leading up to and during World War II, when General Marshall served as the Army Chief of Staff. The documents are primarily memoranda, reports, speeches, and correspondence. Many of the documents lack the attributes and context for catalog records, as parties involved in the communications were deliberately vague and used code words
to protect secret information.
Several World War II historians have been hired to analyze each document to ensure that information specific to the document is collected. These historians—for this project called metadata technicians—work remotely, accessing the scanned documents through cloud storage. Their extensive knowledge of the war is necessary to fill in missing context, decipher code words, and create complete information for the catalog records. Some documents are a single page and take a few minutes of work; other documents are much longer and may take several hours to complete.
At times, even the expertise of the historians is not enough to construct complete records. One issue is common last names— there were seventeen U.S. generals named
Thousands of documents from the Marshall Foundation archive, boxed up and ready to go.
Hollinger boxes are stored in larger banker boxes for the journey to Pennsylvania.
Smith during the war. Nicknames frequently appear in documents; Marshall was known as “Flicker” to his childhood friends from Uniontown, and Admiral Harold Stark was addressed as “Betty,” his Naval Academy nickname. Nearly all women mentioned in the papers were called by their husbands’ names: Mrs. George C. Marshall rather than Katherine T. Marshall, so reparative cataloging restores the womens’ first names.
We call these missing pieces “Not Founds,” and when they crop up, the technicians try to find them. Unsolved queries are shared with me at the library to research and find the necesssary information. The historians and I have solved more than 20,000 “Not Founds” in the past year working on the World War II section of the project, and our effort makes the documents much more user friendly.
When the metadata is complete for the 1938–1945 section of the Marshall Papers, the scanned documents and metadata information collected will be sent to Soutron Global, the
manager of the Marshall Foundation library catalog. The information will be connected to the documents by the individual scan number, and a record will be created and uploaded into the library catalog. The library record will include a searchable PDF and image. This type of catalog record is a best practice, as all the information about the document is viewable in the record.
The project of scanning, creating metadata, and uploading to the library catalog each document in the George C. Marshall Papers will take about six or seven years but is well worth the effort. Library catalog users, whether 8thgraders working on History Day projects, PhD students from overseas, researchers, or the curious who just want to learn more about George Marshall will all benefit from the accessibility of each of the Marshall Papers.
DIGITIZATION
ADVANCES INNOVATION
by Alex Perran
Backstage Library Works
When heritage materials like the George C. Marshall Papers leave a library, careful handling begins with the first consideration: how will they be shipped? Sometimes this is with common carrier services, such as UPS or FedEx, where boxes are packed with the specific caretaking needs of documents and books in mind. When a collection needs special attention, it’s not uncommon to seek out a freight shipping company. Backstage Library Works has a van service for just these occasions, providing an insured trip that goes directly between the library and the digitization office where they are then temporarily housed in specialized material storage environments throughout the course of the offsite project. All shipments of the Marshall Papers to and from the Marshall library are transported by Backstage’s van service.
Backstage maintains a climate-controlled environment, outfitted with a pre-active dry pipe sprinkler system and security program to make certain that collections are secure and well-main-
Melissa and Backstage Library Works employee, Ian, transport the first set of newly-digitized documents back to the GCMF library.
tained while away from their home shelves. Like a hotel, the bays and shelves are all assigned unique designations, and each item staying at Backstage receives a flag with a barcode linking it to its assigned spot. In this way, books, atlases, maps, posters, manuscripts, archival boxes, photographs, and more are all maintained in an environment suited for archival needs with a consistent record of the custody chain while away from the library.
A number of steps occur before a document is ever placed before a camera for digitization. All projects are directed by an assigned project manager, whose responsibility is to organize the capture schedule and coordinate digitization technicians as well as review materials, ask questions when unique situations evolve, and communicate with the library throughout the
course of the project. One subject that comes up frequently is this: will particular items in the collection need to be approached differently to ensure the final captured image has high fidelity to the original? Perhaps there are pages that need mending or dog-ears to be flattened. Maybe the project manager decides that materials will have to be captured using the custom-built 120° cradle (a device that flexes to support a volume’s spine and covers, reducing strain) or the 180° cradle. Occasionally, bound items need to be disbound, meaning that the book block is partially or totally severed from its spine. While this sounds intense, Backstage always employs the least destructive means when such occasions arise, and the library is always consulted to ensure that everyone involved with stewarding the wellness of the
collection agrees with the path forward.
