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The Textual Reference Archives II Branch (RR2RR) has custody of the Records of the Adjutant General's Office, 1917- (Record Group 407) and the Records of U.S. Army Operational, Tactical, and Support Organizations (World War II and Thereafter) (Record Group 338). Military unit files among these records consist mostly of historical reports, after action reports, unit journals, and general orders. These records do not include personnel information, nor do we have a name index to these records.
It is typically the case that engineer unit records in our custody do not include company-level records. To be sure, individual companies can be (and frequently are) mentioned in battalion-level records.
We searched our available finding aids for the relevant series in the abovementioned record groups for records of the 1282nd Engineer Combat Battalion and found the following records:
Record Group 407
Entry (NM3) 427
Box 15308
Files: ENBN-1282-0.2: History, October 1945-April 1946; ENBN-1282-0.7: Journal & File, November 1944-August 1945; ENBN-1282-1.13: General Orders, 1944-1945.
Records of units that were assigned to Corregidor during late 1941 and early 1942 are hard to come by since it was standard procedure to destroy unit records prior to surrendering to the enemy. Following his release from Japanese captivity, Lieutenant General Jonathan M. Wainwright, commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines following the departure of General MacArthur, supervised the writing of a multi-volume report which provides as much detail as was possible at the time concerning the units that surrendered to the invading Japanese forces. Known colloquially as the “Wainwright Report,” this document is cited as follows:
Record Group 407
Entry (NM3) 427
File: 98-USF1-0.3: Report of Operations USAFFE and USFIP in the Philippine Islands (Volumes I through XVII), 8 December 1941 through 9 April 1942.
We invite you to continue the conversation with community members on History Hub, but should you have follow up questions for the staff at Archives II, please email us at archives2reference@nara.gov so that we can assist you further.
We hope this is helpful. Best of luck with your research!
Sincerely,
Textual Reference Archives II Branch (RR2RR) [25-10505-PBB]
