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Dolores Christophel Scrapbook

Guide to the Dolores Christophel scrapbook
1941-1944

Collection number: HMC-1129.
Creator: Christophel, Dolores, b. 1920.
Title: Dolores Christophel scrapbook.
Dates: 1941-1944.
Volume of collection: 0.5 cubic feet.
Language of materials: Collection materials are in English.
Collection summary: Scrapbook documenting a soldier’s service with the 138th Infantry in the Aleutians during World War II.

Biographical note:
Dolores “Dee” Christophel was born in 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri.  In 1940, Dolores and her father, James Christophel, lived with a housekeeper, Hazel Smith, and her son, Wilbert E. Smith (b. 1919).  During World War II, Dolores volunteered with the American Red Cross, while Wilbert began his military service with the U.S. Army National Guard in 1941 and did his basic training at Camp Robinson in Arkansas.  He later served with the First Battalion of the 138th Infantry Regiment of the St. Louis National Guard in the Aleutian Islands and participated as a member of the 9th Amphibious Task Force in the Allied invasion of Kiska that forced the Japanese to surrender in August 1943.  Wilbert also served with the Alaskan Defense Command while stationed in the Aleutians.

Collection description:
This scrapbook contains photographs, documents, and military patches (including Nazi insignia) collected by Dolores Christophel that mostly document Corporal Wilbert Smith’s service with the 138th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army National Guard in the Aleutian Islands in 1943-1944 during World War II.  There are also official U.S. Marine Corps photographs of the corps’s activities during the war on Iwo Jima, Guam, Saipan, Rendova Island, Tarawa, Bougainville Island, Okinawa, Peleliu Island, Kwajalein Atoll, Tinian, New GeorgiaGaudalcanal, and other Pacific locations.  The collection additionally contains documents relating to the activities of the American Red Cross in St. Louis, Missouri and on a national level during the war, as well as Dolores’s Red Cross cap, epaulets, patch, and pin.

Digitized copies: Digital copies of collection material not available online. For information about obtaining digital copies, please contact Archives and Special Collections.

Rights note: Archives owns copyright to the photographs and documents created by Lester Walter Fortin but does not own copyright to other published and military-created materials in the scrapbook.

Preferred citation: Dolores Christophel scrapbook, Archives and Special Collections, Consortium Library, University of Alaska Anchorage.

Related materials: For other archival materials relating to World War II in Alaska, see the Research Guide to World War II in Alaska Collections.

Acquisition note: This collection was donated to the Archives by Lee Wingerter in 2013.

Processing information: This collection was described by Megan K. Friedel in 2013.

 

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