Even when not online, the catalog record will have information for your citations
From Public Documents Masterfile:
See the main guide as well.
Since You Went Away by
LIBGUIDES: ""Last night Mel and I were talking about some of the adjustments we''ll have to make to our husbands'' return. I must admit I''m not exactly the same girl you left-I''m twice as independent as I used to be and to top it off, I sometimes think I''ve become ''hard as nails''. . . . Also--more and more I''ve been living exactly as I want to . . . I do as I damn please." [These tough words from the wife of a soldier show that World War Ii changed much more than just international politics.] "From a fascinating collection of letters, filled with wonderfully distinctive human stories, Judy Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith have shpaed a rare and brilliant book that transports the reader back in time to an unforgettable era."--Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys and Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. "This is a wonderful volume, full of admirable women struggling in a difficult situation, doing their best for their families and their country. Ah, the memories it brings back! Highly recommended for those who lived through the war, and for those who want to understand it."--Stephen E. Ambrose, author of Eisenhower and D-Day, June 6, 1944 "Offering a remarkable view into the lives of ordinary women during wartime, this book will enlighten and catch at the hearts of general readers and cause historians to reconsider how women experienced World War II."-Susan M. Hartmann, author of The Home Front and Beyond. "From among 25,000 of an estimated six billion letters sent overseas during World War II, Litoff and Smith have culled and skillfully edited a sampling by 400 American women. These letters, starting with one to a seaman wounded at Pearl Harbor, are compelling documents of home-front life in varied ethnic, cultural, and financial milieus. Tragic, touching, and funny, the correspondence is full of prosaic news and gossip about jobs and neighbors, along with accounts of births and intimate allusions to love-making. The stress of separation was intensified for women whose loved ones were hospitalized, or imprisoned as either conscientious objectors or security risks. Some women wrote General MacArthur and others for news of missing men or to obtain details of their deaths. Many of these heartrending documents also express acceptance-and even pride-in the sacrifices required by war."--Publishers Weekly. "Other scholars of WW II have published letters written home by servicemen, but this is the first collection sampling the letters written by sisters, sweethearts, wives, and mothers, saved by thousands of servicemen. Chapters are organized around themes that were important to these women: courtship, marriage, motherhood, work, sacrifices. . . . What women tell readers in these letters about their concerns and their wartime feelings will cause historians [readers?] to rethink what has been written about the homefront."--Choice. "Despite the popular appeal of Rosie the Riveter, nine out of ten mothers with children under six were not in the labor force, which helps to account for the vast outpouring of mail from the home front to ''our boys'' in the European and Pacific theaters. Some couples wrote every day for four years. This is the rich historic documentation that the authors have drawn upon to create a panoramic pastiche of indefatigable, energetic, patriotic female letter writers in the war years. . . . One is struck by the hard-headed practicality of many of the letters-stories of plucky, sometimes even grumpy, coping. There are letters of growing independence, with strong and at times explicit indication that the boyfriend or husband will be facing a very different woman upon his return from the one he ''knew'' when he disembarked for his own, often terrible, venture. . . . Every war leaves mothers with broken hearts. What this volume most remarkably demonstrates is just how prepared American women on the home front were for that dread eventuality."--Jean Bethke Elshtain in the Journal of American History. "Fascinating and often heartbreaking letters. . . . The letters illuminate a time when sex roles were first showing the changes that would culminate in the women''s movement. ''I must admit I''m not exactly the same girl you left,'' Edith Speert wrote to her husband, Victor, in 1945. ''I''m twice as independent as I used t be, and I sometimes think I''ve become hard as nails. I don''t think my changes will affect our relationship.''. . . In the end, it is the small human dramas in these letters that stand out. Anne Gudis, miffed to distraction by her soldier-swain Sam Kramer, writes what may be the shortest Dear John on record: ''Mr. Kramer: Go to hell! With love, Anne Gudis.'' A woman working at a Honolulu nightclub assures a pilot that she''ll wait for him-until she''s 20. The wife of an Air Corps navigator reads in a news story that only 15 of 1,500 Allied bombers were lost in a raid over Europe and later learns that her husband died in one of the 15. And a grieving mother whose son died in the Pacific asks Gen. Douglas MacArthur, in desperation, ''Please general he was a good boy, wasn''t he? Did he die a hard death?''"--Smithsonian. "''They made it possible for me to retain my sanity in an insane world,'' wrote one pilot about the letters his wife sent him throughout World War II. The letters contained in this collection explain the soldier''s sentiments. Whether full of passionate longing for a missing sweetheart or merely detailing domestic gossip, the letters offer a rich introduction to how American women experienced the war. Since military authorities ordered soldiers not to keep any letters written them by their loved ones, the authors have done a magnificent service in obtaining letters that soldiers either surreptitiously hid or whose authors copied them before sending them on."--Library Journal."
See main guide as well. Sometimes items are listed under "Military", sometimes under "Women", and some resources are applicable for different branches of the military. It is up to the researcher to choose which to use.
One Woman's Army by 
The Women's Army Corps by 
Women in the Military by "U.S. Military Women in World War II: The SPAR, WAC, WAVES, WASP and Women Marines in U.S. Government Publications" by Laurie Scrivener. Journal of Government Information, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 361–383, 1999
Focus: A double agent spy during WWII, for the Norwegian Resistance and the British SIS. Credited with helping to sink the Bismark.
Open document for recommended sources.
Focus: An exhibit highlighting and analyzing the triumphs made and tragedies endured by civilian women in the air force who became known as the WASPs.
