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Help! How to find service records for family members?

357Max

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  • Sep 11, 2019
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    Marylandistan
    I had a fantastic Independence day yesterday. On the long drive home from the range I had a good conversation with my mother & started thinking about my Dad.
    He died when I was 10 in 1980 & there's a lot I don't know about him. Actually there's a lot my Mom doesn't know either.

    I asked her again what she new of his service in WW2 to see if I could jog something from her memory.
    What we do know is that he was drafted into Army while in college. He went in as officer in training. Had his knee cap removed from college football injury (we think this happened after he was drafted). He was involved in the Japan theater. Somehow wound up working with AF & taught celestial navigation. He left with a rank of 2nd LT.
    I'm grateful to know that much, but beyond that it's goose eggs because it was classified.

    At the time of his death in 1980 he still would not give any details to my mother due to it being classified. The most he ever told her was that it had to do with planning bombing raids into mainland Japan.

    I've got 2 different transcripts of military record, both the same form #01254 and they are very different?
    1st. Shows entry into service 01/18/46 - 4/19/46 duties unassigned 0001, American theater service medal & WW2 Victory medal Total service 3 months 9 days.
    • This doesn't make much sense to me since the war ended Sep of 45 & no draft in 46
    2nd. Shows entry into service Sept 10th 1942 (Fort Crook Nebraska). Occupational specialty - Synthetic Trnr (cnt) 970, Military Qualifications list - Expert course B
    Decorations and citations = Good conduct medal
    total length of service 3 years 4 months 7 days discharge date 1/17/46 (see 1. service record above)
    service schools attended = Celestial navigation TNG Op AAFTS CNT 970
    ASR score (2 Sept 45) 48

    Having never been in the military myself I don't know what most of the above acronyms mean???
    If anyone could help me translate to something I can comprehend it would be great.

    I'm thinking at this point 2020, whatever he did should be declassified & I'm wondering if there's any way to find out what exactly he did?
    Not sure what level of records are kept or if the possibility of getting a more detailed record is realistic.

    Please let me know if any of you have had any experience with this thanks
     
    I googled how to get military service records
    For my wife to get her grandpa’s records it shows a link
     
    I googled how to get military service records
    For my wife to get her grandpa’s records it shows a link
    That's how my Mom got the 2 transcripts of military service. Neither of them reference anything classified though.
     
    357Max. Did your dad go back to school after his service? If so what did he study? What did your father do for a living? What was the cause of your father's death?
     
    Was your Dad from or did he ever live in Nebraska? That would be the first step to deciding if you got the correct record.

    AAFTS probably means Army Air Forces Training School, TNG meant Training, Op was probably Operator, CNT meant Celestial Navigation Trainer

    ASR is Advanced Service Rating, the higher the score the sooner you got to go home, combat time, time overseas, medals, awards, wounds, dependents in 12 years old, all factored in. My Dad's had 78 points as I recall, he was a paratrooper, jumped D-day and Holland and had two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts so he had a solid adventure.

    3 years and 4 months equaled 40 points, the other eight points could have come from being overseas or some other event the Army attached value too.

    970 Link Celestial Navigation Trainer Operator. You dad operated a training device called a LINK trainer, he probably did not go overseas or plan bombing raids except as practical exercises. He worked training pilots and/or navigators. They still teach celestial navigation to this day, in case the GPS craps out. Over the Pacific ocean guys lives depending on the skills your Dad taught.





    You can actually request a reissue of his awards and decorations from the military, he was entitled to everything listed in both records, they are probably active duty and three months of transfer to reserve forces. He at least had a Good Conduct medal, American Campaign medal and WWII Victory medal, plus whatever other award he received if they can get chased down.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Campaign_Medal, awarded for 1 year of service stateside or going overseas



    Your Dad had job number 4, how cool is that??


     
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    Contact your local US Representative and have their DOD caseworker submit the records request. This will come with all records that are available for public release. National Records will ship them to the US Rep’s office and then you can pick them up at the district office or they’ll mail them to you.

    You can do a follow up request to the DOD Caseworker with a list of the words or acronyms in the records that you might not understand (or be able to find online). A good caseworker will send a quick email follow up to the agency and the Congressional Liaison, IF they aren’t a douche, will shoot a quick email back with the answers.