The green flag to proceed with digitization is waved once a production plan is in place, which includes an outline of the technical specifications, the schedule, and established processing plans for any items that need an extra touch to be “camera-ready.” Technicians check out sections of the material from storage, and a typical day consists of calibrating the camera equipment with targets (visual tools that inform whether colors and resolutions are being captured correctly) and steadily digitizing each item in the collection.
Backstage’s camera equipment ranges up to 150 megapixels, utilizing state-of-the-art Phase One cameras and CaptureOne software. Phase One cameras are known for their high-resolution lenses and powerful image
sensors. CaptureOne is a leading software in raw file editing and processing, meaning the scans contain enormous amounts of data with minimal processing or compression. The quality of this equipment accounts for just one facet of being able to digitize to FADGI 3- and 4- star requirements—that is, the top-level recommendations established by the Federal Agencies Digital Guidelines Initiative, which is a federally recognized and maintained ruleset that governs how images are captured to ensure they can truly be tagged as “archival.”
Other factors include the environment in which items are digitized and the workflow that is used. For example, Backstage’s digitization studio has dark grey walls and controlled lighting, among other accommodations, which helps manage brightness and contrast
The cutting-edge scanning setup at Backstage Library Works.
of materials being scanned.
Past that, archival digitization requires that institutions follow quality assurance (QA) protocols and maintain some expectations for file naming and generation—and QA begins as soon as materials arrive for digitization. Review steps before and after capture are what promise that each image is aligned correctly and that it accurately represents the original material. Typically, the files that a library will need after digitization are TIFFs (high quality and lossless tagged image files for archiving), searchable PDFs for patron searching and access, and either JPEGS or JPEG2000s, which are best used in conjunction with a digital asset management system. When a project is finished, the original materials and a hard drive of the derivatives are sent back to the library,
marking the process complete.
Backstage’s philosophy maintains that every library collection is unique, and this is no less true when it comes to the George C. Marshall Papers and other collections that Backstage has digitized in collaboration with the Marshall Foundation to date. Such projects prove the resourcefulness required to capture the variety of material types and conditions found in heritage collections.
Document from the GCMF archives being scanned by hand.
DIGITIZATION
UNLOCKS ACCESS
by Dr. Ashley Vance
Upon completion, the George C. Marshall Foundation digitization project will be an invaluable resource to researchers of all ages and backgrounds. This project will offer something that few other archives do—document-level searchability. Most archives offer researchers a box-level description. At best, a folder-level title list will provide a glimpse of what’s inside. The complexity and depth of Marshall’s papers make box-level generalizations unhelpful and folder titles too vague.
For example, Box 80 contains correspondence with President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1939 to 1943. (The years 1944–1945 are contained in a separate box.) A general description would mention memos, reports, and correspondence with Roosevelt. The documents are organized chronologically, so a folder title list would only provide timeframes. Yet, Marshall and Roosevelt’s communications were incredibly complex. As the war progressed, the number of
daily messages increased, and the topics varied wildly. The October 1942 folder includes topics like combat in Africa, relations with Charles De Gaulle, army regulations, German Army operations, planning for the invasion of France, Japanese strategy, American prisoners of war in the Philippines, press releases, Combined Chiefs of Staff conferences, and social invitations. And that is not an exhaustive list. No box- or folder-level description could accurately capture this complexity.
