Understanding WWII Army Service Numbers (2023)

FAQs

What is the format for military service numbers? ›

The following formats were used to denote U.S. military service numbers: 12-345-678: United States Army enlisted service numbers and United States Air Force enlisted service numbers. 123-45-67: United States Navy enlisted service numbers. 1234-567: United States Coast Guard enlisted service numbers.

Yes. You can request your military records in any of these ways: Mail or fax a Request Pertaining to Military Records (Standard Form SF 180) to the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC).

All the records and documentation for the Army Serial Number File are available online through the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) at www.archives.gov. You can access the Army Serial Number Merged File from the AAD homepage at: http://aad.archives.gov/aad/.

Finding A Military Unit

Many can be easily found with Internet research. From there you can contact the person in charge of the group to get further detailed information. This is the best way to get in contact with the soldiers who served with this person.

If you served in the US military after 1974, your military service number would likely be your Social Security number (SSN). You need your ID number to request copies of your military records, including your DD 214.

Service numbers and social security numbers are used at National Personnel Records Center (Military Personnel Records) as part of the identifiers used to store and locate records. Social Security Number (SSN). Always include the veteran's social security number on a request. Service Number (SN).

Soldiers who have two Army serial numbers are often soldiers who had served as both enlisted man and officer. At least in the WW2-era, enlisted men had a distinct series of serial numbers; officers had a different series of numbers.

A typical use of the NATO Phonetic Alphabet would be to spell out each letter in a word over the phone by saying, for example: "S as in Sierra" (or "S for Sierra"), "E as in Echo, Y as in Yankee, F as in Foxtrot, R as in Romeo, I as in India, E as in Echo, D as in Delta" to communicate the spelling of the name " ...

The United States military uses four formats for standard military correspondence: Abbreviated Format 1- or 2-digit day, 3-letter abbreviation for the month, and 2-digit abbreviated year (e.g. 4 Feb 23); Standard Format 1- or 2-digit day, the spelled out month, and 4-digit year (e.g. 4 February 2023); and for ...

Squads and platoons are usually numbered (1, 2, 3, etc), companies go by alphabetic letters, battalions, battalions, brigades, and divisions are numbered, corps are also numbered, but use roman numerals (I, II, III, V, XVIII, etc).

How do I find my father's ww2 service records? ›

If you are a veteran or next-of-kin of a deceased veteran, you may now use vetrecs.archives.gov to order a copy of your military records. For all others, your request is best made using a Standard Form 180. It includes complete instructions for preparing and submitting requests.

Start your records request online for recent military service. Print and fill out a Form SF 180. Mail it to the appropriate address on the form. Write a letter to request records, following the directions and using the address under number 2 on this web page.

Free access to the collection is available at the FamilySearch Library U.S. Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945. It lists name, state, rank, service, plot, and burial date.

Generally there is no charge for basic military personnel and medical record information provided to veterans, next of kin and authorized representatives from Federal (non-archival) records. Some companies advertise DD Form 214 research services and will charge a fee for obtaining copies.

Verification of Military Service

Please use the Defense Manpower Data Center's (DMDC) Military Verification service to verify if someone is in the military. The website will tell you if the person is currently serving in the military. The site is available 24-hours a day.

This World War II (WWII) database lists the names of individual veterans from all branches of the US military including Army, Army Air Corps, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marines.

To search for military records via the DMDC, a person needs to submit an individual's name, social security number as well as status-as-of-date. From there, the DMDC will search for records for this individual within 367 days prior to the given date.

There is no database that you can search to find an active-duty U.S. military member or retiree. But you may be able to contact them through their branch of service.

If the photograph you are seeking still exists, it will most likely be found in the individual's Official Military Personnel File. However, there is no guarantee the photograph will be present. We suggest that you request a copy of his Official Military Personnel File (OMPF).

Your father's service number should be listed in his Official Military Personnel File (OMPF). OMPFs and individual medical reports for those who served in the U.S. Armed Forces and who were separated from the service prior to 1955 are in the custody of NARA's National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis.

Did soldiers have numbers in ww2? ›

The United States Army would continue to use serial numbers through World War II, Korea, and the Vietnam Wars. Some numbers would be issued for very specific groups. The eight million series from 8,000,000-8,999,999 were issued to female enlisted personnel from 1948-1969.

After 1974, the DOD began using Social Security numbers instead of service numbers. This muddies up the searching process a bit for military personnel, because a military service number is a public information, while a Social Security number is private.

A Soldier's sequence number will be included on the selection list. The pre-position list will have everyone who went before the board. If there is a sequence number beside the Soldier's name, the Soldier was selected for promotion.

Service numbers were eventually phased out completely by the social security number; the Army and Air Force converted to social security numbers on 1 July 1969, the Navy and Marine Corps on 1 January 1972, and the Coast Guard on 1 October 1974.

Corporal (E-4)

The rank of corporal was established in 1775 with the birth of the Army and the NCO Corps.

1. The first principle of any defense acquisition must be the welfare of the warfighter, more than the program's future, although it isn't always so. by John T.

The first letter refers to the specific state of origin i.e. A number beginning with “SX” meant that the soldier was from South Australia….. VX from Victoria and NX from New South Wales etc. In the First World War; Service Numbers were allocated to men within their respective Battalions or Regiments.

The Army, which is the oldest branch of the U.S military, is also the service branch with the most personnel. In 2021, there were 482,416 active members in the U.S. Army. California is home to the most active duty members within the U.S., with 157,639 stationed personnel in 2021.

Of course, theft is officially forbidden in the military. 13. What does Tango Mike mean? Answer: It means “thank you,” or specifically, “thanks much.” In 1955, many military organizations, including NATO and the U.S. military, adopted a phonetic alphabet to aid in correctly transmitting messages.

“Lima Charlie” is representative of the letters “L” and “C” in the NATO alphabet, which when used together in military parlance stands for “Loud and Clear”.

How do you say thank you in military code? ›

Bravo Zulu: Good job/well done. November Golf: No go/fail. Tango Mike: Thanks much. Tango Yankee: Thank you.

Military Time: What You Need to Know

The first two digits represent the hour and the last two digits represent the minutes.

In US military messages and communications (e.g., on maps showing troop movements) the format is DD HHMM (SS) Z MON YY. Although occasionally seen with spaces, it can also be written as a single string of characters. Three different formats can be found: DDHHMMSSZmmmYY - Full time (used for software timestamps)

Since military time and regular time use minutes in exactly the same way, no conversion is required. Thus, 0001 military time translates to 12:01 a.m. or one minute past midnight regular time.

There were 5 types of divisions: infantry, mountain, armored, airborne, and cavalry. 91 divisions were mobilized during the war: 68 infantry divisions, 1 mountain division, 16 armored divisions, 5 airborne divisions, and 2 cavalry divisions.

Three or four squads make up a platoon, which has 20 to 50 soldiers and is commanded by a lieutenant. Two or more platoons make up a company, which has 100 to 250 soldiers and is commanded by a captain or a major.

After World War II, the same shrinkage happened in personnel and formations. Formations were not kept because of their numerical sequence, so division numbers skipped around. Since then, many brigades, especially in the Army National Guard took on the history of a division for a brigade sized element.

The official Dog Tag required the following information: Name, Service Number, Date of Tetanus Inoculation, Blood Type, Person to Notify, Religion.

Enigma was a cipher device used by Nazi Germany's military command to encode strategic messages before and during World War II.

Surname. First name. Service number (E.g., 11111/00/00B, where the first five digits are the ID, the second two are the year the soldier turned 18 years old, the last two digits are the year the soldier enlisted, and the letter is the enlistment group, either A or B) Blood Group.

What does T43 mean on dog tag? ›

• T43 Tetanus Shot and Year.

2 Serial #, Tetanus dates (T41), Blood type. 3. 4. 5 RELIGION (P,C,H) Notes: From 1941 to 1943, the name and address of the next-of-kin was on lines 3-5 with religion abbreviation at end.

Today's identification tags identify vital information about the wearer: name, Social Security number, blood type and religious preference. During World War II there were only three religious categories that could be put on dog tags: P for Protestant, C for Catholic and H for Hebrew (Jewish).

During the nearly month-long battle for Iwo Jima, for example, six Navajo Code Talker Marines successfully transmitted more than 800 messages without error. Marine leadership noted after the battle that the Code Talkers were critical to the victory at Iwo Jima. At the end of the war, the Navajo Code remained unbroken.

Navajo Code Talkers also grew, from 29 in 1942 to over 400 by the end of WWII in 1945. Navajo Code was only used in the Pacific War. Japanese tried to break the code, but were unsuccessful. USMC tell us that Navajo Code was the only military code, in modern history, never broken by an enemy.

During World War II, Germany believed that its secret codes for radio messages were indecipherable to the Allies. However, the meticulous work of code breakers based at Britain's Bletchley Park cracked the secrets of German wartime communication, and played a crucial role in the final defeat of Germany.

If you served in the US military after 1974, your military service number would likely be your Social Security number (SSN). You need your ID number to request copies of your military records, including your DD 214.

Known as the “locating notch” in military manuals, the notch helped medical personnel properly seat the dog tag into the imprinter. The Model 70 allowed medical or mortuary affairs personnel to transfer a soldier's personal information on the dog tag and imprint it directly onto medical documents.

The Armed Services have no provisions for replacement of dog tags after someone has left the military. There are many private companies that sell custom made, replica dog tags. You can find these companies through an internet search engine or through military/veterans magazines.

Black Dog Tags are used by Special Operations forces such as the Army Rangers, Navy Seals, Green Berets, Commandos, and Delta Force. Black Dog Tags were mandated by a regulation on January 15, 1967 of the United States Army, Vietnam (USARV).