- Army Serial Number Vietnam
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- Army Serial Number Generator
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Army Serial Number Vietnam
Single Action Army & Bisley Revolvers (Pre-War) Single Action Army, Buntline & New Frontier SAA (Post-War) Colt Double Action Revolvers top. 1877 Lightning 1878 Frontier 1889 Navy 1892, 94, 95, 96, 1901, 03, New Army & Navy Models 1905 Marine Corps Army Special & Officer's Model Bankers Special Camp Perry Model Cobra, Aircrewman, Courier & Agent. Online World War II Indexes and Records - USA A Genealogy Guide Online World War II Indexes and Records - USA. World War II Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File This database contains records of aboout 9 million men and women who enlisted in the United States Army, including the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC, later WAC). Although incomplete, the records contain data for a majority of.
Army Service Number
Gerald Ridenour, an Aviation Cadet in the U.S. Army Air Force, died in World War II. He was just shy of his 21st birthday. When my mom showed me his grave at Highland Cemetery in Perry County, Ohio, I knew I had to find out more about him.
Army Serial Numbers After the the United States Army Air Force was split off from the US Army and became a separate service, the United States Air Force on September 18, 1947, both the Army and the Air Force continued to use the same set of serial numbers for their aircraft. Army aircraft serials were seamlessly intermixed with Air Force. Fielded Search. File unit: Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (Enlistment Records) in the Series: World War II Army Enlistment Records, created 6/1/2002 - 9/30/2002, documenting the period ca. 1938 - 1946 - Record Group 64 This series does not contain records of all World War II Army.
The Casualty List
I found him listed on the WWII Army and Army Air Force Casualty List on Fold3. The information includes name, serial number, rank, and something pertaining to the death.
From World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing: State of Ohio. Online at Fold3 (titled WWII Army and Army Air Force Casualty List).
It was when I looked for the meaning of “DNB” (Died Non-Battle) that I discovered there is meaning in the serial number, also referred to as a service number.
The U.S. Army began issuing serial numbers to help avoid mixing the records of people with the same name. (A genealogist’s dream come true!) When we dig a little deeper into the number itself, we can learn a bit about the person.
Some prefixes were used in World War I. However, the following system began shortly before World War II. The first character gives us a lot of information.
- 1 = Enlisted in the Army (in other words, volunteered rather than drafted)
- 2 = Federally recognized National Guard
- 3 = Drafted
- 4 = Drafted
- O (that’s the letter O, not a zero) = Male commissioned officers
- W = Male Warrant officers
- T = Flight officers (Army Air Force)
- L = Commissioned officers of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC)
- V = WAC Warrant officers
- A = WAC enlisted women
- R = Hospital dietitians
- M = Physical therapy aides
Army Serial Number Generator
- Gerald Ridenour enlisted
- Arthur Porter was in a federally recognized National Guard unit
- Robert Pratt and Wilfred Ratliff were drafted
- William Petruzzi was a commissioned officer. (We also knew that from him being listed as a 2 Lt. But if his rank hadn’t been listed, we would have discovered he was a commissioned officer based on his serial number.
Army Serial Number Search Vietnam
When you have an 8-digit serial number, the second number shows the Service Command. This narrows down where the person enlisted or was drafted. If you have a serial number for a member of the WAC, look at the number after the letter prefix. There’s an exception. Remember those serial numbers that begin with “2,” showing National Guard service? You need to look at the 3rd digit. (The second digit for those will always be a zero. You knew there’d be some exception, didn’t you.)
- 1 = Connecticut Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont
- 2 = Delaware, New Jersey, New York
- 3 = Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia
- 4 = Alabama, Florida, Georgia Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee
- 5 = Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia
- 6 = Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin
- 7 = Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming
- 8 = Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas
- 9 = Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington
- 0 = When the first number is 3, the zero means he was drafted outside the U.S. (301 indicates Panama; 302 indicates Puerto Rico)
Since the second digit of Gerald Ridenour’s serial number is 5, we now know that he enlisted from either Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, or West Virginia. The same for where Robert Pratt and William Ratliff were drafted. Arthur Porter, from the National Guard, also enlisted from one of those four states, since the third Windows 7 free iso installer downloads. number of his serial number is 5.
A Note About Twins
According to the introduction to the World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing:
“Serial numbers are assigned with great care and according to a set of regulations. Consecutive serial numbers, for example, are not assigned to twins since this might cause confusion of identity between two persons with the same birth date and same general physical characteristics.”
- Jennifer Holik, Stories from the World War II Battlefield: Reconstructing Army, Air Corps, and National Guard Service (Vol. 1), (Generations, 2015). Jennifer has put together a tremendous resource for researching members of the Army, Air Corps and National Guard from WWII. [NOTE: This is an Amazon affiliate link.]
- “US Army WWII Dog Tags” by Alain Batens on World War II Living History & Reenacting Information has great info about different styles of WWII dog tags and how to decipher them.
- The US Army Serial Number Generator at Hero Files will generate an accurate WWII-era Army serial number based on the criteria you enter. Useful for authors and reenactors.
- War Department, World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing: State of Ohio, (Washington, DC: by the War Dept., June 1946), p. ii. Available on Fold3.
- “Service number (United States Army)” on Wikipedia.
- “US Army WWII Dog Tags” by Alain Batens on World War II Living History & Reenacting Information.