XIII. Personal Correspondence Files,, 1941-1945

Summary: This file contains three boxes. Box 1 contains letters from Jane Burks to Ardath Burks. Boxes 2-3 contains letters from Ardath Burks to Jane Burks. Files are divided by month. While Burks was serving as a Naval Intelligence Officer, Jane remained in her hometown close to her parents, aunts and uncles. Her daily correspondence consisted of the everyday routines of life during that era. She wrote to her husband about dinner parties she attended, lunch dates with friends, her mother's illness and subsequent recovery, temporary employment, volunteer work, extensive dental work, shopping, food rations, her favorite movies, and many other activities that kept her occupied while she awaited her husband's safe return. Jane Burks kept carbon copies of many of her letters so that if they were lost, her husband would have been able to read them upon his arrival home. These were found to be duplicates of the same letters retained by Burks and so were discarded. Jane Burks devised somewhat of an indexing system by writing notes on each envelope. These were also discarded as this was determined to be duplicate information.

The remaining two boxes in this series contain letters written by Burks and addressed to Jane during the sixteen months he served on active duty. Folder 1 differs as it contains general correspondence from 1943 while Burks was away at training school. The remaining folders contain letters dated during 1944-1945. Many letters are responses and comments to news from home, which Burks indicated he was comforted by and looked forward to with anticipation. A few letters were edited by censors, who cut or blacked out sections which did not adhere to strict censorship regulations. Correspondence from Burks to his wife includes descriptions of life aboard ship, traveling, island visits, food quality, giving speeches to his staff, friends he made, books, movies, and recreational activities.

Noteworthy to this collection is Burks's seemingly innocuous descriptions of life aboard ship which sharply contrasts with the reality of being present in a volatile and central point of the Pacific theater. On occasion, Burks writes of primitive life on various islands including the smiles of the children upon seeing servicemen, but spares his wife from details of that which he was indeed privy and witnessed first hand—sights of bombed villages, the rescue of bombing victims, POW interrogations and other devastations of war.

As an intelligence officer, Burks was responsible for gathering maps and statistical information regarding various Japanese cities that enabled decisions to be made from those in higher positions regarding the bombing of more than sixty Japanese cities, including the atomic bomb over Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Letters from Burks to his wife up to this time kept the same light and romantic tone one might expect between husband and wife. However, letters dated August 6 through August 15 take on a somber tone, reflecting that a major turn had been taken in the war and that Burks himself played a significant part in providing the intelligence that enabled this historic plan to go forward.