    Hope this helps. It may take 30-90 days, but it won’t cost you anything and they’ll come right from the source, rather than a 3rd party.
    🍻
     
    357Max. Did your dad go back to school after his service? If so what did he study? What did your father do for a living? What was the cause of your father's death?

    Yes he finished college. He was a civil engineer & became VP at SJ Groves and Son's in MN. Worked on mostly large joint venture Hydro electric Dams and tunnels. Magla dam in Pakistan, Snowy Mountain Adiminaby dam in New South Wales Australia, Dworshak dam in Idaho, etc. He was a member of SAE & wrote a pretty interesting paper for them on computerized excavation (that was in 1966). He was a member of the Moles (tunneling). He was also very politically active Republican and a state delegate in Minneapolis.

    He moved us to Maryland when I was 7 and he was then working for an engineering firm in Baltimore working on design for the underground portion of there future subway (said it was a disaster). Ironically I wound up working in that very same underground portion of the Baltimore subway 12 years after his death for Hayward Baker. It was a disaster, to this day there's only a mile or 2 underground.

    About 4 & 1/2 years ago my Mom gave me a movie for Christmas. She'd taken an old film real of my dad's that was some odd size, and had been in the basement forever to get get converted to DVD. Turns out it was a documentary given to him upon completion of the Magla Dam project. This film was legit, almost National Geographic quality, narrated, and soundtrack from about 1965. That project was middle of nowhere Pakistan. they had to build a railroad to the site, build a complete town for the workers, project was interrupted by a war between Turkey & Pakistan etc. What a massive undertaking. Hard to believe what use to get accomplished with pure grit an resolve back then.

    So after watching the movie, I was feeling a little sentimental. The Magla project was a joint Venture with Guy F Atkinson Company & they were the partner my father thought the most highly of. I new SJ Groves had long since gone out of business, but just for the hell of it I googled Guy F Atkinson & the hair stood up on the back of my neck when the address came up as the address to my new office 😲. They are a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company I had just started working for & still do. Hard to deny He's still looking out for me!

    Died of heart attack at age 60. He grew up in a different era. Hell he looked 30 when he was 16 in high school.
     
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    My grandfathers records along with many other ww2 era service members records were destroyed in a fire near Denver, CO back in the 70s I think it was. All we have been able to find is the stuff he had copies of.

    Regarding different dates of service, did he transition from enlisted to officer on that date? Or possibly did he transition from active duty to the reserves or guard?
     
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    Was your Dad from or did he ever live in Nebraska? That would be the first step to deciding if you got the correct record.

    AAFTS probably means Army Air Forces Training School

    ASR is Advanced Service Rating, the higher the score the sooner you got to go home, combat time, time overseas, medals, awards, wounds, dependents in 12 years old, all factored in. My Dad's had 78 points as I recall, he was a paratrooper, jumped D-day and Holland and had two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts so he had a solid adventure.

    3 years and 4 months equaled 40 points, the other eight points could have come from being overseas or some other event the Army attached value too.

    970 Link Celestial Navigation Trainer Operator. You dad operated a training device called a LINK trainer, he probably did not go overseas or plan bombing raids except as practical exercises. He worked training pilots and/or navigators. They still teach celestial navigation to this day, in case the GPS craps out. Over the Pacific ocean guys lives depending on the skills your Dad taught.





    You can actually request a reissue of his awards and decorations from the military, he was entitled to everything listed in both records, they are probably active duty and three months of transfer to reserve forces. He at least had a Good Conduct medal, American Campaign medal and WWII Victory medal, plus whatever other award he received if they can get chased down.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Campaign_Medal, awarded for 1 year of service stateside or going overseas



    Edit: He was not from Nebraska. He was from Sioux City Iowa. His address is correct on the service record though. Another thing I hadn't mentioned is that my half sister was born in April 1944 while he was in the service & he got one of those dear John letters before he got out.
    Edit #2: Damn you gave me a lot of good info. I missed the 10 odd jobs link from WW2 the first time I read it. That is a pretty cool and odd job that I could see as pretty valuable to the war effort.

