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Online Access to Military Data
By Nancy J.
Melley, Electronic and Special Media Records Services Division, NARA
Access
to Archival Databases (AAD)
In its ongoing effort to make records available,
the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has launched Access
to Archival Databases (AAD), a new research tool that makes a selection of
electronic records available to the public over the Internet. The AAD
System gives online access to electronic records that are highly structured,
such as in databases. The series selected for AAD identify specific persons,
geographic areas, organizations, or dates. AAD allows you to search for and
retrieve specific records from selected series and data files. To access
the site go to www.archives.gov and click on AAD on the pull-down menu under
“Where is . . .? How do I . . .?
As is true in the holdings of the National
Archives generally, a little over half of the series in AAD concern the
military and there are plans to add more military-related series in the
coming months. The military-related files currently available on AAD cover
World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In addition, some of the
files relate to contracts and assistance programs of the Department of
Defense.
World War II
From World War II, AAD has three series
available, two of which are military-related. The World War II Prisoners of
War File, 1942-1947, contains records that identify World War II military
officers and soldiers and U.S. and some allied civilians who were prisoners
of war (POWs) and internees. The Records of Duty Location for Naval
Intelligence Personnel File contains information
about military intelligence personnel attached to Naval Group China during
World War II. There are multiple records for individual naval officers and
sailors indicating changes in their location inside and outside of China,
rank or rate of pay, and unit over time. The Japanese-American Internee
File has records with personal descriptive data about Japanese-Americans who
were evacuated from the states of Washington, Oregon and California to ten
relocation centers operated by the War Relocation Authority from 1942 to
1946.
Korean
War
From the Korean War, AAD has four series about
personnel available. The first of these is the Repatriated Korean Conflict
Prisoners of War File, which contains information about 4,447 former
prisoners of war from the Korean War; there is one record per repatriated
individual. The Korean War File of American Prisoners of War, 1950-1953,
identifies an undetermined range of U.S. military officers and soldiers who
were casualties as Prisoners of War during the Korean War. The Korean
Conflict Casualty File contains selected descriptive data about U.S.
military personnel from all services who died by hostile means, i.e., battle
deaths, died from wounds, died while captured, died while missing in action
as a result of combat duty in the Korean War. Finally, there is the Korean
War Casualty File, which contains information about U.S. Army officers and
soldiers who were casualties in the Korean War. According to the variable
“casualty type,” 27,727 records are for Army personnel who died, including
while a prisoner of war or missing in action. The remaining 82,248 records
are for nonfatal Army casualties.
Vietnam War
From the Vietnam War, AAD has both personnel and
operational series available for searching. The personnel data includes the
Data File from the Casualty Information System, which contains records with
information about U.S. Army personnel and their dependents who died or were
injured anywhere in the world from 1961 to 1981, and the Combat Area
Casualties Database, which provides information on U.S. military personnel
from all services who died as a result of either a hostile or non-hostile
occurrence or who were missing in action or prisoners of war in the
Southeast Asian combat area during the Vietnam War. AAD also contains a
donated file, the Unit Information for Vietnam Casualties Database whose
records provide unit and other organizational
information on U.S. military officers and soldiers who died as a result of
either a hostile occurrence, including while missing in action or while
prisoner of war, or non-hostile occurrence in the Southeast Asian combat
area during the Vietnamese Conflict.
The operational files from the Vietnam era in
AAD include the Naval Bombardment File, which has information from the
United States Navy Seventh Fleet about combat incidents of hostile fire
directed at United States and Australian warships patrolling North and South
Vietnamese waters from October 1966 to April 1970. The Situation Report
Army Files contain records of ground combat operations in Southeast Asia
during the Vietnam War. A record from these files may contain information
on a specific combat operation, or it may contain a weekly summary of
information on the combatants and the loss of personnel and military
supplies resulting from combat operations. Files from the Combat Operations
Losses and Expenditures Data contain information about the use and loss of
military supplies, such as ammunition and equipment, by unit and by type of
activity during the Vietnam War – specifically from July 1967 through June
1970. Finally, the Southeast Asia Database of Air Sorties contains records
on air combat missions flown in Southeast Asia by the United States Air
Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps; South Vietnam Air Force; Royal Laotian
Air Force, Korean Air Force; and Royal Australian Air Force during the
Vietnam War from January 1970 through June 1975.
