Last winter the vault of the MacArthur Memorial Archives ran out of space. It was full with 40 years of acquisitions. This would not be a problem if our collection was stagnant, but such is not the case. Materials continue to pour in every week.

Since May 2003 we have added twelve shelf feet of materials. Suzie Saunders of Kailua, Hawaii, visited in June to donate the papers of her father Major Clarence Vogelgesang. Vogelgesang served as the radio operator aboard MacArthur’s C-54 and C-121 command planes. His collection contains the flight and radio logs for MacArthur flights during the Korean War and the return to the United States in April 1951. Also included were hundreds of photographs from the Occupation of Japan and Korean War eras.

Sloan Auchincloss of Harrisburg, PA, donated the papers of his father, Brigadier General Samuel S. Auchincloss. Auchincloss served in MacArthur’s Signal Corps in the Southwest Pacific during World War II. The collection of four photo albums contains many images yet unseen in the Archives collection of 90,000 images.

Lawrence Hewes III of Washington, DC donated the papers of his father Lawrence Hewes, Jr. Hewes was a key figure in Japan’s land reform program during the Occupation of Japan. Many great documents were in the collection including a GHQ- produced catalogue of all documents relating to land reform. The collection also included hundreds of images, both black and white and color, of scenes of land reform and the Occupation of Japan.

Rob Schoevers of Warburton, Australia continues to supply the Memorial with Australian Mint commemorative coin collections, World War II era stamps, and video collections. His vast collection continues to grow at an amazing rate.

All of these new collections presented the problem of where to store them all. The City of Norfolk, however, came to the rescue with a solution. Soon the vault in the Archives will be the home of a brand new expandable shelving system courtesy of the City of Norfolk. The sliding shelf system will double the storage space of the Archives so keep all the great collections coming. To donate materials call 757-441-2965.