If a WW2 veteran served time in the South Pacific, would there be a record of him sailing there? Where & how would these records be found? His personal records burned in the 1973 fire at the Archives.
Thank you!
If a WW2 veteran served time in the South Pacific, would there be a record of him sailing there? Where & how would these records be found? His personal records burned in the 1973 fire at the Archives.
Thank you!
Dear elizzabeth7
Thank you for posting your request on History Hub.
Travel orders are contained in the veteran's service record. We suggest that you request a copy of his Official Military Personnel File (OMPF). OMPFs for officers and enlisted personnel of the U.S. Armed Forces who were separated from the service before October 2002 are in the custody of NARA's National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis.
In many cases where personnel records were destroyed in the 1973 fire, proof of service can be provided from other records such as morning reports, payrolls, and military orders, and a certificate of military service will be issued. If there is any information requested by the form that you do not know, you may omit it or provide estimates (such as for dates), but the more information you provide, the easier it will be to locate the correct file if it survived the fire. Archival OMPFs may also be requested by visiting the Archival Research Room at the National Archives at St. Louis. Please see the linked web pages for more information. Please email stlarr.archives@nara.gov for further assistance prior to making an appointment.
Please complete a GSA Standard Form 180 and mail it to NARA's National Personnel Records Center, (Military Personnel Records), 1 Archives Drive, St. Louis, MO 63138-1002. Veterans and next of kin of deceased veterans also may use eVetRecs to request records. See eVetRecs Help for instructions.
For more information see Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF), Archival Records Requests.
We hope this information is helpful.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Many ship manifests have been scanned and posted to Fold3.com. If you post a name and their name, rank, and service number, one of us could try to look him up for you using one of our accounts. No guarantee, of course. But willing to try.
Thank you for posting your request on History Hub!
According to NARA records, in 1951 the Department of the Army destroyed all manifests, logs of vessels, and troop movement files of United States Army transports for World War II and most of the passenger lists.
Sincerely,
Textual Reference Archives II Branch (RR2RR)
[23-62465 -REC]
That's true for Army Transports, but I've found a number of people--some from requests here--who have shown up on manifests for Naval vessels, such as LSTs. Plus, they never said that their veteran was in the Army. They could have been Navy or Marine Corps, too.