American Field Service World War II Records, 1939-1958
| Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs


This collection is arranged at the box level into the following eight series, based on the administrative structure of the American Field Service and the military forces they served with during World War II: Series 1: New York Headquarters, 1939-1946 (bulk 1940-1945); Series 2: Regional Representatives, 1939-1942; Series 3: Tenth French Army, 1940; Series 4: Middle East Forces, 1941-1944; Series 5: Central Mediterranean Forces, 1943-1945; Series 6: South East Asia Command, 1942-1945 (bulk 1944-1945); Series 7: First French Army, 1943-1945; Series 8: British Liberation Army, 1945. In addition to the 109 boxes arranged by series, the collection includes two boxes of unsorted files (1 cubic foot) that have yet to be incorporated into existing series.
The collection is processed at a series and box level only; the folders (and individual items) remain unsorted within each series. See the individual series descriptions for more information.


The American Field Service (AFS) was founded shortly after the outbreak of World War I, when Americans living in Paris volunteered as ambulance drivers at the American Hospital of Paris. Under the leadership of Inspector General A. Piatt Andrew, AFS participated in every major French battle and carried more than 500,000 wounded. By the end of World War I, 2,500 men had served as ambulance or camion drivers in the American Field Service with the French Armies.
Stephen Galatti, who had been Assistant General Inspector during part of World War I, became Director General of the organization in 1936 after Andrew’s death. Under his leadership, the AFS ambulance service was reactivated in 1939 at the start of the Second World War. Stephen Galatti, his staff at New York Headquarters, local committees, and regional representatives around the country (including William DeFord Bigelow in Boston) actively raised funds and recruited ambulance drivers to assist foreign forces overseas. By mid-1944 AFS became a participating member of the National War Fund, an organization sponsored by the Federal Government to be a central collecting bureau for relief organizations, and AFS ceased raising money on its own.
American volunteers first drove ambulances with the 19th Train of the Tenth French Army in 1940. The first unit of seventeen men (FR 1) sailed from New York on March 23, 1940, and joined eighteen men who had already volunteered in Europe. After the German invasion and the establishment of Vichy France in June 1940, AFS halted service in France and began a series of interim activities. The remaining ambulances in France were loaned to the American Red Cross for use in carrying supplies to the prison camps, and were subsequently given to the Secours Nationale, a relief organization. AFS also solicited funds for ambulances for the American Ambulance, Great Britain, and sent ambulance drivers to assist the British forces in Kenya and the Hadfield-Spears Hospital Unit operating with the Free French Forces in Syria from 1940 to 1941.
AFS officially aligned with the British forces in 1941. The AFS overseas headquarters was set up within the perimeter of the General Headquarters, Middle East Forces (GHQ MEF) in Cairo in December 1941, and the first unit of ambulance drivers embarked for the Middle East that same month (though they were rerouted to Bombay due to the outbreak of war with Japan.) As the war progressed AFS ambulance drivers served in the Middle East, North Africa, Italy, Germany, India, and Burma with the British military, the Free French forces (Forces Françaises Libres, later called the Forces Françaises Combattantes), and again in France with the First French Army. AFS also intended to send a unit to China to assist on the eastern front of the war, and had plans to formulate an Air Ambulance Squadron (AAS), but the war ended before either could fully materialize. The 2,196 American Field Service ambulance drivers served alongside French, British, Polish, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, and South African troops, and carried over 700,000 Allied and Axis casualties by the end of the war.

American Field Service (American Ambulance Field Service)
American Field Service, Ambulance Car Company, 485
American Field Service, Ambulance Car Company, 567
American Field Service--Central Mediterranean Units (CM)
American Field Service--Forces Françaises Combattants (FFC)
American Field Service--France Units (FR)
American Field Service--India-Burma Units (IB)
American Field Service--Middle East Units (ME)
Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
British Eighth Army
British Liberation Army (BLA)
Central Mediterranean Forces (CMF)
Field, Dorothy
Free French Forces
Galatti, Stephen
Hanna, John C. (John Clifford), d. 1988
Middle East Forces (MEF)
South East Asia Command (SEAC)
U.S. Army
World War, 1939-1945


The American Field Service World War II Records include personnel records, identification cards, reports, printed material, publications, official war diaries and logs, correspondence, and other administrative files generated by the organization at its various offices and headquarters during the war until the start of the AFS student exchange programs in 1947. The bulk of the collection consists of the correspondence, publications, scrapbooks, personnel files, and identification cards kept at New York Headquarters, although there are also administrative files from the regional representatives in Boston and Detroit. Overseas material includes administrative files, publications, war diaries, and logs from the AFS offices and field headquarters near the French and British forces. In addition to the wartime material, the collection includes post-war documents related to repatriation and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which some AFS ambulance drivers joined after the war, as well as two boxes of unsorted material. These unsorted files contain personnel applications, documents related to 485 and 567 Ambulance Car Companies, and ambulance plaque information. They also include later correspondence dated as late as 1958, which was likely related to George Rock’s The History of the American Field Service, 1920-1955 (1956, American Field Service, Inc.)
See the individual series descriptions for more information.
Series 1: New York Headquarters, 1939-1946 (bulk 1940-1945)
Series 2: Regional Representatives, 1939-1942
Series 3: Tenth French Army, 1940
Series 4: Middle East Forces, 1941-1944
Series 5: Central Mediterranean Forces, 1943-1945
Series 6: South East Asia Command, 1942-1945 (bulk 1944-1945)
Series 7: First French Army, 1943-1945
Series 8: British Liberation Army, 1945
Unsorted 1: circa 1939-1958