As a military historian and metadata specialist for this project, I have witnessed both the challenges and potential that a document-level digitization project can offer. Unironically, the greatest challenge to process the files will be the greatest asset for future researchers. Every staff member working on this project is a trained
historian in their own right, which allows for a much richer set of subject headings and file descriptions—the keys to searchability. Our experience and background knowledge allows us to create subject headings and descriptions that an untrained, outsourced contractor could not offer. These skills become especially important when key terms are not directly listed on a document or when they are listed on one document but not the next, despite it discussing the same topic.
For instance, if we are reviewing an army status report from North Africa in November 1942, we know to add Operation Torch to the subject heading list even if it is not listed. Some researchers will only search for Operation Torch and not include North Africa as a keyword. Others will do the opposite. With-
Ashley Vance presents a talk for the Marshall Foundation’s Legacy Lecture series, 2022.
out both subject headings, a researcher may never come across the report when searching the online catalog.
The gold standard of metadata categories is the Library of Congress subject headings. Unfortunately, these headings are not intuitive to many researchers. I have personally experienced the frustration caused by the standardized headings. On many instances, I searched a digitized collection for a file I knew existed but never located it because I did not format the keyword search correctly or because my search terms were not included in the provided headings. This problem becomes increasingly complex when dealing with the decades before, during, and after World War II.
To highlight this issue, I located Michael Green’s 1995 monograph Patton’s Tank Drive:
D-Day to Victory on the online catalogs for both the Library of Congress and the Marshall Foundation’s research library. Both catalogs list the same three subject headings for the 160page monograph and neither provide a book description.
Patton, George S. (George Smith), 1885–1945.
World War, 1939–1945—Tank Warfare.
World War, 1939–1945—United States.
The simple addition of a book summary would make the monograph more searchable because, fundamentally, keywords searches scour a website for matching terms. Depending on the coding, some catalog search engines
Top: Old entry in library catalog with limited metadata.
Bottom: New catalog entry with extensive metadata, including a summary, subject headings, and document preview.
New subject headings give researchers easy
access to information:
Patton, George S., Jr.
Patton, G.S.
World War II
World War II – European Theater
World War II – Liberation
World War II – Planning – Strategy
World War II – Planning – Tactics
France
Paris, France
Rhine River
Rhineland, Germany
Rhine Province, Germany
will only pull from the subject headings and others will search the entire site. When the Marshall Foundation’s new digitized collection launches, the search engine will catch both the subject headings and the file descriptions.
Using only the book description listed on goodreads.com, a new subject list for Patton’s Tank Drive could potentially include the 29 headings at left. To be sure, the dramatically longer list may be visually cumbersome to some researchers. However, the inclusion of the units, operation names, locations, and planning categories will ensure that researchers will come across the monograph, regardless as to how they search for it.
Given the physical location of Marshall’s papers in Lexington, Virginia, many researchers may not know the collection exists or may not have the ability to visit the quaint town that hosts a veritable treasure trove of historical documents. Historians of all types will benefit from the document-level descriptions and subheadings being manually applied to each file. Whether the person visiting the future online collection is an academic, a veteran, a history buff, or a high school student, the digitization of Marshall’s papers will provide an invaluable open-access resource for generations to come.
DIGITIZATION
SHAPES THE FUTURE
by Matthew Turner
Educator, Warren County High School
The Marshall Foundation has a treasure trove of resources I was first introduced to through their Summer Teachers Institute last year. My name is Matthew Turner, and I teach high school juniors in a Dual Enrolled U.S. History course and was blown away by how much I both enjoyed and benefited from my days at the Foundation. When given the chance to return this year, I immediately took it. These institutes also led me to an opportunity to directly participate in their project to digitize the vast Marshall Papers collection, for which I am both happy and grateful.
My role in the project, along with a group of other dedicated individuals, is to read through each document and assign them appropriate subject headings or metadata tags, so that when the documents are added into the library catalog they can be easily pulled up by searching for the relevant tag. Names, events, organizations, battles, equipment, and locations are just
a few of the criteria that we are sorting through when reading and describing these documents. They can range from personal correspondences and birthday wishes to top-secret military operations, and discussions with foreign royalty about the Marshall Plan. Currently, I am going through a series of indepth memoranda and declassified messages between Marshall and Admiral Ernest King concerning operations in the Pacific and Southwest Pacific against the Japanese.
I have personally gone through more than a thousand documents, with many more left. It is truly an amazing effort, since it will not only preserve these vital pieces of history, from World War I up through Marshall’s roles as Secretary of State and Defense, but also make them accessible for use by anyone. As a
historian, this is a fantastic opportunity to take part in something meaningful and to share these valuable documents with others.
As a teacher, digitization efforts such as this are a dream come true. As mentioned, I work with college-bound dual-enrollment U.S. history students, and one of the most valued skills that we can build and reinforce in class is close-reading using relevant primary sources. The more primary sources we have available to work with, the better. For a lot of our units, there are limited primary sources available and easily accessible for students or for other educators. Having the digital Marshall Papers and their behind-the-scenes looks at so many different key periods of U.S. history is an absolute blessing, and this treasure of resources in the library catalog will soon be available to use.
MatthewTurner tours the GCMF archive with Melissa Davis during the 2023 Teachers Institute.
I have already pulled out some of the documents to use with my students on World War II and the Cold War. I assign document-based essay questions as a primary means of assessing student understanding, and the ability to have these resources to create new document-based questions cannot be overstated. These documents, combined with the photographs and other resources already available on the Marshall Foundation website, have made up the bulk of my unit both in the DE class and also in my sophomore Modern World History course, as a way to get younger students to start thinking more critically about history.
Another way I plan to use these documents is as an open lesson for students to explore the library catalog on their own. This is
a fantastic way to let students learn and take a more direct approach with a lesson, encouraging them choose a topic and then find evidence to support an argument or specific details about an event. The freedom to find their own documents and information can interest students who otherwise might not engage with a topic, or focus on one specific part of the unit that fascinates them.
Matthew teaching his class in Warren County, Virginia.
SEVEN DOCUMENTS: SHOW-AND-TELL FROM THE MARSHALL PAPERS
With the grunt work complete, the fun begins. The seven documents on the following pages illustrate several of the factors that make the digitization effort crucial, beyond preservation and accessibility.
First, these documents contribute to a more holistic understanding of the past. We can see, for instance, the urgency with which General Dwight D. Eisenhower alerted Marshall to the horrors of the Nazi death camps, the mundane daily logistics of the Manhattan Project, or a moment in the career of barrier-breaking General Benjamin O. Davis, here commended by Marshall as a young colonel. Second, they reveal candid feelings and emotions that may otherwise be hidden from public view, here in Eisenhower’s venting about General Patton’s indiscretions and in Marshall’s warm, funny correspondence with his beloved sister, Marie. Finally, they are interesting as artifacts in-and-of themselves, as in an unredacted secret memo, and a note scrawled in thoroughly illegible handwriting.
Every week, the digitization process reveals more of these forgotten documents and photos, which may not have been accessed in decades. The examples on the following pages are only a few that will be available to researchers around the world in early 2025.
EISENHOWER AND THE HOLOCAUST
This memo from General Dwight D. Eisenhower to General Marshall, dated April 15, 1945 and reproduced on the opposite page, is one of the earliest accounts of the Nazi death camps by the American military.
Marshall understood the importance of firsthand experience, testimony and documentation, telling his biographer Forrest Pogue in 1957:
The big thing I learned in World War II was the urgent necessity of frequent visits … I was abreast of what was going on all over the place. I could sense their reactions and I could see how they felt urgently about this or that, which we at headquarters did not really feel so much, but I would come to an understanding in those ways and I could correct things almost instantly,
Marshall was talking about conditions and materiel, but the need for trusted, personal experience applied to all areas. Eisen-
hower toured central Germany, reporting the Nazis’ use of salt mines for storing stolen and hoarded treasures. He made the pivotal decision to personally visit Buchenwald so that the existence of the death camps could never be questioned: “I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’” He was horrified by what he saw. Experienced, hardened soldiers—even Patton, by Eisenhower’s testimony—were deeply, physically affected by the brutality and scale of the camps.
Committed to the truth, Eisenhower and Marshall worked to ensure that the camps were seen by U. S. congressmen and the world, with professional film crews sent to document the atrocities in color. These actions not only documented the full scale of Nazi crimes, but also cemented Eisenhower’s legacy as a witness determined to preserve history for future generations.
MARSHALL AND THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
General George C. Marshall did not become involved with the development of atomic weapons until October 1941 when Roosevelt appointed him to the Top Policy Group. The group was responsible for overseeing the atomic program of the United States, and Marshall was the only military representative in the group.
The army’s experience managing large construction projects left Marshall responsible for getting the project started and keeping it running. In an interview with his biographer, Forrest Pogue, Marshall stated:
I had to get the money and I directed all these preliminary operations and the construction of the affair. Not that I knew anything about the technique at all. But to get things done-to amass the money and the men and everything else of that sort. I was rather amused at myself because as time wore on, these long statements that would come, that were filled with complicated procedures necessary in these matters and the techni-
cal terms involved—I spent so much time with the Encyclopedia Britannica or the dictionary trying to interpret what they said, that I finally just gave it up, deciding that I never would quite understand it all.
In 1942, Marshall appointed General Leslie Groves, who had been in charge of the construction of the Pentagon, to manage the top-secret project that became known as the Manhattan Project. The cost was enormous, which meant that Marshall and Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson repeatedly appeared before Congress to ask for additional funding even though they could not explain how the money was being used.
In the newly-digitized documents on the opposite page, Marshall’s trust in Groves and belief in the necessity of the Manhattan Project is evident. At a price tag of almost $16 billion (in 2024 dollars), Marshall believed in a swift, decisive end to the war—limiting additional Allied casualties—at any monetary cost.
EISENHOWER AND PATTON
At the opening of a British Welcome Club for American soldiers in Knutsford, England, on April 25, 1944, Gen. George S. Patton gave a short speech in which he said that it was good for soldiers of the Allied countries to get to know each other, as the United States and the United Kingdom would be ruling the world after the war.
This statement was reported in newspapers around the world and precipitated a flurry of radio messages between Gen. George Marshall and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower discussing Patton’s lack of care when speaking. The memos on the opposite page express Eisenhower’s frustration: “I have grown so weary of the trouble he constantly causes you and the War Department to say nothing of myself, that I am seriously contemplating the most action.”
“Do you consider that his reputation or high command,” he asked Marshall, “will tend to destroy or diminish public and governmental confidence in the War Department?”
Marshall shared Eisenhower’s frustration with Patton’s outspokenness, quoting an es-
pecially damning editorial from the Washington Post—but approached the situation dispassionately “on a purely business basis.” Marshall continues, writing that the effect of the Knutsford affair
on you and the troops and on the confidence of the public in the War Department and in you is opposed to the unmistakable fact that Patton is the only available commander for his present assignment who has had actual experience in fighting Rommel and in extensive landing operations followed by a rapid campaign of exploitation.
Marshall reminded Eisenhower that as Supreme Allied Commander “you carry the burden as to the success of Overlord” and had to decide whether keeping Patton was worth it. Eisenhower decided to keep Patton, who led the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, the “Ghost Army,” a few weeks later, contributing greatly to the success of Operation Overlord, the invasion of France.
COLONEL BENJAMIN O. DAVIS
Usually, the contextual challenges of document-level research are not as dramatic as codewords. Their expertise can help reveal the importance of seemingly ordinary-sounding names and positions—details lay audiences may gloss over or leave unconnected. This memo from Marshall singles out the work of then-Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., recognizing his potential and trusting his abilities. Benjamin Davis graduated from Howard University in 1898, and served as a lieutenant with the 8th U.S. Volunteer Infantry (Colored) during the Spanish-American War. He was discharged after the war and joined the U.S. Army as a private, but was commis-
sioned a 2nd lieutenant in 1901. Davis was promoted to colonel in 1930 and led New York’s 369th Infantry Regiment, known as the Harlem Hellfighters, from 1938 to 1940. Davis became the U.S. Army’s first African-American general officer when he was promoted to brigadier general in 1940. This document captures Davis’s efforts to reorganize the 369th Infantry Regiment into an antiaircraft regiment, and the recognition by his superiors of his capable leadership. There are no unimportant individuals in research, even when their position or name seems ordinary.
