Researching US soldiers of the Great War

F

flasheart

Member
Chaps,

I have been asked by a friend in the USA how to go about researching American soldiers of the Great War; ie, is there a National Archives website where you can download service records etc?

If you want to research an Australian soldier you can log in to www.naa.gov.au, enter the solders name or service number and download a complete scanned copy of his service record, usually 20-50 scanned pages. You can also download embarkation roles showing what ship individual soldiers, units and even reinforcement drafts sailed out on.

Can anyone help with the US equivalent?

Mike
 
Hey Mike,
You are very lucky that your government thinks enough of their service men and women that they keep records of their service. In the 1970s, peace activists fire bombed the records facility, and many of the records were lost. But even sader, the government made no attempt to salvage the records that were slightly damaged, and the whole lot was taken to the land fill. There is a business in Utah that has copys of the draft records, but it is expensive to access them, and the information is limited to the service member's name, birthplace, occupation, citizenship,marrital status and race. It is nearly impossible to find any information on US service men, so it is very important to gather as much information from the family as possible.
Best wishes
Gus
 
the list's cover Individual's attestation paper's first 2 pages.
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/cef/index-e.html
The next site is unit war diaries , alittle hard to get used using .
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/archivianet/020152_e.html
 
Gustaf said:
//the government made no attempt to salvage the records that were slightly damaged//
Click to expand...
That's not entirely true.

My Dad's service records were partially destroyed by the fire, as evidenced by their incompleteness and the charred edges visible in the photostatic copies. He was an acting sergeant with the Third Division in Bamberg, Germany during the Pentomic era.

Nothing attempted, nothing gained.

Chas.
 
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