> Use Caution When Accessing Newly Available Army Records > > By SHARON TATE MOODY > Tribune correspondent > Published: March 23, 2008 > > Finally, the enlistment records of nearly 9 million men and women who were > in the U.S. Army during World War II can be accessed online.That's good > news > for researchers who have long been frustrated by privacy laws and loss of > records in a fire at the National Military Personnel Records Center in St. > Louis. > > The digital enlistment records include the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps > and > are available through the National Archive's Web site. They can be a rich > source of information, showing an enlistee's serial number, place of > birth, > race, marital status, civilian occupation, education level and more. > > We genealogists welcome access to as many records as possible. But, as > usual > we have to question what we get and accept information with caution. This > seems especially true with these files. > > According to the government, more than a third of the digital enlistment > files contain a scanning error. This is mostly because of problems when > microfilm copies were made years ago. > > The digital records are the second reformatting of the original files. > During World War II, the Army created the original records on IBM punch > cards for each enlistee. After the war, it transferred the punch-card > records onto microfilm and destroyed the cards. > But the scanning mechanism used to move information from punch cards to > microfilm was imprecise. It wasn't able to read various characters on the > cards and replaced any unreadable character with a blank space. It also > incorrectly converted other characters, introducing more mistakes. > > About 13 percent of the punch cards - 1.5 million - couldn't even be > scanned > So be prepared not to find whoever you're looking for, even though they > were World War II Army veterans. > > The electronic records were created from the microfilm by the National > Archives in 1994. This was to support the reconstruction of military files > lost in the 1973 fire at the records center in St. Louis. > > On the archives site, you'll see pound (or number) symbols (#) in the > digital enlistment files. The symbols are substitutes for the blank spaces > put into the microfilm copies by the faulty scanning mechanism. > > I did a quick field test of the digital files by looking for my > father-in-law's record. He served as a radio operator with the 305th > Bombardment Group in the 8th Air Force of the Army Air Corps, stationed in > Chelveston, England. Now 85, he was seriously injured on a mission over > Magdeburg, Germany, in 1945. > > Dad was able to quickly spot what we believed was a mistake. His > occupation > is shown as "mail carrier," which he gruffly told me wasn't right and > brushed it off. I later gently guided the conversation back to his > occupation when he enlisted and found he had been giving it some thought. > Before enlisting, he worked for the railroad as a messenger. If you think > about the broad categories the government often casts us, it makes sense > that a "messenger" became a "mail carrier." It is an excellent example of > how genealogists need to question their preconceived notions. Dad and I > both > assumed the government files incorrectly said he worked for the postal > service. > > Because many World War II veterans have passed on, it's not always > possible > to directly confirm whether an enlistment file is correct. It's up to us > as > genealogists - knowing there are mistakes in these records - to find other > ways to verify the information. > > To view the digital records, go to the National Archives' Access to > Archival > Database section at aad.archives.gov/aad. Remember these are files of Army > veterans; servicemen and women who were in the Navy and Marine Corps > during > World War II aren't included.