Marshall T. Wiggins Papers, WWII 267

[Item name or title], [Box Numbers], [Folder Numbers], Marshall T. Wiggins Papers, WWII 267, WWII Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.

The collection is composed of personal wartime correspondence, service records and orders, military reserve records, training and promotion certificates, military financial records, photographs, photo albums, Army operational manuals, an official Army history, welcome booklets, an official station history scrapbook, newspaper clippings, miscellaneous materials, and oversized materials, documenting the World War II life and military service of U.S. Army officer Marshall T. Wiggins of Atlanta, Georgia. The majority of the materials are from his time serving in the U.S. Army during World War II as a control officer at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi; Army Ground and Service Forces (AG&SF) Redistribution Station in Asheville, NC; and Army Service Forces (ASF) Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The most significant materials in the collection are owned and used by Marshall Wiggins during his tenure as the Control Officer of the Army Ground and Service Forces (AG&SF) Redistribution Station in Asheville, NC, from October 1944 to November 1945. These materials are some of the only known copies of the official operational manuals for the Asheville Redistribution Station in WWII in the United States. The manuals have blank forms, organizational flow charts, and detailed instructions for the operations of managing returning service members at the Asheville Redistribution Station. The collection includes a one-off or limited-produced official "History and Diary AG&SG Redistribution Station Asheville, N.C." scrapbook, owned by Wiggins, which contains some of the only known detailed photographs of the operations, administrators, and programs of the Asheville Redistribution Station during WWII.

Included in the collection is one of the only known original copies of a typed official 15-page history of the Asheville Redistribution Station, with details about its operation that have not to this time been published in any histories of the station. There are also eight rare original issues of the Asheville Redistribution Station's newspaper, The Returnee, first published on February 3, 1945.

The collection holds two wartime photo album kept by Wiggins of his duty stations and travels from 1943 to 1946 (apart from Asheville), including Camp Van Dorn, MS; Fort Leavenworth, KS; Georgia; the Great Smoky Mountains; Washington, D.C.; The Pentagon; and Virginia. There are over 400 photographs combined in both albums. The collection is organized into the following four series: Series I: Military Service Records; Series II: Asheville Redistribution Station Materials; Series III: Photographs; and Series IV: Oversized Materials.

The collection is arranged by subject matter and format of the materials in folders and boxes, arranged in the following four series: Series I: Military Service Records; Series II: Asheville Redistribution Station Materials; Series III: Photographs; and Series IV: Oversized Materials.

Marshall Tigner Wiggins was born on August 10, 1904, in West Point, Georgia, to Sterling Pitts and Mary Augusta Tigner (who went by "Gussie") Wiggins. Sterling Wiggins was a Methodist minister, who was serving at a church in Athens, Georgia, by the United States' entrance into World War I. While in high school, Marshall Wiggins joined the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), serving as a cadet captain from September 1919 to June 1921. Marshall Wiggins would go on to attend college at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in September 1921, graduating in 1925 with a B.S. degree in mathematics. Then he studied architecture at Georgia School of Technology, where he graduated with a degree in 1928. From 1921 to 1924, he was a member of the ROTC in college, reaching the rank of cadet major.

After college, Wiggins joined the Officers' Reserve Corps (ORC) in February 1926, and remained in the reserves until February 1936, when he left with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. He would go to work in June 1925 for the Nu-Grape Company of America in Atlanta, Georgia, as a plant manager in charge of supervising the plant production of Nu-Grape syrup. Wiggins remained there until September 1927. Marshall Wiggins began working as an architect for Pringle and Smith Architects in Atlanta, Georgia, in July 1928. He served as the architectural draftsman and superintendent of construction until August 1931. Wiggins married Romie Moran in August 1930, and the couple remained living in Atlanta. In October 1931, Wiggins became the building manager for Adams-Cates Company, a realty company in Atlanta, where he managed and operated large office buildings in the company's ownership portfolio. He would later become the commercial sales and lease agent for Adams-Cates.

With the United States' entrance into World War II, Marshall Wiggins would be called into active service in the U.S. Army on January 20, 1943. He was not allowed to serve in combat duty overseas, due to a health issue that caused him to fail a physical at Fort McPherson in Atlanta in April 1942. Wiggins was assigned on active duty as a 1st Lieutenant, stationed at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi, on January 20, 1943. Due to his civilian experience in management of personnel and facilities, Wiggins was assigned as the chief of the Civilian Personnel Branch at Camp Van Dorn. His title evolved into being the control officer at Camp Van Dorn. On January 31, 1944, he received a temporary promotion to the rank of Captain, which would later be made permanent. He remained at Camp Van Dorn until October 1944.

Marshall Wiggins was reassigned to become the control officer at the Army Ground and Service Forces (AG&SF) Redistribution Station in Asheville, NC, on October 10, 1944. The Asheville Redistribution Station Asheville was established on July 25, 1944. The 1488th Service Command Unit was assigned by the U.S. Army as the operational unit for the station. The mission of an Army Ground and Service Forces (AG&SF) Redistribution Station, as it was at Asheville, "is to obtain maximum utilization of personnel of the Army Ground Forces and Army Service Forces returned to the United States from overseas stations for reassignment by painstaking occupational and physical classification, mental and physical reconditioning, orientation, reindoctrination and appropriate reassignment, carried on without haste in an environment characterized by mental and physical relaxation and comfort" [quote from the introduction in the Asheville Redistribution Station's Standing Operating Procedure]. A lot of this aspect had to deal with handling service members with mental health issues, particularly those former prisoners of war being returned to the United States.

Wiggins' job as control officer at the Asheville Redistribution Station entailed advising the Commanding Officer on organizational and administrative procedures of the station, and evaluating the effectiveness with which the work of the station is executed. He developed uniform position and functional organization charts for all divisions and branches; prepared and made recommendations on simplification on work methods, forms, records, and files. He collected and analyzed statistics on station operations to indicate trends in performances and operations. The control officer also conducted as directed by the Commanding Officer special studies, makes investigations, and submit reports and recommendations. Wiggins served for 14 months as the Control Officer (or Chief of Control Division) for the U.S. Army Redistribution Station until it was closed down in mid-November 1945.

With the end of WWII, Wiggins was reassigned to Washington, D.C., attached to the Military Personnel Division at the Army Service Forces (ASF) Headquarters. Wiggins served in the Strength Authorization Branch starting on December 1, 1945. He remained in this position for seven months. Marshall Wiggins would be honorably discharged for retirement, due to being determined to be physically unfit, from active U.S. Army service with the rank of Major at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, on July 18, 1946. He was appointed to the Officers' Reserve Corps of the U.S. Army on July 22, 1946, attached to the 3066th Logistical Training Division (Organic) in Georgia. Wiggins would remain in the ORC, being promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in 1953. He would be moved to the retired reserve in August 1959, and remain in this capacity until around 1976.

In the summer of 1946, Marshall Wiggins returned to live with his family in Atlanta, and returned to work at Adams-Cates Company. He rejoined the Commercial Lease and Property Management Department. Wiggins would remain living and working in Atlanta with his family for the rest of his life. Marshall T. Wiggins died on July 31, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia.

1. Military Service Records

2. Asheville Redistribution Station Materials

3. Photographs

4. Oversized Materials

The collection was donated to the Military Collection of the State Archives of North Carolina by Diana D. Ivey of Greensboro, NC, granddaughter of Marshall T. Wiggins, in August 2020.