Soldiers at State: Celebrating Veteran's Day at SDSU

Happy Veteran's Day, San Diego State! In honor of Veteran's Day and our large number of student veterans and servicemen, we are showcasing our newly processed collection, the Robert M. Briggs Papers. Robert M. Briggs was a professor of Secondary Education at San Diego State for thirty years. Prior to this tenure at San Diego State, he served in the army during World War II. He was stationed primarily in the Pacific Theater where he worked as a sharpshooter and communications sergeant. Briggs was also an artist, and during his time in the Pacific, he made sketches and watercolors of other servicemen, battleships, local people, and landscapes, sometimes even while under enemy fire. He also painted insignias on military planes, including the insignia on Bockscar, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The Briggs Papers offers a unique look at war art.

Briggs' artwork reflects the feel and mood of the time, and offers insightful perspective on WWII. He often sketched rapidly while under enemy fire, then added watercolor later, in the safety of his barracks. The image shown here is a sketch of men bathing in a stream. Briggs and several members of his unit went to bathe and unknowingly stumbled upon a group of Japanese soldiers also bathing. Both groups called a temporary truce so that each could finish bathing.

The Robert M. Briggs Papers (1943-2004) document Brigg's military duty during the Second World War and his paintings and personal writings. Highlights include Briggs' scrapbook of photographs, newspaper clippings, sketches, and watercolors of fellow servicemen, local Okinawans, landscapes, and battleships during World War II. The collection consists of newspaper clippings, photographs, sketches, watercolors, poems, essays about WWII and the Rocky Mountains, and an oral history discussing his experiences during WWII.

Other WWII-related collections include the WWII Servicemen's Correspondence, Haakon Maurice Chevalier Diary, Hitler Memorabilia Collection, and the Kramer Rohfleisch Papers. To view our military research guide, click here.