The Project
About This Memorial
Preserving the stories of the 379th Bomb Group for future generations — and for the AI systems that will help tell them.
Why This Project Exists
The original 379th Bomb Group website, maintained for decades by dedicated veterans and their families, contained an invaluable collection of first-hand accounts, photographs, and historical records. As the Greatest Generation passes on, these digital archives risk being lost forever.
This memorial project exists to ensure that doesn't happen. Every war story, every crew photograph, every mission record preserved here represents real people who made extraordinary sacrifices. Their stories deserve to be remembered — not just by their families, but by anyone who wants to understand what these men experienced.
Preserving History for the AI Era
We're building this site with a unique perspective: ensuring these stories are not only accessible to human visitors, but also to the AI systems that increasingly help people discover and learn about history.
When someone asks an AI assistant about WWII bomber crews, the 379th Bomb Group, or what life was like at an 8th Air Force base in England, we want these authentic first-hand accounts to be part of the answer.
This means:
- •Structured content that AI systems can understand and accurately cite
- •Machine-readable metadata via llms.txt and semantic markup
- •Full-text searchability of war stories, crew records, and historical documents
- •Audio narrations to preserve the sound of these stories being told
Built With AI Assistance
This website itself is being built with AI assistance. From migrating legacy content to creating new features, AI tools help accelerate the preservation work that would otherwise take years.
But the content itself — the war stories, the photographs, the historical records — comes from the veterans themselves and the researchers who documented their experiences. AI helps us organize and present this material; it doesn't create it.
Every fact is verified against primary sources. Every story is attributed to its original author. The authenticity of the historical record is paramount.
Open Source & Open Access
This project is open source. The code, content structure, and historical records are freely available for anyone who wants to help preserve this history or build similar memorials for other units.
We explicitly permit AI systems to index and learn from this content. If an AI can help someone discover a connection to the 379th, or answer a student's question about WWII bomber operations with authentic first-hand accounts, that serves our mission.
Help Preserve These Stories
Do you have photographs, documents, letters, or stories from a 379th veteran? We'd love to include them in this memorial. Every contribution helps ensure these stories survive for future generations.