A DIFFERENT SIDE OF MARSHALL
This letter from Marshall to his older sister, Marie, reveals a playfulness and familiarity that is largely absent from the written records he left. The two shared a close bond, corresponding regularly throughout their lives. Their friendship became crucial when Marshall faced one of the darkest periods of his life.
After the untimely loss of his first wife, Lily, to a heart problem in 1927, Marshall was overwhelmed by grief to the point of despondency. Marshall wrote to Pershing about his loss: “Twenty-six-years of most intimate companionship, something I have known since I was a mere boy, leaves me lost in my best effort to adjust myself to future prospects in life.” The military was downsizing, with little tolerance for officers exhibiting performance issues; Marshall’s grief threatened not only his personal stability, but his army career. Suffering greatly, Marshall asked to be transferred to a post where he and Lily
had never lived, as the memories were just too difficult. He was soon on his way to Fort Benning, Georgia, (now Fort Moore) to take charge of academics at the Infantry School there.
Herself widowed, Marie stepped in to help. She moved Marshall to Fort Benning, re-established his household, and gave him the emotional support he needed to focus on his new role at the Infantry School. Putting her own life on hold, Marie very likely saved his career. Due in no small part to Marie’s love and support, Marshall was able to initiate the major changes to the Infantry School curriculum, prioritizing tactical improvisation and creativity rather than doctrinal principles, that shaped more than two hundred future generals, including Joseph Stilwell and Omar Bradley. Without Marie’s intervention, American history may have lost some of its greatest military leaders.
AN UNREDACTED SECRET MEMO
Communications during World War II were deliberately vague to protect the secrecy of key individuals and operations. This newly digitized memo, which features unredacted information and handwritten codewords necessary to replace them, offers a unique glimpse into the mundane procedures that make such secrecy possible.
The memo offers cryptic identifiers—for example, Prime Minister Winston Churchill is “AGENT,” while President Roosevelt is “SAMBA.” The Combined Chiefs of Staff becomes “SCALE,” and “the American Ambassador in Moscow” is transformed into “the INGOT PITCH in GRIPE.” These code names were arbitrary and ensured that these communications would be incomprehensible
to anyone without context, even if they were intercepted.
This memo is unusual because the unredacted information and codewords are found side-by-side. Ordinarily, documents like these are censored outright, and identification of the parties, places, and events in each requires the knowledge of a historian. The process of decoding and contextualizing these memos requires expertise, meticulous research and cross-referencing. “This is the kind of thing that our metadata techs are working with,” explains Melissa Davis. By working to uncover the meaning of codewords in documents without such a key, the metadata technicians bring clarity to our understanding of wartime secrets at the item level.
ILLEGIBLE HANDWRITING
One of the more common pain points of conducting archival research is deciphering handwriting. Most often this comes from historical methods and styles of script, with which archivists, as historians, are familiar and trained to read. However, the specialized nature of this skill may be foreign to even an informed lay researcher, especially when considering the baseline historical style can be buried underneath the personal stylistic quirks of an individual’s handwriting
The handwritten note on the opposite page is a particularly dramatic example of this hurdle. Confounded by the idiosyncratic scrawling, the library team turned to their network of historians on social media to crowdsource a “translation.” After friendly debate and discussion, the note was deciphered and is now included as part of the document’s metadata.
We invite you to try your hand at figuring out the contents of the note. For a chance to win a copy of The Words of George C. Marshall, a compendium of quotes by Marshall about such topics as preparedness, education, humility, and duty, submit your
entries to editor@marshallfoundation.org, or by scanning the QR code below. A winner— and solution—will be included in a future edition of “Marshall Moments,” the Marshall Foundation’s monthly e-newsletter.
