Squadron History Presentation

I presented the results of my research on the USAF Troop Carrier squadon
my father was a member of during the Korean "conflict" the the surviving
members at their 52nd reunion this afternoon.
For any of you who have considered learning what your fathers did and
the men they served with, this is a worthwhile undertaking.
Be prepared to invest time and money to do the job properly, however.
I had alloted three months, which is really an accurate guesstimate, but
I did not allow for interruptions, so I was rushed and did not have as
polished a presentation as I had hoped to have.

The United States Air Force Historical Archives are housed at Maxwell
AFB, AL. These folks provide excellent service and are responsive to
inquiries.
From a bare request including a squadron number and dates, I was
provided a list of microfilm roll numbers and frames along with a brief
description of their contents. Based on this information, I ordered six
rolls of 16mm microfilm. Each roll contains 2000 images and costs $30,
include payment with your order. Allow four to six weeks for delivery.
I don't have access to a 16mm microfilm reader, so I looked in the
yellow pages for businesses that would convert the microfilm to digital
images. I had all six rolls converted. This was a rush job, so I paid
for overnight FedEx both ways. The 12,000 images were burned onto a DVD
and referenced by roll and frame. Just under 1 GB, images in *.tif
format. Basic price was $0.06/image. $50 for the DVD.

From the lists provided by USAFHA, I had 5983 images to review.
I decided the easiest thing to do was organize the rolls and frames by
month and year, so I spent the last five days reading the images, and
placing the individual files in the appropriate folders.

Once I had the images sorted in this manner, I went back and made notes
and arranged the notes into a timeline for each year.

The Air Force (and probably the other services, also) have a requirement
for each their units to submit monthly histories up the chain of command.

By doing this timeline, it has also enable me to organize my father's
photos by date and location. Rosters included in the unit histories help
identify individuals referred to by nicknames or last names written on
the back of the photos.

My project for next year's reunion is to meet with as many of the
survivors as possible during the next year and scan as many of their
photographs as I can. I hope to obtain photos of everyone who served at
the time and compile an album for their families.

The unit histories are brief by their nature, but provide starting
points for jobbing their memories and getting the vets to elaborate on
the details. It also prompts them to remember other interesting stories.
Take a video cam to record their responses.

My father died six years ago, by my family and I still take my mother to
the reunions each year. These were the people that were my parents
closest friends for much of their lives.