Jack - The Research Archive
Not everyone likes Museums, however….
My dad was a big fan of museums. Family trips to local museums filled my childhood memories with images of mummies in glass cases, woolly mammoths mired in tar pits and dark dioramas of viscous hyenas. As an adult I am still drawn to museums, but more for the storytelling. This Research Archive focuses on my dad’s brother Jack Emme and his military service. I hope the story telling will be compelling enough to bring you in for a visit.
It started with a box.
It was a box that Paul and Margaret Emme kept for many years. The box was filled with documents, objects and photos related to Jack Emme, one of their three sons. Jack, like many other young men and women, lost his life while serving in the United States Army during World War 2. That box traded hands several times, going from Paul to his son Bob (my dad) and finally to Jim (my brother). Jim took on the task of organizing, photographing and scanning the items in the box so they could be shared with the whole family as part of a digital memorial he published online in May of 2021.
Three brothers and an incomplete story
• Bob was the youngest.
My dad was thirteen in 1943. Reading through Jim’s documents reminded me of the only thing my dad ever said to me about Jack’s service.
“He had no business being in that war.”
My dad is no longer around to interpret what he meant by those words, but what it clearly communicates is a sense of frustration and loss. Those feelings resonate for me, having lost one of my own brothers suddenly and tragically just a few years ago.
• Then there was Jack.
Jack was nineteen and had just started his second year in Junior College when he enlisted. The box of documents contained a number of letters written by Jack during his military service. Those letters are personable and chatty, but unfortunately, they give very little insight into his thoughts about the war or his role in it. Here is an example from a letter he wrote to his brother Bill.
“There is a great deal I would like to tell you about the present situation, but the censors won’t permit and if I tried, I would have to write the letter over.”
• Finally, there was Bill, the oldest.
Bill was three years older than Jack and he enlisted in the Army seven months before Jack did. He had some college education, ran a business and had recently gotten married. He was quickly identified as officer material and spent most of his military career in the Transportation Corps in Fort Slocum, New York. In 1943 the T-Corps was responsible for mobilizing soldiers and materials to send overseas in preparation for the highly anticipated invasion of France. I am sure the irony was not lost on Paul and Margaret that one son’s service involved moving the other son closer to harm’s way.
Bill was not a subtle man when it came to sharing his accomplishments and the scrapbook he put together during this time was no exception. The colorful memoir documents his courtship and marriage to Dee Kramer as well as his military career and is filled with humorous handwritten notes, letters, funny photos and bar bills from promotion celebrations.
What you won’t find in Bill’s military scrapbook is any mention of his brother Jack. That doesn’t mean that the stories of Bill and Jack were not intertwined. The last page of Bill’s scrapbook was celebrating his promotion to Captain and was dated July 22, 1944. On that same day Jack was crossing the English Channel on the Devonshire heading for Omaha Beach. Sixteen short days later Jack would be killed in action near Gathemo in France.
It is telling that Bill’s scrapbook ends on that date, even though his military career was far from over. One can only assume that he lost interest in continuing with his scrapbook after his brother was killed.
The Art Project
As you can see, the three brothers did not give me a lot to go on regarding Jack’s story. The box of documents was equally frustrating. A great starting point, but in many ways more like a legal file than a memoir, dominated by the kinds of official correspondence that overwhelm a family when they lose a child in service.
My mind kept drifting back to Bill’s scrapbook. It was so rich and full of life. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a similar scrapbook for Jack’s service? That thought was the seed of an idea that become this Art Project, to create a graphic memoir for Jack during his time in the Army.
Over the last four years I have been able to find some great resources to add detail to Jack’s story. Considering that the Research Archive is almost done, and the completion of the Art Project will likely be years away, I thought it would be timely to share the archive now so others can become more familiar with what Jack experienced.
Much like a museum, the Research Archive is organized into galleries, and like any museum some galleries will interest you more than others. All the galleries tell you something about Jack’s story. In many ways they tell the same story over and over, just in a different context and with different media.
