WWII Historian | Author | Filmmaker
I reconstruct, resurrect, and reveal.
People come to me when the story is complex, buried, fragmented, or feels impossible. I specialize in untangling conflicting accounts, locating missing documentation, and reconstructing events that have been obscured by time, memory, and loss.
My work serves those who seek verified truth, narrative coherence, and a factual account aligned with the historical record.
"My grandfather said ‘the soldier is the Army’.
Erin Faith Allen knows where that soldier went after the war ended: into the documents, into silence, and into families who carried what they could not say.
She finds them there and she brings them back.
There is no one doing this work the way she does it."
Helen Patton, granddaughter of General George S. Patton
The projects I undertake range from in-depth document retrieval and analysis from holdings such as the National Archives, to full narrative restorations.
My work supports publication, documentary development, historical verification and large-scale research initiatives.
Representative Projects
42nd “Rainbow” Division
Reconstruction
A multi-year WWII archival reconstruction of the 42nd Infantry Division, tracing operational movements, lived experience, and historical context through military records, personnel files, battlefield analysis, and cross-referenced primary sources. This ongoing work restores dimension to the division's wartime journey and brings forward the individual and deeply personal stories that are often lost within official histories through forthcoming writing and films.
This reconstruction includes a dedicated recovery thread tracing the women, on and off the record, whose lives intersected with the Division at home and in Europe.
One Day Over the Rhine
A forthcoming, family-commissioned book involving full-scale wartime reconstruction tracing the final weeks of the war through converging lives during Operation Plunder in Dinslaken, Germany. Built from unit diaries, military records, German archival sources, first hand soldier and civilian accounts, battlefield mapping and on-the-ground research, this work restores the human, psychological and operational dimensions of a single moment that rippled across families and generations.
Code Name: Baker Catcher, The Human Side of WWII
Jack E. Westbrook served with the 222nd Infantry Regiment, 42nd "Rainbow" Infantry Division. He wrote his story, in great detail and with profound addition to the Rainbow historical record. After his passing, his daughter took up the project, and needed someone who could meet it at the level it deserved.
Working closely with his daughter Celia from the original manuscript, years of accumulated Rainbow Division primary source documentation, operational records, and unit-level specific context brought what the author, living inside the story while writing it, could not see from within: the full historical frame, verified military movements, and the archival precision that transforms personal testimony into a record that will last. The work included structural revision, fact-checking, narrative clarification, and editorial reconstruction to bring the material into full alignment with the archival record.
Code Name: Baker Catcher is a riveting book. More importantly, as Celia said: it is a badge of honor for her father.
PFC Wayne Cruse, 42nd ‘Rainbow’ Division, Killed in Action, Operation Nordwind
PFC Wayne Charles Cruse was killed in action during Operation Nordwind in January 1945 in France. He served with the Anti-Tank Company, 222nd Infantry Regiment, 42nd ‘Rainbow’ Infantry Division.
I traveled to Louisiana to spend time with his family and arranged for 42nd Division veteran Lockered 'Bud' Gahs to join by video call. Bud was with Wayne when he died. He was able to tell the family, for the first time, that Wayne did not suffer.