About the Historian

Dr. Vernon L. Williams is a military and naval historian. He received his doctorate from Texas A&M University in 1985. He is currently serving as President of the Old Primero Historical Foundation and Director of the East Anglia Air War Project. Before 2018 he spent thirty years as professor of history in the Department of History at Abilene Christian University. Since 2001 Dr. Williams has been working to document the wartime experiences of American and British citizens alike. Planned outcomes from this project include several books over the next few years and a number of documentary films.

Recently, Dr. Williams has completed two books:

• Flight Surgeon:  A War Diary, 1941-1945, Edited by Vernon L. Williams, TCU University Press, 2021
• Empire Marine:   Major General Littleton W.T. Waller and the Growth of American Imperialism, 1856-1926, TCU University Press, forthcoming, Spring 2024

Four new documentary have been released by Dr. Williams for Old Segundo Productions.  Two of these films appear in the Air War Series and two in the American West Series.  During the last twenty years, Dr. Williams has produced over twenty  documentary films on military and American history subjects.

• Primero, Colorado, 1901-1928: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Company Towns, and the Quest for a Better World, released 2018
• Rendezvous Over Berlin, A Texas Cowboy Finds His Destiney Over the Skies of Nazi Germany, 1942-1943, released 2020
• Willard, Colorado:  The Burlington Railroad, Community, and Life on the Twentieth Century’s Colorado High Plains, released in 2020
  
• From Ozark to Fortress Europe: Flight Surgeon Thurman Shuller, War, Medicine, and a Life of Service, released 2021
  

Currently, Dr. Williams is writing a volume on the sense of community that developed between the Americans and British families living in villages around the American bases. The working title for the book is: Crucible of War: The Anglo/American Exchange in World War II England, 1942-1945.

Williams’ first documentary film, Deopham Green, appeared in 2004 and since that time, he has produced and directed eighteen documentaries on various subjects.  You can visit oldsegundo.com to find information on the films that are currently available and learn about others that are now in the production and pre-production stages.