History of archeology can stem much of its resources in violent conflicts from around the

world, particularly in the European theater of the Second World War. It comes to historians and

archeologists to take the information gathered in primary texts and documents and the physical

evidence that we find out in the field so we can better understand the variables that the different

players in the conflict were going through or their thought processes during their time. During

the lives of the individuals who fought in this conflict a portion of their time was creating and

defending anti-personnel, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft structures to defend cities or territories.

Extensive trenches and earthworks as well as fields and rows of concrete and sandbag barriers

dominated the fronts of combat as they seem to emulate the First World Wars layout of the land.

David G. Passmore and his colleagues Stephan Harrison and David C. Tunwell have dived into

this topic in Second World War conflict archeology in the Forests of north-west Europe. The

issue to make is the use of defensive structures in the theater of northern France and placement

of these structures. Using relevant data of the dig sites to locate and map out topographical

information to draw a clear picture of the troop placement along defensive and offensive combat

lines and the concurrent effect of such placements. 1With the correlation of data from this article

and others that will come from my research I should be able to answer my questions of how

archeology is creating a whole picture of past events and if those influence current tactics and

troop movements. Leading into a question of how conflict archeology is defined in this theater of

war and if this definition will be used for other theaters of combat during the Second World War.

1 Passmore, David G.1, Stephan2 Harrison, and David Capps3, david.passmore@utoronto.ca Tunwell. 2014.
"Second World War conflict archaeology in the forests of north-west Europe." Antiquity 88, no. 342: 1275-
1290. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed January 25, 2017
 Archeology has many forms and takes on many different angles of interpretation. One of

the key problems of trying to reassemble historic or past events is those very same

interpretations, a pit feature in the ground, or some artifact could be read in a variety of ways. It

is with knowing these very different interpretations that I ask questions about some battle sites in

the European theater of the Second World War.

Acquiring resources for this should not pose too much of an issue as there have been

many, countless even, volumes, books, periodicals, and the list goes on, about WWII. With this

vast amount of information at my disposal there comes to mind the obvious risk. With so many

sources for the topic I am searching for then how can I differentiate good legitimate sources from

possibly historically inaccurate, to, for lack of a better word, bogus sources. With that in mind,

the main source I will be using is the Wright State Libraries online department and the actual

library itself. It is here I hope to find academic, and possibly some popular, sources that can help

me with my research.

Being a paper about the research process I will get into some details of exactly how I find

some of my sources. Using only peer reviewed materials for most of the material I will use, the

libraries portion of Wings, will aid me in this search. After finding several articles about WWII I

have chosen a couple to be used in the first parts of my paper. One such article, oddly enough

who wrote the first cited article, has another about the D-Day invasion of August 19442

Tunwell goes into the article describing how the European theater of the war saw both

combatants and non-combatants during the length of the conflicts. Civilians building the initial

2Tunwell, David, David Passmore, and Stephan Harrison. 2015. Landscape

Archaeology of World War Two German Logistics Depots in the Foret domanial des
Andaines Normandy, France International Journal Of Historical Archaeology 19, no.
2. 2:233-261. Academic Search complete, EBSCOhost (accessed January 28, 2017)
stages of fortifications and structures to defend against American invasion and other European

invasions of the acquired German lands.3 Though this comes to little surprise when someone

would think of the entire scale of the war as there would be a vast network of new roads and

railways needed to be built in order to sustain military movements at home and abroad.

It comes to this point in the article where I begin to speculate on the attitude of the author.

Though in archeology most try to maintain a bias free approach, there are many with an agenda

or a research thesis to prove. As I read Tunwells articles I come to the realization that he, and

his associates, have done quite a decent job at creating a work that gives the facts of the

landscape and the methods and findings of any archeological data. Though as I progress further

into research I plan to find at least one with some form of attitude toward some faction of the

WWII Era.

