Testing a Survivor's Story Against Itself
Every account we publish has been tested against at least one other. This quarter we applied that method to Sgt. Hayes Bolitho, 5th Air Base Group, who survived the sinking of the Shinyo Maru on September 7, 1944.
Bolitho told his story twice: in a 1973 oral history interview with the University of North Texas, and in a memoir he wrote in 2001, later serialized in eight newspaper installments. We recovered every installment, including one missing from the web archive, and transcribed all 124 pages of the interview. Then we read the two side by side.
Our four steps
Collect every account. Memoirs, interviews, affidavits and unit records, transcribed in full.
Read both in full. Many apparent conflicts disappear in context.
Classify each point as corroborated, unique to one source, or genuinely discrepant.
Verify the leads against rosters and archives, and publish the sources.
What we found. The two accounts agree on nearly every checkable fact, from the voyage to Manila to the rescue by USS Narwhal. Two sets of pilot names that looked like a conflict turned out to describe two different flights. One small question remains open, whether six or seven men were on a repair crew, and we are leaving it open.
Why it matters. Memory changes over time. Independent agreement strengthens the record. Honest disagreement shows us where to look next.
Do you hold a memoir, letters or an affidavit from a hellship survivor? We would like to read it alongside the record.
There are two free downloadable PDFs attached , Oral History Interview with Hayes H. Bolitho — July17, 1973 and Hayes Bolitho: Cross-Check of the Newspaper Memoirvs. the 1973 UNT Oral History
