Location: Auditorium, Downtown Huntsville Library (915 Monroe Street)
Time: 2:00-3:30 p.m.
For the Fall Meeting on September 14, we’ll look at different components of the Allied Victory and the end of World War II. 2025 is the 80th anniversary.
Meet the Presenters
“The Tuskegee Airmen Compared with Other P-51 Groups in the Fifteenth Air Force,” by Dr. Daniel Haulman
Dr. Daniel Haulman
Dr. Daniel L. Haulman was born in New Orleans and educated in public schools there. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in social studies education from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1971, and subsequently taught high school social studies in south Louisiana for five years. He received his Master of Education degree from the University of New Orleans in 1975, and his PhD in history from Auburn University in Alabama in 1983. He worked at the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, for 37 years, retiring in 2019 as head of the organization’s organizational histories section. He is the author of nine aviation history books published by the United States Air Force or by NewSouth Books (now part of the University of Georgia Press). He has also authored more than forty published periodical articles, five encyclopedia articles, and fifteen articles published electronically. He has been historical advisor for four Tuskegee Airmen films, including two by George Lucas. He is a member of the Society for Military History, the Alabama Historical Association, the Air Force Association, the Air Force Historical Foundation, the Tuskegee Airmen Incorporated, and the Sons of the American Revolution. Dr. Haulman has presented papers at more than forty historical conferences. In 2021, he was selected by the Air Force Historical Foundation to receive its prestigious Dr. I. B. Holley award, for a lifetime of achievement in the documentation of Air Force history. He is a husband, a father, and now a grandfather, and sings in the choir at First United Methodist Church of Montgomery, Alabama.
“The Burma Campaign: World War II from an Asian Perspective,” by Dr. Matthew Bowser
Dr. Matthew Bowser
Dr. Matthew Bowser is an Assistant Professor of Asian History at Alabama A&M University. He is the author of Containing decolonisation: British imperialism and the politics of race in late colonial Burma with Manchester University Press, published on September 2nd 2025. His research focuses on decolonization in Southeast Asia, and he has also published on this subject in several academic journals, including the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History and the Journal of Asian Studies. Dr. Bowser is also a proud member of the Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society.
Women Air Service Pilots, by Polly Padden
Polly Padden
Polly Padden, Colonel, USAF (ret), is a PhD candidate in history at Mississippi State University and an adjunct professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Polly piloted C-141 and C-130 aircraft throughout her 25-year USAF career. She was the first combat-qualified female in the C-141 and the first female to command a C-130 squadron in a war zone. She was awarded the Bronze Star while assigned to Joint Special Operations Command, Bagram, Afghanistan. Polly is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy and the US Army War College. She was the lead intern for the Vicksburg Project at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and has presented her research at several conferences both in the US and abroad. She and her family moved to the Huntsville area in 2010, where Polly owns and operates Bronze Star Farm.
Wartime Comics, Barry C. Rich
Barry C. Rich
Barry Rich is a professor of English and Theatre at the University of Tennessee Southern in Pulaski, TN. He enjoys the intersection of academia and all things nerdy. The examination of comics, popular culture, and various theoretical lenses are some of his favorite focuses.
“Highlights from Locals Involved in the Normandy Invasion,” Joy Caitlin Monroe
Joy Caitlin Monroe
Cait Monroe holds a master’s degree in public history with a concentration in preservation. She is the Archivist for the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library system and a member of the Huntsville-Madison County Historical Society board.
Cait serves the Alabama Society DAR as State Historic Preservation Chair and the Hunt’s Spring Chapter, NSDAR, as First Vice Regent. She chairs 5 chapter committees including Commemorative Events, which coordinates observances of significant historic events.
Panel Host, Dr. SueAnne Griffith
Photo credit: White Rabbit Studios
Meet the Panel Host
Dr. SueAnne Griffith
Principal Research Engineer,
UAH Center for Cybersecurity Research and Education
Creator, Researcher, & Host,
Lily Flagg’s Signal Podcast