Women Pilots of World War II by The Women's Army Corps by This is not all the legislation that impacted WASPs, but a selection.
Most items can be found in the Connecticut State Library (CSL) Regional Federal Depository Program (FDLP) collection.
Whenever possible, links go to freely available online items.
CSL also has subscription databases that have much of the information.
When using GovInfo.gov or Congress.gov, there will be links to related documents. Unless there is a compelling reason to include them or they are not online, they will not be listed here. Contact us if you need them.
September, 1939 military plan to have women as auxiliary and not of military status.
January 1942 "In January 1942, Rogers added an amendment to her bill that would grant women the same military status and benefits as men. Bitterly contested in Congress, the bill only passed after it was decided that women would not be given military status, and on 15 May 1942 President Roosevelt signed Public Law 77-554 establishing the Women Army Auxiliary Corps" Source "My Best Soldiers" https://www.army.mil/article/13127/my_best_soldiers_thirty_six_years_of_the_womens_army_corps
July 1942 PL 77-689 - WAVES and Marine women's corps were established. Secretary of Navy Frank Knox wanted Navy women to have military status.
November 1942 PL 77-773 SPAR established (Coast Guard) with military status. June 28, 1943 The USCGA was the first US military academy to accept women.
WFTD & WAFS formed. They later merged into WASPs - as civil service employees.
July 1, 1943 PL 78-110 WAAC become WAC with military status
HR 4219 introduced to give WASPs military status, but it was defeated.
"In January 1943, Congresswoman Rogers and Oveta Culp Hobby, Director of the WAAC, drafted a bill which was endorsed by General Marshall and introduced into Congress. Even though military status was again contested in the House, the bill eventually passed, and President Roosevelt signed Public Law 78-110 on July 1, 1943..." Source "My Best Soldiers" https://www.army.mil/article/13127/my_best_soldiers_thirty_six_years_of_the_womens_army_corps
Army & Navy Nurses Corps moved from auxiliary to military status.
December 1944 WASP ceased to exist
WASPs were not a women's corps, but civil service employees
President Truman signed executive order desegregating the U.S. armed forces.
Focus: Project X-ray, scrapped WWII super weapon using weaponized bats
These are some examples. See also the History Guide.
Kris Abery has a list of resources
These are some examples.
Focus: Our documentary is about how the American Tin Can Sailors held off against the Japanese army for eight hours during the battle off Samar.
Also see the general guide for History Day resources for Military, especially WWII. Many of these books are on broader topic than Samar - use the books' indexes to locate relevant information within them.
The Army Air Forces in World War II vol.V The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki June 1944 to August 1945
Major Fleet-Versus-Fleet Operations in the Pacific War, 1941-1945. Second edition by
GPO Bookstore: "Major Fleet-versus-Fleet Operations in the Pacific War, 1941-1945, 2e, studies three major naval operations of World War II. These three, initiated by imperial Japan, resulted in the battles of the Coral Sea, Midway/Aleutians, and the Philippine Sea. Along with ample background on geographic and strategic context, the author, Dr. Milan Vego, gives detailed accounts of the unfolding actions, utilizing much primary-source material from American and Japanese archives. Finally, and most valuably, the author identifies lessons learned for naval operational art, lessons of more than historical interest for today's U.S. Navy. The book provides an operational-art perspective to stimulate interest in the study of the theory and practice of major naval operations through case studies. High school students pursuing naval reaearch about World War II, historians, especially military historians, university students pursuing course work in history, military science, and the U.S. Navy or World War II may find this to be a beneficial resource. Related products: World War II resources collection can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/us-military-history/battles-wars/world-war-ii Other products produced by the U.S. Navy, Naval War College (USNWC) can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/621"
War in the Pacific, Triumph in the Philippines by These are only a few examples. Also look at the general History Day guide.
In the past we found a tremendous amount of information on this topic in the Wilbur Cross papers.
See History & Genealogy Unit
Use our newspapers and other databases to find articles.
These are a few examples; this is not meant to be comprehensive.
Many of the resources are not online.
Also check the general History Day guide, as links might not be repeated here.
Investigations of the Attack on Pearl Harbor by
LibGuide summary: "This work is designed as a reference tool for researchers investigating the what, when, and why of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The book provides, for the first time, a cross-referencing and indexing of the total record of testimony and evidence that was compiled and published by the U.S. Congress following U.S. investigations into the Pearl Harbor attack. Transcripts from the postwar hearings contain significant information about the diplomatic background of the hostilities, the first look at the crypto-analytic activities of the U.S. military, and many of the communications between Washington D.C. and Pearl Harbor. Eyewitness accounts of the Japanese attack and information on the United States response to the attack are also found in these records. The many hundreds of citations for such persons as President Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Admiral Stark are generated from nearly 30,000 pages of testimony and evidential material, and have been assembled into main and subcategories to aid the researcher. The citations involving President Roosevelt, for example, are made up of over 50 subcategories. This work cites all persons connected to the Pearl Harbor attack, all ships involved, and it contains many letters, memoranda, messages, and dispatches which are listed chronologically. To distinguish ship names from people, warships from merchant ships, and people from places, the Index uses the various type fonts that appeared in Samuel Eliot Morison's Vol. 15 (General Index) of The History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. This volume is suitable for Government Deposit libraries, college and research libraries, public libraries, and federal government offices."
The Army Air Forces in World War II vol.V The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki June 1944 to August 1945
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