Military Spending
Files in AAD related to military spending
include the International Balance of Payment Files, which contain data on
U.S. direct defense spending and U.S. military receipts in foreign countries
from July 1959 through September 1985. The Military Prime Contracts Files
document individual prime contracts with a value of $10,000 or more between
private sector and the military services and agencies for the Department of
Defense awarded from July 1965 through June 1975, and the Files from the
Defense Contract Action Data System describe the contracts for goods and
services between the private sector and the military services and agencies
of the Department of Defense. There is a record for each contract with
information derived from Department of Defense (DD) Form 350, the Individual
Contracting Action Report, from July 1975 through September 2000.
Additionally, there is the Military Assistance Program Database, which
provides information about deliveries of material or services for
participating countries. Materials include both arms transfer and the sale
or transfer of military supplies, and services include military education of
individuals from other countries both in the United States and abroad.
Other
Records
Finally, there are two military-related series
that do not fall into any of the categories discussed so far. The first is
the Index to the Intelligence Reports on Seized Grenada Documents, which is
an index to Intelligence Reports (IRs) that have analyses of documents
captured by the United States Army and Marine Corps during the October 1983
invasion of Grenada, as well as an index to the microfilmed documents
themselves. The second is the Index to the
Gorgas Hospital Mortuary Death Records, which contains records of 26,213
U.S. military soldiers and officers, employees of the Panama Canal
Commission and its predecessors, and Canal Zone civilians processed through
the Gorgas Hospital Mortuary between 1906 and 1991. There is one record for
each person processed through the Mortuary.
A Search
Now that I’ve told you all about the
military-related series currently in AAD, I’d like to walk through a search;
I have a cousin, Paul, who died in Vietnam. If I wanted to find more
information about Paul, the first step is to visit the AAD homepage at:
<http://www.archives.gov/aad/index.html> and read the material linked to
“Getting Started.” The next step is to go back to the AAD homepage and
click on the orange “Search” button on the AAD homepage. This will bring me
to the “Select a Series/File Unit” page. I then select a series for
searching by using a subject term like “Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975,”
which is in the drop down list of possible subjects (the fourth in the
optional ways to select a series). This will display a list of electronic
records series that relate to the subject term “Vietnamese Conflict,
1961-1975.” Since I do not remember which branch my cousin served in but am
sure that he died while serving in Vietnam, I will choose to search the
“Combat Area Casualties Current File,” one of the series in the Combat Area
Casualties Database, since it contains records from all four branches of
service. I then select this series by clicking on the “Select” button by
the series title. I conduct a search using the pre-selected fields, by
entering my cousin’s last name. If I had a criterion to search on that was
not one of the pre-selected fields such as home town of record, I could
customize my search by clicking the “Customize Search” link and following
the instructions. The results of my query are displayed on a “Search
Results” page. I can download the results of my search by using the
"Download Search Results" link at the top of the “Search Results” page. Or
I can view my cousin’s record with the coded values interpreted by checking
the "Select Record" box to the left of his record and click on the "Show
Selected Records" button. I can print his record from this page, using the
printer friendly option.
Looking at the results, I discover that Paul was
a Marine, therefore I will not search the Data File from the Casualty
Information System, since it contains records for only Army personnel and
dependents. However, I might be able to get some unit information for him
from the Unit Information for Vietnam Casualties Database, so I’ll go back
to the list of electronic records series that relate to the subject term
“Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975” and start a new search.
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