    Thanks for the links. His branch of service is listed as CE & per one of the links that comes up as Counter Espionage.


    CECounter Espionage
     
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    Contact your local US Representative and have their DOD caseworker submit the records request. This will come with all records that are available for public release. National Records will ship them to the US Rep’s office and then you can pick them up at the district office or they’ll mail them to you.

    You can do a follow up request to the DOD Caseworker with a list of the words or acronyms in the records that you might not understand (or be able to find online). A good caseworker will send a quick email follow up to the agency and the Congressional Liaison, IF they aren’t a douche, will shoot a quick email back with the answers.

    Hope this helps. It may take 30-90 days, but it won’t cost you anything and they’ll come right from the source, rather than a 3rd party.
    🍻
    Great suggestion. I will do this.
     
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    Thanks for the links. His branch of service is listed as CE & per one of the links that comes up as Counter Espionage.


    CECounter Espionage


    CE meant Corps of Engineers in WWII. Modern acronyms do not really blend with WWII acronyms. If you read what they sent you, it look like they actually put your Dad thru the Celestial Navigation school then thru the school for the LINK trainer which was a very cool device for the day, like Star Wars cool. He could literally plot a mission to Japan, then have the pilots fly it as the sky moved above their heads to appear as it would over the Pacific ocean and Japan and evaluate their skills and progress as their trainer.

    See page 13 of this period Army TM; Your Dad's job is described in general detail on page 123.



    It is pretty unlikely he was a spy, but this probably helped him become a great Civil Engineer in later life.
     
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    My grandfathers records along with many other ww2 era service members records were destroyed in a fire near Denver, CO back in the 70s I think it was. All we have been able to find is the stuff he had copies of.

    Regarding different dates of service, did he transition from enlisted to officer on that date? Or possibly did he transition from active duty to the reserves or guard?
    That would make sense. The second record starts the day the first record ends & it looks like he spent the last 3 months at Ft. Belvoir
     
    Modern acronyms do not really blend with WWII acronyms, you have to find a WWII era data base. If you read what they sent you, it look like they actually put your Dad thru the Celestial Navigation school then thru the school for the LINK trainer which was a very cool device for the day, like Star Wars cool. He could literally plot a mission to Japan, then have the pilots fly it as the sky moved above their heads to appear as it would over the Pacific ocean and Japan and evaluate their skills and progress as their trainer.


    It is pretty unlikely he was a spy, but this probably helped him become a great Civil Engineer in later life.
    I don't think he was a spy. And your probably right that the acronyms have changed then to now. That said, he had integrity to spare and held little back from my Mom except the full extent of what he did in his service. Told her it was classified & he was sworn not to discuss. He told her about teaching the celestial navigation & also said he'd been oversees on several occasions (not deployed), told her there was more that he couldn't tell her.

    Whatever it was that he did and would not discuss may not have been any big deal, but classified even in a minor sense, was held in much higher regard back then vs today.
     
    I don't think he was a spy. And your probably right that the acronyms have changed then to now. That said, he had integrity to spare and held little back from my Mom except the full extent of what he did in his service. Told her it was classified & he was sworn not to discuss. He told her about teaching the celestial navigation & also said he'd been oversees on several occasions (not deployed), told her there was more that he couldn't tell her.

    Whatever it was that he did and would not discuss may not have been any big deal, but classified even in a minor sense, was held in much higher regard back then vs today.

    A Celestial Trainer like he operated can be used to train for all sorts of things. It isn't just initial training of pilots. If he was good at his job then they could use his ability to train pilots or any other person needing celestial navigation skills for all sorts of interesting things. The Air Force/Army Air Corps flies/flew a ton of stuff in trainers or simulators first to see if they work.

    Remember is isn't so much a "trainer" as it is a simulator of the night sky. If you can simulate the night sky of Hiroshima or Tokyo or some random point in the ocean where a Japanese carrier is floating, it can be really helpful. "simulates the night sky", think about all the ways that can be useful during a war?

