Press & Media
Erin Faith Allen and Fortitude Research have been featured in American and European press, broadcast media, and scholarly publications for investigative WWII research, Holocaust documentation, and the human reconstruction of wartime history.
A leading expert on the 42nd Infantry "Rainbow" Division and the liberation of Dachau concentration camp, Erin’s work extends to Holocaust documentation, the recovery of women's wartime stories, and the human histories that official records leave behind.
Her work has appeared in the Daily Herald, the Houston Chronicle, French national press, and German memorial institution publications. She is a contributing writer for the Rainbow Reveille, the official journal of the 42nd Infantry Division, published continuously since 1917.
Erin has appeared on WW2TV and authored guest pieces for international history platforms. Her forthcoming book, One Day Over the Rhine, is in active development.
Erin accompanies 42nd “Rainbow” Division veteran Lockered “Bud” Gahs to the American Veterans Center Gala
Featured
What a Handwritten Signature Unlocked for Me
Guest Writer for Germanology Unlocked, December 2025
I was deep in the documentation trail of a German town called Dinslaken, following an SS man whose name appeared in wartime records. My ability to read Sütterlin, the handwritten script of wartime German records, took me inside a Bergen-Belsen death register. His name was there. And so was another name I never expected to find. It led me straight to the story of Anne Frank.
A Film by Erin Faith Allen
On April 29, 2023, exactly 78 years after the liberation of Dachau concentration camp, the two surviving liberators present at the commemoration met for the first time. Lockered "Bud" Gahs of the 42nd “Rainbow” Division and Dan Dougherty of the 45th “Thunderbird” Division told each other, and the camera, what they saw the day they arrived. Arranged, filmed, and edited by Erin Faith Allen on the grounds of the Dachau Memorial.
Press & Publications
When Tom Breen's father came home from serving with the 222nd Infantry Regiment, he brought back stories. Eighty years later, Erin Faith Allen cross-referenced those stories against Rainbow Division primary source documentation and rebuilt Vernon Breen's exact path across Europe: Strasbourg, Alsace, Würzburg, Dachau, Vienna. Then she walked every step of it with his son. One of Vernon's stories had lived with Tom for decades: a sprint toward a crossroads, an 88 shell, a plaster wall that saved his life. Through archival research, Erin located that exact wall. Tom stood in front of it. The shell damage is still visible.
"This wasn't just a tour, it was a living act of remembrance."
Daily Herald, September 2025.
Tom Breen came from Chicago to walk the ground his father crossed as a 19-year-old GI in the winter of 1944. DNA Alsace, the leading newspaper of the region where Vernon Breen fought, followed the journey through Dauendorf and the villages of Alsace where the 42nd Division pushed through during the liberation of the region. Erin Faith Allen, passionate about the history of the 42nd Division, guided every step of it.
DNA Alsace, August 2025.
The Rosen family knew that Ralph had served in WWII. They knew fragments, that he had been present at Dachau, and that the photographs he took there are now housed in the collection of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Erin Faith Allen traced Ralph Rosen's service to the 894th Medical Battalion and helped the family understand what he had witnessed and carried home.
"Recognition is healing. When veterans and their families know that what they sacrificed is acknowledged and will be remembered, it makes a huge impact."
Greenwich Time, November 2024
After receiving the Legion of Honor in Alsace in the summer of 2022, 42nd “Rainbow” Division veteran Lockered "Bud" Gahs had one more place he needed to return to: Hunspach, the village where he first entered combat in January 1945 as a 19-year-old in the Anti-Tank Company of the 222nd Infantry Regiment. Erin Faith Allen accompanied him on their second trip back to Alsace in spring 2023 to find the exact site of his first gun position. They found it.
DNA Alsace, November 2024
In August 2022, 42nd Rainbow Division veteran and Dachau liberator Lockered "Bud" Gahs returned to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial, the site where he had stood as a 19-year-old soldier on April 29, 1945.
With historian and filmmaker Erin Faith Allen, he reviewed archival documents from the liberation and shared his firsthand accounts with memorial staff. The visit was documented by the KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau on their official site.
KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau, August 2022
In August 2022, Rainbow Division veteran Lockered "Bud" Gahs returned to France to pay tribute to two comrades who never came home: PFC Wayne C. Cruse and PFC Barney H Parrish, both of the Anti-Tank Company, 222nd Infantry Regiment, 42nd “Rainbow” Infantry Division. Historian Erin Faith Allen led the project that brought Bud back to Europe, organizing the journey to Épinal American Cemetery where he stood at their graves for the first time since the war.
Vosges Matins, August 2022
In August 2022, 42nd Rainbow Division veteran Lockered "Bud" Gahs walked the few meters from his wartime command post in Schweighouse-sur-Moder to the house he had defended against a German attack 77 years before, and was surprised with the Legion of Honor medal.
DNA Alsace reports that it all started with the initiative of American historian Erin Faith Allen, who contacted the French Embassy in Washington and organized the tribute that brought Bud back to the exact house where he fought.
DNA Alsace, August 2022
At 95, Rainbow Division veteran Lockered "Bud" Gahs had one goal: return to Europe and the ground where he had fought as a 19-year-old.
WMAR2 News Baltimore covered his story, including the Bronze Star he earned on January 25, 1945, when he held his position alone for more than two hours under intense enemy fire in Schweighausen, France, killing ten German soldiers, wounding eight, and capturing eight more.
In 2019, Erin Faith Allen conceived and led this project to bring Bud back to Europe and document it on film.
In 2018, the Houston Chronicle covered Erin Faith Allen's publication of The In Between, a memoir of a 19-day solo journey through WWII and Holocaust sites across Europe. It was the first public record of work she had been carrying privately for years, and the beginning of what would become Fortitude Investigative War Research.
"For many of these people, their memories and their stories were completely extinguished," she said at the time. "Maybe if we are lucky we know only their names and where they died."
She has spent every year since making sure we know more than that.
Rainbow Reveille
official newspaper / journal of the 42nd “Rainbow” Division, continuously published since 1917
Living a WWII Rainbow Trail: October 2025
A Rainbow Story of Friendship: April 2025
The Good German: A Story From Operation Nordwind: January 2025
Living A Life That Matters: Holocaust Survivor Ben Lesser: April 2024
Bud Returns: A Series About Returning with Bud Gahs to His Battlefields in Europe: 2023
Broadcast & Podcast
Liberation of Dachau: 42nd Rainbow Division: WW2TV. April 29, 2025
How To Be A Historian: WW2TV. February 12, 2025
Discussing the United States 42nd Division in WWII with Erin Faith Allen: The History Syndicate Podcast. February 11, 2026
"Erin blended the history of Dachau with the personal accounts of victims and witnesses, adding a human depth that facts alone can't convey. Her research and delivery honored those who lived through it."
- Viewer response, Liberation of Dachau by the 42nd Rainbow Division: WW2TV