Bartley, Ernest R. Papers

Navigator, United States Army Air Forces, World War II.

The papers of Ernest R. Bartley mostly consist of military orders, maps and books pertaining to Bartley’s service as a navigator in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. Some orders are related to his service in the U.S. Air Force Reserves after the war.

Size: 5 linear inches.
Access: Open.
Copyright: The donor gave to the U.S. government her copyright interest in this material and in any other material received by the U.S. government and maintained in a depository administered by the National Archives and Records Administration. Documents created by U.S. government officials in the course of their duties are in the public domain. The copyright interest in other documents in the collection presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Randy Sowell and Jim Armistead (2023).

Ernest Randall Bartley was born in 1919 and obtained a bachelor’s degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University and a master’s degree from the University of Nebraska. He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1941. Following his training, he served as a navigator in both the United States and the Pacific Theater during World War II. Bartley stayed in the U.S. Air Force Reserve until he retired in 1979 with the rank of Lt. Colonel. In civilian life, Bartley earned a doctorate in political science from the University of California in 1948. An expert on land use, growth management, and urban and regional planning, Bartley was a professor at the University of Florida from 1949 until his formal retirement in 1992 and continued to teach at the school until his death in 2008.

The papers of Ernest R. Bartley include orders he received during his service in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II and in the U.S Air Force Reserve following the war, as well as printed materials relating to World War II.

Military records make up most of the collection. Official orders document Bartley’s training and service at several bases in the United States and his role in combat operations in the Pacific Theater. Maps and handwritten accounts of air missions against the Japanese Empire in which Bartley participated as a navigator are included. One account describes his flight to Iwo Jima soon after the island was secured by U.S. forces. Bartley’s postwar service in the Air Force Reserve, in which he rose to the rank of Lt. Colonel by 1957, is also reflected in the records.

The collection also includes printed materials directly relating to Bartley’s training and combat activities, such as a Japanese phrase book, a navigator’s handbook, and the contents of a pouch entitled, "Waterproofed Edition of the Raft Book," which contained both a manual and a world chart for emergency navigation.

More information relating to World War II can be found at the Truman Library in the papers of Harry S. Truman, in the World War II Collection, and in the Atomic Bomb Collection.