Ralph S. Munger Collection, 1939-1943
| Archives of the American Field Service and AFS Intercultural Programs
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Abstract
Administrative/Biographical History
Ralph Smith Munger was born on February 1, 1899 in Waterbury, Connecticut. He graduated from The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania in 1916. After high school he joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps (R.O.T.C.) in 1917 and the Student Army Training Corps (S.A.T.C.) in 1918. He also becamea Field Artillery Central Officers Training School (F.A.C.O.T.S.) candidate for commission on October 1, 1918, and was on active duty in this capacity through December 1, 1918. After World War I, Munger finished his studies in history and foreign languages at Williams College and graduated magna cum laude, valedictorian in 1920. In 1930 he was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant of the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Reserve.
Munger traveled extensively during his lifetime, visiting Bermuda, Cuba, England, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, before his volunteer service with AFS during World War II. During this time he also married Eunice A. Munger and served as the proprietor and lessee of the M’Fingal Inn in Watertown, Connecticut.
Following the revival of the American Field Service in November 1939 under Stephen Galatti, Munger became one of the carefully chosen men for the first unit of AFS volunteers in France during World War II. After supplying the funds for transportation to France, Munger boarded the S.S. Manhattan on March 23, 1940, sailing from New York with sixteen other volunteers. Upon arrival in Paris (by way of Genoa, Italy) on April 3, they joined 18 other Americans who had already volunteered in Europe. His unit was assigned to 19 Train of the French Tenth Army, and on May 18th the unit left for the front. Munger served with his unit in Amiens and Beauvais, and during the retreat of the French Army through Paris. . Munger’s service with AFS lasted only a few months due to the signing of the Franco-German armistice at Compiègne on June 22, 1940. After the establishment of Vichy France, AFS halted service in France and began a series of interim activities until the organization aligned with the British forces in 1941.
Munger boarded the S.S. Manhattan for his return to the United States in July 1940. He then continued as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Reserve until he was honorably discharged by reason of Physical Disqualification during the war.
Author: Andrea Kutsenkow Subjects (links to similar collections) Administrative Information
The majority of the Ralph S. Munger collection contains material related to Munger’s service with AFS unit FR 40 (also referred to as the “First Section”) in France in 1940, including an AFS recruitment booklet, correspondence from Roswell Miller documenting Munger’s initial interest in the organization, passport documentation, a booklet of passengers (including 16 other AFS volunteers) who boarded the S.S. Manhattan from New York to Genoa, Italy on March 23, 1940, among other documentation. The collection includes several items from Stephen Galatti, including a letter to the 17 AFS men on board the S.S. Manhattan, a letter to Mrs. Ralph Munger regarding her husband’s service, an August 1940 letter to members of FR 40 regarding an effort to compile the history of their work in France, and a recommendation to the AFS men to purchase FR 40 section leader Peter Muir’s book titled War Without Music. There is also an AFS press release about the arrival of the first unit of American volunteers in France, which includes a list of AFS volunteers and short biographies about the AFS officers in France, as well as a promotional booklet about the organization.
Also within the collection are clippings from 1939 and 1940 issues of The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, La Petite Gironde, and Waterbury Republican that speak about the recruitment, training, and arrival of ambulance drivers volunteering for AFS and other United States ambulance services that served alongside the French Army, including the Volunteers Ambulance Corps and the Iroquois American Unit. Only one these articles mentions Munger directly, and these articles, like the other materials within the collection, do not document the daily tasks and harsh conditions under which Munger would have worked. However, after reading about Munger in the Paris newspaper paper Le Jour, former Williams College classmate Gilbert Poncet contacted Munger directly. Poncet’s two letters, one from April 6, 1940 and the other from April 24, 1940, describe in some detail his service with the French military, and these letters, along with an incomplete copy of La Petite Gironde from June 30, 1940 in the collection, provide some context for Munger’s service.
The collection also includes one 3” x 2.5” black and white framed portrait of Munger, which, was taken in Washington D.C. on September 15, 1939, as well as a document related to his train travel in Spain.