US Navy Japanese Language School Archival Project

George W. Nace (1920-1987) was an innovative developmental biologist at Duke University and the University of Michigan. The son of a missionary, he spent much of his childhood in Japan where he became fluent in Japanese. During WWII, Nace used his

How did you become interested in being an archivist? What was your path to where you are now?   I worked in the Archives while a graduate student in American History at CU. Like many history students and scholars, I had long been fascinated

WAVES, “Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service,” were officers in the US Navy during World War II and some were accepted into the US Navy Japanese Language School. Of those who were recruited to the school in 1943, some had been born and/or

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the forced relocation of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast with Executive Order 9066. Over the spring of 1942, some 120,000

After the Battle of Tinian in August 1944, most in the Pacific thought the war would last until 1948 – “Golden Gate in 48,” as the saying went. So what to do with 4,000 children in a displaced camp on Tinian in the Marianas? Lt. Telfer Mook, a

Glen Slaughter, Seiichi "Tony" Komesu and Glenn Nelson in Okinawa, 1945 Glen K. Slaughter and Glenn W. Nelson were Marine Corps Japanese Language Officers who met at the US. Navy Japanese Language School at the University of Colorado Boulder

Nancy Hembold, far left, and two other women at the US Navy Japanese Language School at CU Boulder Born December 16, 1918, in Abilene, Texas, Nancy Pearce Helmbold was the second of three daughters to a typewriter salesman and his wife. After