The John Wilkey, Jr., collection is made up of military documents, correspondence, ephemera, and photographs related to John W. Wilkey, Jr., who served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II.
Mary Wilkey and John Wilkey, Sr., wrote a letter to their son, John Wilkey, Jr., on February 5 and 6, 1946. His mother enclosed copies of letters by Representative Charles Wolverton and Senator Albert Wahl, who responded to her request that they support legislation to discharge fathers currently serving in the military. Wilkey's father expressed his pressing need for his son's help with their wheat farm, and urged him to seek a discharge. The collection also holds Wilkey's official request for a discharge (April 26, 1946) and a special order issued in response by the 40th Bomb Wing headquarters (May 10, 1946), as well as a refund check for 2 cents (January 1945); an undated, printed application for a sugar ration book (not filled out); and an undated, printed advertisement for a commemorative military book. Five snapshot photographs depict John's wife Ruby and their young daughter (April 1946).
The collection contains 3 additional documents: a typed "station notice" containing the order of events for an "Invasion Day rally" (May 19, 1944), a memorandum about "Regulations Concerning Compressed Air" from the torpedo shop at the United States Naval Mine Depot in Yorktown, Virginia (August 26, 1944), and a facsimile of an advertisement for an upcoming publication about the depot (February 1945).
John W. Wilkey, Jr., was born in New Jersey in 1920, the son of World War I veteran John Wilkey and Mary Atkinson of Pennsauken, New Jersey. After joining the United States Army Air Forces at Fort DuPont, Delaware, on March 19, 1945, he served with the 8th Photo Technical Squadron in Germany in 1946. He and his wife Ruby had four daughters: Carolyn, Debra, Barbara, and Mary. After the war, they lived in Newport News, Virginia, where he worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). John W. Wilkey, Jr., died on November 26, 1990.