THE 2024
ANDREW J. GOODPASTER AWARD
The George C. Marshall Foundation presented the 2024 Andrew J. Goodpaster Award to General James C. McConville (USA Ret.), 40th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, at a ceremony in Arlington, Virginia, on November 1. The Andrew J. Goodpaster Award honors the life and service of General Andrew J. Goodpaster, a longtime trustee and a chairman of the Foundation, a champion of the Marshall legacy, an American hero, and an extraordinary public servant. The Goodpaster Award is presented to American leaders who, like General Goodpaster, have exhibited great courage, selfless service, patriotism and leadership in their lives and careers.
“For those of you who have attended the Goodpaster Award before,” said Marshall Foundation president Dr. Paul Levengood during the ceremony, “you know that the event is a celebration of service in the vein of General Goodpaster and George C. Marshall. In addition to their shared
Photos by Kelly Nye
commitment to the defense of this nation, both were reverent about the sacrifice that has been offered by ordinary Americans since the founding of the republic. So powerful was their commitment to honoring the fallen that both men served as chairmen of the American Battle Monuments Commission—the federal agency that oversees commemorative military cemeteries and memorials worldwide.”
This year’s award ceremony coupled the Marshall Foundation’s salute to service with a tribute to a member of the armed services who has fallen in defense of the United States. The honoree was Lieutenant Stephen Chase Prasnicki, a native of Lexington, Virginia, where the Marshall Foundation is located. He graduated from Rockbridge County High School in Lexington and went on to graduate from West
Point as a member of the Class of 2010. He was an excellent student and standout football player, both in high school and for the Black Knights. Chase graduated with honors from the Field Artillery Basic Officer Leaders Course in 2011 before graduating Ranger School and Airborne School later that year.
Chase’s first duty assignment overseas was with the 4th Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment. In June 2012, Chase deployed to Afghanistan where he took on the role of platoon leader. Just three days into the deployment, Chase tragically lost his life when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device.
Lieutenant Prasnicki’s father, David, and his sister, Lauren, were presented with a photo of Gen. Marshall visiting Cambridge Ameri-
David and Lauren Prasnicki are presented with a memorial plaque in honor of Lt. Stephen Chase Prasnicki by Dr. Paul Levengood.
40th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General James McConville, delivers remarks after the presentation of the 2024 Goodpaster Award.
can Cemetery and Memorial in England, and a plaque honoring Lt. Prasnicki’s sacrifice.
In his remarks upon accepting the 2024 Goodpaster Award, General McConville, who attended West Point during fellow alum Goodpaster’s tenure as superintendent, thanked the Marshall Foundation, stating that Marshall and Goodpaster belonged to what “has been termed the greatest generation, and rightly so…but I would argue that every generation has its heroes.”
He continued, addressing his West Point cohort and praising General Goodpaster’s leadership during a troubled period in the school’s history. “West Point had an honor scandal, and leaders knew how important West Point was, so General Goodpaster volunteered to come back. When we entered West
Point in 1977, he had given up a star with the idea that he may not even get it back…and he spent four years instilling in us the values of duty, honor and country. Years later, when there were critical times for all of us, we would reach back for that moral compass and understand the importance of doing the right thing the right way.”
General McConville concluded by recognizing Lieutenant Prasnicki. “David, thanks to you and your family for raising a wonderful young man. You get to choose how to live, and he chose to go to West Point. He chose to go to Ranger School, Airborne School. Everything I read about him, he was an incredible young man. I am just very, very proud that we had a chance to serve with him, sir.”
FOUNDATION STAFF
Glen J. Carpenter
Director of Communications and Multimedia gcarpenter@marshallfoundation.org
Melissa Davis
Director of Library and Archives mdavis@marshallfoundation.org
Alice J. Lee
Special Projects Assistant leeaj@marshallfoundation.org
Paul A. Levengood
President plevengood@marshallfoundation.org
Leigh H. McFaddin
Associate Director of Development and Special Events mcfaddinlh@marshallfoundation.org
