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Official Military Personnel Files

The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis maintains World War II Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF).

Access to Non-Archival Military Service Records is limited. Non-Archival records are those of service members who separated from the military less than 62 years ago. See Access to Non-Archival Records for more information. Records of individuals who left service more than 62 years ago are considered Archival Records and become records of the National Archives open to the general public.

Order records from the National Personnel Records Center, in St. Louis at the Start your Military Service Record Request page at the National Archives website.

Records Loss

On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. The affected record collections are described below.

NPRC, 1973 Fire:
Branch Personnel and Period Affected Estimated Loss
Army Personnel discharged November 1, 1912 to January 1, 1960 80%
Air Force Personnel discharged, September 25, 1947 to January 1, 1964
(with names alphabetically after Hubbard, James E.) 		75%

No duplicate copies of the records that were destroyed in the fire were maintained, nor was a microfilm copy ever produced. There were no indexes created prior to the fire. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred. Therefore, a complete listing of the records that were lost is not available. Nevertheless, NPRC uses many alternate sources in its efforts to reconstruct basic service information to respond to requests.

Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files

The "Cadet Nurse Corps Files, compiled 1943 - 1948, documenting the period 1942 - 1948" ARC ID: 5605027 contains membership cards of women who joined the Cadet Nurse Corps that were created during WWII.

Online

Related Records

References


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  • This page was last modified on 4 May 2012, at 09:56.
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