    Those extra 8 points came from somewhere, maybe 8 months outside the CONUS working his magic? Imagine for a minute you know a target is located in the ocean on a moonless night, sailing in blackout conditions. You have no real radar to locate it and you must be operating in silence to prevent detection, no transmitting radio or anything they can monitor or detect. This is 40 years before GPS, how do you find it? If you have one chance to find it, how do you practice finding it? And just like that........................an ordinary job becomes interesting or classified. Classified because they guy running the trainer now knows the parameters of a classified mission. Top Secret before the mission and still Confidential afterwards so that people do not openly discuss how we did it. If the enemy knows, they always try and change what they do so they don't die as fast as we like.

    I had an ordinary career field, several actually in the military. I did them in some very interesting places and for some interesting people. It isn't what you do sometimes..................it is where you are doing it that makes the job interesting.
     
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    A Celestial Trainer like he operated can be used to train for all sorts of things. It isn't just initial training of pilots. If he was good at his job then they could use his ability to train pilots or any other person needing celestial navigation skills for all sorts of interesting things. The Air Force/Army Air Corps flies/flew a ton of stuff in trainers or simulators first to see if they work.

    Remember is isn't so much a "trainer" as it is a simulator of the night sky. If you can simulate the night sky of Hiroshima or Tokyo or some random point in the ocean where a Japanese carrier is floating, it can be really helpful.

    Those extra 8 points came from somewhere, maybe 8 months outside the CONUS working his magic?
    Thank you for the links & your explanation above makes perfect sense. It's very possible he trained or simulated for more specific missions which would explain the classified part.
    You've definitely helped fill in some blanks for me.....much appreciated!

    Going to give M8541Reaper's suggestion a shot & see if there are any more records available. Not going to get my hopes up though as I also read there was a fire in early 70's that destroyed a lot of Army records.
     
    One source I found was ancestry.com
    If you don't want to pay for it, I found that the Church of the Latter Day Saints had a Family Center with FREE books, maps and computers where you can access ancestry, my heritage and much more to access genealogical records, including military records and you can get suggestions as to where to go to get more info. I was lucky that Reno had a Family Center with all those resources. Hope you live close to one. Unfortunately they are not open during the pandemic, but they really are a great source and you do not have to be a member of their church.
    I found some interesting records on my father regarding service dates, points of entry and discharge; unit(s) assigned to, dates overseas, etc., etc., etc.
    Good luck.
     
    I don't think he was a spy. And your probably right that the acronyms have changed then to now. That said, he had integrity to spare and held little back from my Mom except the full extent of what he did in his service. Told her it was classified & he was sworn not to discuss. He told her about teaching the celestial navigation & also said he'd been oversees on several occasions (not deployed), told her there was more that he couldn't tell her.

    Whatever it was that he did and would not discuss may not have been any big deal, but classified even in a minor sense, was held in much higher regard back then vs today.
    Back in his day they would prosecute to the full extent of the law if someone divulged classified info. “Loose lips sink ships” was a saying for a reason. Today many would spill their guts if it satisfied any personal desire or agenda. I believe the original link trainer was a classified system as well as mission planning for specific targets (celestial nav into Japan). A generation with integrity...and then there is the average citizen today.

    “In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” - CS Lewis
     
    These guys may be able to help you on your records search. https://www.longtermcarelink.net/ref_list_state_county_veterans_service_officers.htm If you have already contacted your Representative I would suggest you wait to get in contact with the county service officer until the Reps. search is completed. One of the main parts of a CSOs job is record requests.

    Some 201 files are restricted access and others were not kept in the normal depositories.

    Looking at the time lines and your father's description of targeting re: Japan brings to mind the A-bomb missions. They took place about six months prior to his first separation. The flight to the targets was in the dead of night over ocean probably with radio silence. There were six or seven aircraft involved in each mission. Here is a link that provides a time-line and crew member names as well as some names that were not normal aircrew or even in the military. https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-bombing-timeline. A name might jog your Mom's memory. Keep in mind that anything nuke was the most closely held secret of the war.

    As to intelligence involvement probably not but you never know. It is perfectly possible that before his time in Pakistan he was contacted or after his time there he was contacted and debriefed if he chose to accept the offer. It was a common practice.
     
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    Thanks to all that replied. I gained a much better incite to what he did thanks to you guys. I'll be pursuing a few of the suggestions in here.
    Dad with my half sister (26 years older then me). She was born while he was away for the war.
    IMG_5492.jpg