I would recommend that you read the summaries first, than if you choose, click on the image to enter the gallery. The link should open on a new page, but If you get lost along the way, just click on “Jack” on the top of the page and you will get back to the main navigation area.
Gallery of Words
Click on the image above to enter the Gallery
If you like the deep dive, and words mean more to you than pictures, then this is the gallery for you. Think of it like a nature show that starts with the camera zoomed in, focused on a bug on a leaf, then the camera pulls back a bit to show you the full tree, finally it pulls all the way back to reveal the whole forest.
• Jacks Letters are the “bug on the leaf”.
Jim’s digital memorial included seven letters that were written by Jack to this Aunty Mary, Uncle John and Joanne Lindenfeld. Mary was Margaret’s sister. Terri Lauerman, Bill Emme’s daughter, had eleven more letters all written from Jack to Bill and Dee Emme and these additional letters have been added to the collection.
The collection takes you from Jack’s basic training in Texas that started in May of 1943 to his last letter written four days after landing in France in July of 1944.
• The Battalion History is “the full tree”.
This document was an incredible find. Jack was in the 112th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Battalion. A battalion is made up of five companies, in this case HQ, I, M, L and K. Jack was in L Company.
The Battalion history is a day by day description of what was going on at the Company level during the war based on recollections from veterans that served in those companies. Some of this is tough reading, gritty and graphic, so don’t dive in here unprepared. I only included the pages that cover Jack’s time of service.
• The Divisional History is “the whole forest”.
There are excerpts from two documents here. One is called “28th Infantry Division in World War II” and was published in 1946. This focuses just on World War II. The second document is called “28th Infantry Division 125 years of Service” and was published in 2005 and covers the entire history of the Division.
Gallery of Images
Click on the image above to enter the Gallery
If you are a visual person and just reading the description of the Gallery of Words made you fall asleep, then you might consider visiting the Gallery of Images. It is made up of three galleries, “People”, “Places” and “Things”.
• People
This gallery has all the images we have of Jack organized chronologically.
• Places
The gallery is organized into three sections, USA, United Kingdom and France, and constructs a visual timeline of the places Jack visited during his 8 months of military training in the United States, his 10 months stationed in Wales and England, and 3 weeks of active duty in France. The France section is currently “Under Construction” but the rest is complete.
• Things
This gallery is a collection of 12 objects that came from various family resources. Each object comes with a back story that explains its significance and what it tells us about Jack.
Gallery of Maps
Click on the image above to enter the Gallery
If you love maps and are a fan of military history, then this is the gallery for you.
I like to think of the war effort like a city bus. That bus is running its route. At some point Jack got picked up by the bus and eventually got dropped off by it, but the bus kept going. At the time, no one knew if the bus was running on schedule or if it was even going to make it to the next stop. Military maps are a great resource to understand the bus’s route and give context to Jack’s time in France.
Jack’s active duty started at Omaha Beach just two weeks after D-Day (June 6, 1944) and was part of a key turning point in the war referred to as the “Normandy Breakout” that culminated in the Liberation of Paris (August 25, 1944). I have included ten detailed military maps from that same period of time and have added notes and highlights to explain where Jack’s division was during the time frame covered by each map.
What became clear in my research was that the 28th Division was a very inexperienced division at this time. The Normandy Breakout was a sudden and chaotic surge forward that pushed the more experienced Divisions forward and pulled the replacement troops into battle for their very first time. This resulted in both sudden advancement and great loss of life.
Going Forward
The last part of research I am working on is Jack’s time in France. I will update the Research Archive when that work is complete. The Art Project to develop a scrapbook for Jack’s service is just getting started and may take several years to complete. For those that are interested, I will post updates as that work develops .
If you visit the Galleries, feel free to dig in deep or just fly through depending on your level of interest. I promise you won’t run into any mummies or vicious Hyenas, but you should gain a deeper understanding of Jack’s time in the military.
Tom Emme
