Wilbur R. Bernardi Collection, 1941-1998
| Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs
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Administrative/Biographical History
Wilbur Ralph Bernardi was born on June 1, 1923, in Mark, Illinois, to Jasper Bernardi and Dorohtea Passini. Bernardi attended Winnetka High School in Winnetka, Illinois, and worked in his family’s drugstore.
Bernardi applied to become a volunteer ambulance driver with the American Field Service (AFS) in April 1943. He departed off the eastern coast of the United States with AFS unit CM 43 on the Robin Tuxford in July 1943. The journey took him south to the Panama Canal, down the Pacific coastline, around the tip of South America, and east across the southern Atlantic Ocean to Africa and India. Bernardi served with the AFS 485 Company (Coy) upon arrival to Port Tewfik, Egypt. He was also assigned to the 8th Indian Division of the Regimental Aid Post (RAP), which was attached to the American 5th Army in the mountains of northern Italy, and then assigned to the Polish Corp. Later, he was reassigned to the British 78th Division and then to the RAP at the Hitler Line, a German defensive line in central Italy. He signed up to serve with AFS units in India and Burma prior to repatriation to the United States in July 1945, but his assignment was canceled following the cessation of hostilities with Japan. Bernardi was awarded the 1939-1945 Star and the Italy Star for his service with AFS.
Following the war, Bernardi continued to work with his brothers in their family drugstore.
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The Wilbur R. Bernardi Collection contains material documenting his time with the American Field Service (AFS),including Bernardi’s AFS identification card, Geneva card, Selective Service classification cards, and documents from his application process, as well as Italian tourist maps, magazine clippings, armed forces booklets published during World War II, and a collection of poems titled “Onward Christian Soldiers!” The collection also includes a detailed wartime photograph and negative collection (with handwritten captions and labels on thin sheets of paper, which were originally placed over the photographs), and post-war correspondence wherein Bernardi enlisted the aid of his fellow drivers to identify the individuals and locations depicted in his wartime photographs and negatives.
The collection also contains artifacts that Bernardi collected during his service as an ambulance driver, including his sterling silver AFS identification bracelet, a 4 x 7 wooden sign painted by a British soldier when Bernardi was assigned to the 8th Indian Division (which he affixed to the front of his ambulance), shoulder patches of the 8th Indian and 78th Divisions, a Red Cross flag and “Sons in Service” flag of unknown origin, a black officer’s map case that belonged to a German medical officer (formerly contained two maps), a teak wood carved letter opener that he picked up as a souvenir from the port at Madagascar on his way to Egypt in 1943, a marker flag for German land mines, and a piece of shrapnel that tore through his bedroll after he had crossed the Rapido River during the Battle of Monte Cassino. A cassette tape detailing the artifacts was also included, which was created by Bernardi at the time he donated the collection to the Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs.