To find a Contact, to try to find someone who may have known your Vet, or to locate your Vet's unit's websites:

1)

go to the US Army's website and use their Alumni Search Form to try to locate a contact for the Group your Vet belonged to. Be sure to check out the Heavy Bombers Website's "Tips for Locating WWII Air Crew Members"!

2)

Try the Heavy Bombers Website and the Light and Medium Bombers Website to search for Bomber Groups and the Fighter Town Association to search for Fighter Groups, and try the links page at teh 43rd Bomb Group's website (accessible off the main page at the bottom lower left).

3)

If your Vet was affiliated with B-24s, post a message at the B-24 Veterans Internet Site, at http://www.mach3ww.com/B24/ . For B-24 Groups and most any kind of flying Group, try one of the14 different aircraft-specific Message Boards at this site: http://aviation-archive.com/Try a search using the International B-24 Registry Database at the Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum's website.

4)

Try these other sites that might help you out:
The American War Library

WWII US Veteran's Website
Military Reunions Website

5)

To find lost crewmates, be sure to use online directories and people finders, such as:
AnyWho
Yahoo People Search
White Pages

6)

Get creative with search engines (I recommend AltaVista): Use keywords in such a way as to cut down on unhelpful search returns and maximize returns that will help you out, for ex.:
Be specific in the keywords you search for:
search for 'united states army air force' instead of 'air force'
Type them in lower case:
try group instead of Group or GROUP
Try variations of the keywords:
try "bomb group" and "bombardment group" and "bomber group" and "bg"
Type phrases inside quotation marks"
"united states army air force"
Use the + sign to force the search engine to only return websites that contain that word or phrase:
if you want information about a unit but only want websites that talk about its missions, type:

+missions

along with the unit's name 

Use the - sign to force the search engine to only return websites that DON'T contain that word of phrase:
you want information about the war in the Pacific but don't want any that talk about the 90th Bomb Group:

+war +pacific -90th

To get military records:


Military units do NOT maintain service records; these go to the National Archives and Records Administration. Their general link is: http://www.nara.gov/; the URL for their military records is http://www.nara.gov/regional/stlouis.html. Full records are available only to the Vet himself or, if he is in heaven, to his wife, parents, & children for no fee. General records are available to anyone for a small fee. Note that TONS of WWII records were destroyed by fire, so you may be out of luck.

   At any rate, you will need a form called the SF180 to receive the desired records. You can obtain said form by:

  Writing to:

-Or-

Calling them at:

Department of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue
Washington DC 20402

1-800-827-1000


Fill out the form as completely as you can and mail to:

National Personnel Reords Center
Miltary Personnel Records
9700 Page Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63132-5100


Try calling here, too:

Records Information Lines
Air Force: (314) 538-4243
Army: (314) 538-4261


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