bonitagilbert/punchbowl-grave-dedication/ I came across these albums on Ebay last year and thought they looked interesting, didnt know much more about them than what was on the album label, Wake Island Memorial Service. After getting them I did some research and found that they were most likely of the dedication of a mass grave of war dead in Honolulu. I made contact with author and historian Bonita Gilbert to see if a recording of this service was already in circulation among the families of Wake Island survivors. She had not been aware of a recording of the service before now. She was also well placed to share the recording with family members as she has been working on a project to find family members of the civilian contractors who were killed on Wake Island, collect DNA samples, and hopefully identifying some remains found there in 2011. With the help of a blogger from Minneapolis we got the albums digitized and online for others to hear. The history of Wake Island is quite remarkable and Im glad we could make this rare audio available.
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 02:00:22 +0000
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