Ormond Bobo Collection

Collection — Multiple Containers

Identifier: 000082

Scope and Contents

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The Ormond Bobo Collection contains various materials related to Bobo’s service as a mess sergeant in the Pacific and at army bases in the United States during World War II, including documents, photographs, guidebooks, and manuals. The collection also contains photographs of Haggar Clothing Company factory workers, including Ormond Bobo’s wife, Mary Doyle Bobo, as well as personal letters, wedding photographs, and greeting cards belonging to the Bobo family.

Instructional materials for mess staff in the collection include an army cookbook, a military manual on preparing beef cuts, and negatives depicting different cuts of meat. There are also general instructional pamphlets and guidebooks for servicemembers assigned to stations in Hawaii and the Mariana Islands. Other text items include military orders, station newsletters, and Thanksgiving dinner and memorial ceremony programs.

The photographs in the collection are primarily from Bobo’s service in Honolulu, Hawaii Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands; Walker Army Airfield, Kansas; and Warner Robins, Georgia. The Honolulu photographs show military and civilian buildings in Honolulu; servicemembers; aircraft; and actress Dorothy Lamour. The Tinian photographs depict military aircraft, chiefly B-24s and B-29s; servicemembers, including Ormond Bobo and his brother Talmadge Bobo; and vehicles and structures left behind by Japanese forces on Tinian. The Walker Army Airfield and Warner Robins photographs feature Mary Doyle Bobo, Ormond Bobo, and other servicemembers. Other photos include group photos of various Army units, additional photos of aircraft, and souvenir photos of Fleet Admiral Nimitz signing the Japanese Instrument of Surrender.

Personal items in the collection include letters and postcards from Ormond Bobo to Mary and Talmadge Bobo, photographs of Mary Doyle Bobo and her coworkers at the Haggar Clothing Company factory, birthday and holiday greeting cards, and photographs and greeting cards from Mary and Ormond Bobo’s wedding and anniversary.

Dates

Creation: Majority of material found within 1938 - 1945

Creator

United States. Army Air Forces (Organization)
Bobo, Ormond, 1913-1979 (Person)
Bobo, Mary Doyle, 1918-2014 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

Permission to publish material from this collection in any form must be obtained from the National Museum of the Pacific War, Center for Pacific War Studies.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection is open for research.

Biographical / Historical

Ormond Bobo enlisted in the United States Army in 1936 and attended the United States Army Quartermaster Corps School for Bakers and Cooks in 1937 and 1938. After reenlisting at Fort McClellan, Alabama, in 1939, Bobo was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii and was present for the attack on Pearl Harbor. During World War II, he served as a mess sergeant in the South Pacific, on Tinian in the Mariana Islands, and on United States military bases in Texas, Kansas, and Georgia. After the war, he enlisted in the United States Air Force and managed the base exchange at Bergstrom Air Force Base. He retired in 1959 as a chief warrant officer.

Mary Doyle Bobo was a machine operator at the Haggar Clothing Company factory in Texas and manufactured uniforms during the war. Ormond Bobo met Mary Doyle in north Texas in 1936, and they were married on November 11, 1943.