How do I get a photo of a particular Veteran of the Korean War?
How do I get a photo of a particular Veteran of the Korean War?
Thank you for posting your question on History Hub!
The Still Picture Branch does not have portraits/headshots or group photographs taken during training. According to the Military, graduates’ formal photos, both individual and group, were taken by private local commercial photographers and offered for sale at the time taken. Unfortunately those items never became part of official military records nor were they retained by the commercial photographers responsible for shooting the photos.
The Still Picture Branch has many candid photos of U.S. Military personnel but in most of them, there is no identification of the people shown. We have various name indexes, filed by last name where one can complete a search for the specific person you are looking for.
With that said, we currently have one index digitized that may be of interest. Our Army personality index (1940–1981) can be found as 111-PX: Index to Personalities in the U.S. Army Signal Corps Photographic Files. A tutorial on how to use the Army, WWII and Korea digitized section can be found at: https://historyhub.history.gov/military-records/army-and-air-force-records/b/army-air-force-blog/posts/researching-personalities-in-u-s-army-photographs.
If they served within the United States Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, or Coast Guard, please provide their full name, the branch of the US military they served within, and approximate dates of their service, we can conduct a limited search on your behalf. Please email stillpix@nara.gov with your complete request and we will respond via email with the results of our search.
For further searches of our records that are not yet digitized, we encourage researchers to visit our research room in College Park, MD for research and reproductions. If you would ever like to schedule a Still Picture research room appointment, please visit www.eventbrite.com/.../national-archives-at-college-park-still-pictures-48193105693, and you may email consultation.stillpix@nara.gov with any questions. Alternatively if you are unable to visit, you may wish to hire an independent researcher to search and copy images on your behalf.
If you have not done so already, you can request their Official Military Personnel File (OMPF). It is possible that a photograph could be attached to the OMPF. For more information about how to request personnel records from the National Archives' National Personnel Record Center (NPRC), please visit our website here: https://www.archives.gov/veterans. Specifically, members of the military who separated between 1962-present can be found at the NPRC, while those who separated between 1912-1961 can be found at the National Archives at St. Louis. For the most complete copy of a personnel file, in Section I of the SF-180, on the line for "Other" (Specify), write "Complete copy of every page of personnel file - not an extract."
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 stillpix@nara.gov so that we can assist you further.
We hope this assists you with your research!
Sincerely,
Special Media Division (RRS)
[RRSS-24-09936-JG]
Thank you for posting your question on History Hub!
The Still Picture Branch does not have portraits/headshots or group photographs taken during training. According to the Military, graduates’ formal photos, both individual and group, were taken by private local commercial photographers and offered for sale at the time taken. Unfortunately those items never became part of official military records nor were they retained by the commercial photographers responsible for shooting the photos.
The Still Picture Branch has many candid photos of U.S. Military personnel but in most of them, there is no identification of the people shown. We have various name indexes, filed by last name where one can complete a search for the specific person you are looking for.
With that said, we currently have one index digitized that may be of interest. Our Army personality index (1940–1981) can be found as 111-PX: Index to Personalities in the U.S. Army Signal Corps Photographic Files. A tutorial on how to use the Army, WWII and Korea digitized section can be found at: https://historyhub.history.gov/military-records/army-and-air-force-records/b/army-air-force-blog/posts/researching-personalities-in-u-s-army-photographs.
If they served within the United States Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, or Coast Guard, please provide their full name, the branch of the US military they served within, and approximate dates of their service, we can conduct a limited search on your behalf. Please email stillpix@nara.gov with your complete request and we will respond via email with the results of our search.
For further searches of our records that are not yet digitized, we encourage researchers to visit our research room in College Park, MD for research and reproductions. If you would ever like to schedule a Still Picture research room appointment, please visit www.eventbrite.com/.../national-archives-at-college-park-still-pictures-48193105693, and you may email consultation.stillpix@nara.gov with any questions. Alternatively if you are unable to visit, you may wish to hire an independent researcher to search and copy images on your behalf.
If you have not done so already, you can request their Official Military Personnel File (OMPF). It is possible that a photograph could be attached to the OMPF. For more information about how to request personnel records from the National Archives' National Personnel Record Center (NPRC), please visit our website here: https://www.archives.gov/veterans. Specifically, members of the military who separated between 1962-present can be found at the NPRC, while those who separated between 1912-1961 can be found at the National Archives at St. Louis. For the most complete copy of a personnel file, in Section I of the SF-180, on the line for "Other" (Specify), write "Complete copy of every page of personnel file - not an extract."
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 stillpix@nara.gov so that we can assist you further.
We hope this assists you with your research!
Sincerely,
Special Media Division (RRS)
[RRSS-24-09936-JG]
