Thomas W. Shepard Photographic Collection, 1945
| Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs
More Extent Information
Arrangement
Abstract
Administrative/Biographical History
Thomas Winthrop Shepard was born on September 30, 1924 in Boston, Massachusetts. After graduating from Cambridge Preparatory School, he served in the U.S. Army from June through October 1943. After his military service, he worked as a store manager for the Baytheon Manufacturing Corporation until December 1943, when he volunteered to become an ambulance driver with the American Field Service (AFS).
Shepard was sent overseas with AFS on January 31, 1944 and arrived in India on April 5, 1944. He was posted to the British 14th Army with AFS unit IB 20 in the Kohima-Imphal region upon his arrival but continued to move east of the India-Assam border with his unit after January 25, 1945. He served in the Chindwin Valley around Kalewa and along the Irrawaddy north of Mandalay until March 17, 1945. He was repatriated to the United States in April 1945, and was entitled to a 1939-45 Star and a Burma Star for his service.
Subjects (links to similar collections)Ambulances
American Field Service (American Ambulance Field Service)
American Field Service—IB 20
American Field Service—India-Burma Units (IB)
Burma
Civilians, Evacuation of
Civilians in war
Mandalay (Burma)
McPheeters, Thomas S., Jr., 1912-1987
Shepard, Thomas W. (Thomas Winthrop), 1924-2011
World War, 1939-1945
Administrative Information
The Thomas W. Shepard Collection contains eight photographic prints taken during Shepard’s service as a volunteer ambulance driver with the American Field Service (AFS) in Burma in 1945. Within the collection are seven unlabeled 3.25” x 4.5” black and white prints and one 3.5” x 2.5” black and white print with an inscription and date on the reverse. Although the majority of the images are uncaptioned and undated, Shepard provided detailed notes about each picture in a letter when he donated the collection to AFS in 1997. The letter is not included in the collection, but the notes are transcribed on the folders containing each image. Clarification or questions of spelling or words are given in brackets by the AFS Archives staff.
The images depict the evacuation of native Burmese people, AFS drivers and Indian soldiers escaping Japanese fire, AFS drivers adopting traditional Indian modes of eating and siting, and AFS drivers coping with the difficult Burmese terrain. Within the images Shepard identifies Major Shah Gardezi and AFS driver Thomas S. McPheeters, Jr. There is also one photograph of Shepard parked in front of a Buddhist temple in a nearly deserted Mandalay.
All eight photographs were digitized by AFS Archives staff in 2016 and are available as high-resolution TIF, high-resolution JPEG, and low-resolution JPEG files. One verso (with notes) was scanned, and is also available as a high-resolution TIF, high-resolution JPEG, and low-resolution JPEG file.