Search for rare books, manuscript collections, and other archival material in the LRC catalog.
Search for digitized selections from the USU Archives, including documents, photographs, and full text rare books and manuscript material.
The USU Archives has a number of items relating to Prisoners of War (POW) and Missing in Action (MIA) in the manuscript and rare book collections. The LRC general and history collections also have a number of related materials.
Many former POWs have written memoirs or other works about their experiences. The LRC History Collection contains a number of such works, as well as books relating more general studies of POWs and MIAs. A list of selected materials are linked below. Additional material on this topic can be located by searching the LRC Catalog.
LRC History Collection
The USU Archives’ Rare Book and Military Medical History collections contain items that relate to Prisoners of War during and after the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Some of our materials include U.S. Government publications, a memoir by Dr. John R. Bumgarner, and publications by the United States Sanitary Commission.
The links below are a selection of the material on this topic that have been scanned by the Archives or are a part of the Rare Book Collection. The Rare Book Collection can be searched via the LRC Catalog and the Archives' online materials can be searched on the Archives' website.
The Everett Alvarez, Jr. Collection (MSS033)
The Everett Alvarez, Jr. Collection (MSS033) contains 37 audiocassette tapes and is housed in the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, University Archives. The cassette tapes were digitized and transcribed for ease of use by online researchers in 2023. The recordings contain conversations between Alvarez and his co-author, Anthony S. Pitch, in 1986-1987 as they prepared to write the book, Chained Eagle (1989). They cover Alvarez's childhood, Naval training, and the early years of his imprisonment in North Vietnam. Some of the tapes include interviews between Pitch and Alvarez's family members, which shed light on the effects of Alvarez's time as a POW on his family as well as their advocacy efforts to secure his release.
Everett Alvarez, Jr. is a longtime supporter of USU and served on the USU Board of Regents for many years, acting as chairman from 2001-2008. The Board of Regents Meeting Room on the third floor of Building D was named for Alvarez in 2009. Alvarez was born in 1937 in Salinas, CA, graduated from Santa Clara University, and joined the U.S. Navy in 1960. He trained as a fighter jet pilot at Whiting Field, FL and Kingsville Naval Air Station, TX and was stationed at Naval Air Station Lemoore, CA early in his career. Just months after marrying and early in the Vietnam War, he was deployed to the U.S.S. Constellation. The North Vietnamese shot his jet down on August 5, 1964, following the Gulf of Tonkin incident. He was captured and held as the first aviator prisoner of war in Vietnam. After eight years in captivity, he was released as part of Operation Homecoming in 1973. Alvarez was the second longest held Prisoner of War in American history. He continued his education earning a master's degree and a Juris Doctor degree and retired from the U.S. Navy as a commander in 1980. He worked for years at the Veterans Administration (VA) and in Presidential task forces and on various college boards. He earned the Silver Star, two Legions of Merit, two Bronze Star Medals, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and two Purple Hearts. He co-authored two memoirs, Chained Eagle and Code of Conduct.
Chained eagle : the heroic story of the first American shot down over North Vietnam
Conversations between Everett Alvarez, Jr. and his co-author, Anthony S. Pitch. Audio recordings and transcription used for background research for writing Chained Eagle.
Jack A. Comstock World War II Diary Collection (MSS035)
The Jack A. Comstock World War II Diary Collection (MSS035) contains a handwritten diary in four parts and two copies of a typescript of the diary prepared by Comstock after the war. The diary documents Comstock's experiences as a Prisoner of War (POW) held by the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II. He was stationed at Sternberg Hospital in Manila, Philippines when the war broke out. After the Japanese invaded the Philippines, Comstock was taken prisoner and served as a POW physician until he was freed by U.S. Army Rangers in 1945. The diary covers the period from April 8, 1942 to February 22, 1945, though the writing occasionally jumps between volumes out of chronological order depending on what paper Comstock had access to when he was writing for that day. The collection is not organized into series, but is composed of the four volumes of the diary, two copies of Comstock’s typescript, and a machine readable transcript prepared by the USU Archives. From 2021 to 2023, the USU Archives digitized the handwritten diary and the typescript prepared by Dr. Comstock. The handwritten diary and typescript were not easily OCRed, so archives’ staff prepared a transcript, which is available alongside the primary sources in the digital repository to facilitate searching. While the handwritten diary exists in 4 parts (volumes), the digitized version has been combined into one electronic file for ease of use by online researchers. The digital versions of the handwritten diary and typescript are available for research and download
