Book Description

The primary focus of this work in on those privately printed unit and organizational histories produced outside the official channels of the armed services. Some official reports are included because they fall within the criteria set out below. This guide is intended to assist the user in understanding the scheme for listing the titles and the organization of entries. The unit history has been popular since the Civil War. It most often is an un-official publication written and produced by the personnel who constituted the unit. It is often an expression of pride of their accomplishments typically published just after the termination of hostilities. It can provide a wealth of detail concerning the unit's formation, combat experiences, missions etc. It often provides photographs taken by the unit members and often includes individual and/or group portraits of the personnel assigned to it. Since it was most often an un-official publication, its attention to detail and accuracy can be wanting. They were often published to bolster the moral and tended to concentrate on the positive and often ignore the negative. One of their major benefit is they often portrayed the day to day activities, hardships, and the feelings and thoughts of its members much better than many if not most of the official histories. Some of the more recent publications sponsored by the unit associations often combine the official records including after action reports and unit journal with extensive research producing extremely detailed histories. One major problem relation to the privately printed publications is that due to their nature they had extreme limited printing and distribution was most often limited to those unit member in the unit at the time of printing. They become extremely rare and can be almost impossible purchase. Criteria for Including Titles: * The following categories of printed are included in this listing: * Privately sponsored or Aun-official@ histories often written by the unit historian and published or printed by the unit association. The distribution of these was most often limited to members of association. * Personal narratives that are unit or organization specific or identifiable in content. These were often autobiographical accounts by unit members and often provide a better insight to the morale and actions than the official or general histories. * Career biographies and autobiographies of officers, particularly general officers, who served in numerous units, are generally not included in this compilation. * Purely photographic or pictorial histories relating to a specific unit or command providing photographs of the activities, missions, aircraft and/or equipment, airfields, etc. * Route of battle maps. Although these are more commonly found with army ground units, there are also maps that provide historical information and a description of the geographical area covered by the unit or missions flown. * Printed or published personnel rosters listing past and/or present members of unit.