Several professional historians have provided critical analyses of this project and all have expressed concern about the problem of accuracy of recall. While reading helped to clarify the context in which an event occurred, there is no guarantee that the perceptions, attitudes, and actions recalled forty to fifty years after an event are accurate. There are tendencies to repress unpleasant or threatening material, and to interpret events so that they are socially acceptable in current society. However, even the most severe critics of this project felt that there was merit in collecting these accounts and felt it was the ultimate responsibility of the historian to determine whether or not to accept the validity and the relevance of each first-person account.
Guidelines for preparing first-person accounts are provided each presenter prior to the development of his or her account. The major guidelines are:
2. Context of the account should be developed by reading official or unit histories.
3. Each account should be limited to a few days or a few weeks and should not cover an entire campaign.
4. Each participant provides a written draft copy which is combined with the audio transcription of the presentation to produce the final document.
5. Each participant is asked to review the final product and grant written approval for the deposition of the account in the archives.
Send e-mail for the World War II Round Table to either Robert W. McCormick at:
Mccormick.2@osu.edu or Desmond Cook at: Cook.12@osu.edu
For questions or comments on the website
itself: webmaster@ohiohistory.org