Searching though wings libraries I soon found myself struggling for sources that fell in

line with my research. I read about five or six different articles that turned up little to no value

for the paper and had to shift how I turned out my search results. Though as I continued to

search I began to realize the topic I chose wasnt one that had been looked into with great detail,

save for the same author that I have been using before, Tunwell. It looked to me as if this man

and his team are the only ones going out into the WWII battlefronts and asking the question that

I have been. Though it may just be he is the only American going out and doing this kind of

research. It was this time I began to lose a bit of hope for the topic as I began to use Google to

see if there were any texts or research documents in German, French, or possibly Russian.

3 Tunwell, David, David Passmore, and Stephan Harrison. 2015. Landscape

Archaeology of World War Two German Logistics Depots in the Foret domanial des
Andaines Normandy, France International Journal Of Historical Archaeology 19, no.
2. 2:233-261. Academic Search complete, EBSCOhost (accessed January 28, 2017)
Unfortunately, I hit a dead end as Google continued to want to search for documents in English

by English speaking journalists.

It was after a long while of running into dead ends with Google searches that I retreated back to

the Wright State Universitys library pages once again. I began to try and focus my search by

key terms of Archaeology, WWII, and even tried WW2 to see if the variation would have

an impact on the search results. Again I came up with the same work by Tunwell and for the

sake of time, I thought, I added his thesis work on European archaeology to the list.

In Tunwells thesis dissertation he explains in his work that he used primary documents

and aerial photographs to document the landscapes and possibly the history of military actions

and movements during the Battle of Normandy in 1944. The surviving features of the post war

battlefield have been in surprisingly good shape. The heavy forests have held possibly the most

well preserved and examples of the most extensive amount of non-hardened WWI landscapes

that have been documented Europe. More than 900 archaeological archives were created to

characterize ammunition, from small arms to larger rounds and shells, fuel depots as well as

ration stations were all mapped and located in the surrounding area that were used to supply the

German defenses. The terrain also has kept the craters from explosions surprisingly intact, as

these were created by the air raids from about 1000 aircraft that dropped nearly 1200 tons of

explosive ordinance in the forests while the area was occupied by American forces in August

1944.4

This new piece of information did actually fit with the overall theme of the paper as it fit into the

questions I have asked about the archaeology of conflict. This site found many well preserved
4 Capps-Tunwell, David. 2016. WWII conflict archaeology in the Foret Domaniale
des Andaines, NW France. I British Library EThOS, EBSCOhost (Accessed February
13, 2017)
and well documented earthwork, well documented and preserved logistical supply stations, and

even munition and ration depots. This serves as a good piece of archaeology as the forests have

overtaken much of the battlefield leaving most, if not all, of the conflicted areas covered in dense

foliage and underbrush. But from the aerial photographs, the forest cannot even hide what is

lying beneath as the craters and supply routes show up visibly during these photos.

Unfortunately, all I was able to get out of this work was the research itself. I was unable to find

the actual photos, research methods, or any of the data that would be present during an

archaeological survey. I did search the web to try and find this exact piece, but after an hour or

so of turning up nothing I decided to give up as the documents are possibly in another librarys

archival section.

Another section of work was the underwater surveys that I was able to find after almost

writing a lengthy closing statement. Though not in the European theater of war I did find pacific

naval operations and the surveys that were completed on those portion of the world, though not

directly in line with the area I was looking at I do believe it is valuable to make it an addition to

this piece.

This volume of works looks at the battles of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands in

1944 and the underwater archaeology that came about its discovery. This book shows how the

group of archaeologists and set them to gather the collection of sunken items of archaeological

significance and develop a research plan on how to present this to the academic world.5 Though

little mention of the details of the works are listed in this

5 Carrell, Toni, and Jennifer F. McKinnon. 2015. Underwater archaeology of a Pacific

battlefield : the WWII Battle of Saipan. N.p.: Cham : Springer, 2015,2015. Wright
state University Catalog, EBSCOhost (Accessed February 13, 2017)
This whole project gave me a little insight to how to conduct research on my own as I saw that

this particular field was possibly a little too precise of an area to look into for a lengthy paper.

Either that, or it was as I though earlier, that this field of research has not drawn many people

into the academic view that produce this material in English. That being said I feel that next time

I will do preliminary research beforehand to make sure there is enough documentation out there

to supply my needs.