Citation: Post exchange lunch counter at Dale Mabry Field - Tallahassee, Florida. 1942-09-16. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/12010, accessed 28 March 2023.
General Order 46 established a system of base exchanges at virtually every military post. Each military organization had its own system for the exchanges, with post commanders typically assigning an officer to run the unit. The commanding officers decided how to spend the profits. Soldiers soon began to refer to these post exchanges simply as 'PXs,' and they relied on them for basic personal items that the military did not supply.
Shortly before the United States entered World War II, the government was in the process of reorganizing the Post Exchange system. In 1941 the Army Exchange Service was created as a civilian-staffed organization that operated on military bases. A panel of five private-sector businessmen recommended changes to the existing PX system. Ultimately a structure was created whereby a brigadier general headed an executive staff drawn from both military and civilian sectors, with civilians staffing the actual PXs. All independent PX facilities were purchased from their respective owners by the new Army Exchange Service. With the war, the Army Exchange Service was called upon to support troops in the field, and the War Department created mobile units for this purpose.
Citation: Army and Air Force Exchange Service. FundingUniverse. (n.d.). Retrieved April 5, 2023, from http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/army-and-air-force-exchange-service-history/
The following object description information includes basic elements from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). An additional notes field is included to list dates from the actual letter, envelope postmark locations, and any other identifying details.
Notes – Typed letter dated June 6, 1943, two pages. Includes envelope, postmarked June 7, 1943, 11AM, from Dale Mabry Field, Fla.
War in the Pacific
The United States had been fighting in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific theater for almost a year at the time this letter was written. On June 21, 1943 the United States had advanced to New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, and by July 8, 1943, B-24 Liberators (the type of bomber that Sgt. John Dolin worked with) were flying from Midway Island to bomb Wake Island, which had initially been taken by the Japanese at the same time they bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
Citation: YouTube. (2022, July 8). Consolidated B-24 Liberator | Great American aircraft | upscaled. YouTube. Retrieved April 5, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7HNQs8hOBI
On January 24, 1941, Dale Mabry Field became an Army base where officers and enlisted men trained, lived, and socialized in barracks and buildings located onsite. Once the United States entered World War II, thousands more soldiers entered the base and Dale Mabry Field took on an important role in the country's war effort. It became a major fighter pilot training base training over 8,000 pilots during World War II, including soldiers from the U.S. (including the Tuskegee Airmen), Europe, and China.
Citation: Army Air Corps pilots - Tallahassee, Florida. 1944-01-29. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/11999, accessed 28 March 2023.