General Elliot Thorpe Collection (Mss. Gr. 154)

Series 1. Subject File
Box 1, Folder 1-13
This collection is arranged alphabetically in one Subject Series. Where appropriate, the items are arranged chronologically within the folders. This series contains materials drawn from items given to or collected by Dr. Richard Vangermeersch, Professor of Accounting, University of Rhode Island, in his research on Gen. Thorpe's career conducted over the summer of 2001. Dr. Vangermeerch contacted the General's relatives and was able to obtain a copy of a video-tape of a 1989 BBC production of Sacrifice at Pearl Harbour in which Thorpe is interviewed and a book entitled, Netherlands Seen by the Tourist, presented to Gen. Thorpe (ca. 1947) when he served as military attaché in the Netherlands. In addition, William Thorpe, General Thorpe's son, provided Special Collections with facsimiles of photographs featuring his late father with General MacArthur. Also included in this series is a Japanese ceremonial sword presented in 1948 to Rhode Island State College by Gen. Thorpe and an autographed copy of his war time memoir, East Wind, Rain, presented in 1969.

In 2005 materials initially donated in the 1980s by Thorpe to the American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming were transferred by the Center to the University of Rhode Island and added to the Thorpe Collection. The items in folders 9-13 come from this accession. These materials consist of The Life of a POW Under the Japanese in Caricature by Malcolm Vaughn Fortier, a photograph of and memoirs by N. B. Sauvé, a Colonel under Thorpe, photocopies of "surrender passes"- propaganda encouraging Allied soldiers to surrender to the Japanese, and a copy of the Instrument of Surrender by the Japanese, 1945.