WWII U.S. Army Air Force Lt. Henry L. Hively Archive of Letters, Medals, & Photographs

Henry L. Hively U S. Army Air Force

Photograph

[WWII] Lt. Colonel Henry L. Hively, U.S. Army Air Forces correspondence and war archive, 1945, comprising medals, letters, documents, photographs, negatives, and ephemera, including Panama Canal Zone tourist booklet, wartime train-journey photo strips through France, namely Grenoble and Valence, aerial transport photographs, and extensive emotional correspondence from Oakland and San Francisco at the end of World War II. Archive includes 4 letters, 5 envelopes, two foreign currency bills, a Panama tour guide, a donation certificate, six medals and ribbons, and over 30 very small photographs. This substantial personal archive documents the long U.S. Army career of Lt. Colonel Henry L. Hively (1915–2010), beginning with his formative early-career service tied to the U.S. Army’s border militarization and expeditionary presence in Mexico during the opening decades of the twentieth century, when American forces pursued Pancho Villa and asserted federal authority along the U.S.–Mexico border. That experience—rooted in mobile warfare, logistics, and hemispheric military infrastructure—prefigures the global operational networks that would later define American power during World War II. Hively’s career thus bridges early twentieth-century expeditionary service in Mexico with his later World War II service across the European and Pacific theaters and the immediate postwar demobilization period.
The archive is anchored by an extraordinary run of intimate 1945 letters from Hively’s girlfriend, Mrs. Dorothy “Dottie” Rishel, a civilian hospital worker at Green’s Eye Hospital in San Francisco and later Oakland. Her correspondence chronicles daily life, wartime anxiety, women’s labor, Bay Area domestic arrangements, and—most critically—the immediate civilian reaction to the atomic bomb and the end of the war. On August 10, 1945, Rishel wrote: “I’m so confused over the state of affairs regarding the war and probable termination of it I don't know what to say… Without reservation, Hank, what’s your personal opinion of this atomic bomb? Its destructive power absolutely floors me.” Only one day later, as news of Japan’s surrender became imminent, she added, “Allow me to say ‘Happy V-J Day to you.’ The war will absolutely be over tomorrow, so the radio says. Golly I'm so thrilled I can’t even concentrate on anything.” These letters provide rare, real-time reactions from a young working woman confronting the moral and emotional consequences of nuclear warfare.

Materially, the archive includes Hively’s medals—among them a boxed Army of Occupation Medal, ribbon bars, and a boxed U.S. Air Medal—alongside his wartime photographic portrait labeled “Henry L. Hively, 2nd Lt., Sig C.” The photographic material consists of mostly very small vernacular silver-gelatin prints, about 1' x 1" in rows of about 5 with a few larger images, and a few negatives. several stamped on the verso “March 1945,” showing Hively with other U.S. soldiers during the final months of the war, including soldiers disembarking from U.S. Army aircraft, traveling by rail through Europe, gathering around Army jeeps, and socializing outdoors. One image records a street-level view of a building in Grenoble, France, situating the archive geographically within southeastern France during the Allied occupation period. Additional prints show European landscapes, rivers, military encampments, and aircraft on runways. Also present is the USO pamphlet Panama in Your Pocket: What to Do Where to Go While on the Isthmus, reflecting the Pacific transit network anchored by the Canal Zone, alongside foreign currency from France and England and photographic negatives documenting off-duty military life. A later handwritten note identifying “Ret Lt. Col. Henry L. Hively 1915–2010 — 94 yrs old” aligns with his published obituary, confirming his long military career and postwar administrative service. The correspondence between Hively and Rishel forms the emotional core of the archive, documenting female wartime labor, emotional resilience, and the uncertainty of demobilization. Rishel’s account—“The work here in the hospital is absolutely fascinating… this hospital has been doing an awful lot of experimental work on cornea transplantation”—captures women’s medical labor during WWII, while her September 21, 1945 letter reflects anxiety surrounding separation and discharge: “they have decided to send all eligible officers to their separation centers sometime in the next two months.” Together, these materials articulate the psychological and social transition from global war to fragile peace. Letters well preserved and legible, with expected toning and folds; envelopes present with postmarks and Army Postal Service stamps. Photographs and negatives crisp some very good and a few over exposed. Medals well kept in original boxes with ribbons and devices. Overall very good condition.

Item #22916

Price: $1,450.00