As a reminder, I search from the main catalog page at https://catalog.archives.gov/ so that I can benefit from the links to the search terms in the results. To see if more Morning Report are available I search for terms such as: “Morning Reports” AND “October 1944”
This time there were results! I kept searching, and Morning Reports up to December 1944 are available. (Search terms: “Morning Reports” AND “December 1944”) I did check for any from 1945, there were no results (yet!).
Of course, I did search for my father, by name and by serial number. This time I did find a mention of him. My brother was the first to know of this find, grateful that this was not a middle-of-the-night call!
For tonight, I will share that SGT James C. McMahon appeared in a Morning Report for 13 October 1944, still in Narsarssuak, Greenland. July 1944 had left me with a cliffhanger, and this record provided data about two military organizations with which he served after the 500th AAA Gun Battalion left Greenland.
I will post about my continuing research as I use Morning Reports to reconstruct my father’s WWII service. From here, I will be busy moving forward and backward in time to track what was happening in Greenland.
Thank you to NARA! Good luck searching, and let me know how you do!
Recently I had the pleasure of presenting at, and attending, the North Carolina Genealogical Society Fall Conference 2025. The Conference was very well planned and organized at a wonderful venue with great food. As much as I appreciate the reach of virtual presentations to give presentations at many places far from where I am based, it was nice to be with a group of genealogists, learning and chatting.
At the Conference, I presented sessions about Military Research and Artificial Intelligence (AI). When speaking about military research, I always customize my presentation to include finding military records for the location of the audience. North Carolina has great resources, both in person and online!
With a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, I am always reaching deep into the technology of AI to learn its inner workings, and to then share an understanding of how it works and how to use it. As a graduate school professor in cybersecurity, and having tested computer code used on military aircraft for years, I also have a perspective about what we should be concerned about and what can go wrong.
What was also fantastic about the Conference was that people could attend the lectures virtually. The NCGS members and technical staff streamed the presentations and recorded them for attendees to watch later. I knew everything was working when questions from online viewers came during the lectures and insightful questions via email were waiting when I returned to my hotel.
Even though my research in North Carolina is limited to a few months during WWII at Camp Davis, I did attend J. Mark Lowe’s presentation, “Creating North Carolina Local and Regional Locality Guides.” (Mark’s smile is even bigger in person!) The presentation definitely had information that I will carry forward to the places where I do research. I will never look at detailed maps the same way again.
I attended another terrific presentation about using DNA to solve maternal surnames by Kate Penney Howard. Jon Smith’s workshop about using AI for creating locality guides certainly shifted my mindset from the free form text I have been using, and his tips about using Gemini in Chrome tabs were game changers. Thankfully the presentations were recorded so that I can enjoy Diane L. Richard’s presentation about Researching Your Ancestors as Kids. (Diane and I share an educational experience: Go RPI Engineers!)
The beginning-to-intermediate artificial intelligence presentation I gave on the first morning may have provided a warm-up for Steve Little’s intermediate artificial intelligence presentation. It is always interesting to see how other genealogists are using AI tools, and how its use is gaining acceptance. Promise to keep checking your output and stay sensitive to privacy concerns!
Thank you to everyone who planned and worked on making the 2025 North Carolina Genealogical Society Annual Conference such a great experience, to the audience members who shared their time with me, and all the other instructors and attendees for a rewarding and fun time!
I am excited to be invited to present in person and online!
On Friday, I will be presenting Ancestors, AI, and Prompt Engineering.
On Saturday, I will be presenting a Crash Course in Researching Ancestors in the US Military.
There are great speakers, and great talks, Friday and Saturday. There is also an optional Beginner Day on Thursday, featuring four lectures just for beginners!
Have you every heard that you should be using Morning Reports?
A book has finally arrived to show how you can travel back in time through locations and events, day by day, with a U.S. Army soldier or organization during WWI or WWII military service. With Morning Reports, you can overcome and potentially go beyond burned Army personnel files! Pursue references for a specific soldier, then leverage daily records when not named or identified.
This book introduces techniques for locating Morning Reports and what is and is not included. WWI and WWII formats are described in detail, with examples allowing the reader to experience the WWII Morning Report language and abbreviations by utilizing the web, Fold3 (WWI) and the NARA catalog (WWII). The reader will discover tips for locating elusive reports and strategies for working around missing records. Useful case studies combine reports across parts of a military organization and place a soldier into the context of history.
This book contains a bonus chapter about the daily reporting for other branches of the military!
Historians will find the search techniques and pointers to additional records useful as they track a soldier or organization through a world war.
If you are interested in having Dr. McMahon speak at your society about Morning Reports, or other presentations, please contact us: https://aweekofgenealogy.com/contact-us/
Remember that it is best to use a browser other than Firefox to see the image pages in order. If you choose to download the PDF file, know that it is over 1GB in size. You might want to read it online and download only the pages of interest.
Greetings from Camp Davis: The History of a WWII Army Base, now in its 2nd Edition, is described by the author as a general history of Camp Davis. It hits the mark. Although the Camp’s operational history only spans a short time, its story is large. Its contribution to the Army and its impact on the local area was immense. The effort to build such a large base quickly on property that had no infrastructure echoed the ambitions of the United States Army to expand from 9 antiaircraft regiments in 1939 to a goal of having 46 regiments by 1942.
Mr. Tyndall takes us on a well-researched tour through Camp Davis from its inception, through WWII, to its last occupants after training activities ceased. To take this guided tour, I recommend reading the book from cover to cover. After a timeline of the Camp, travel with the author to observe how the location was chosen, constructed and operated. You will learn how the sleepy hamlet of Holly Ridge, North Carolina, emerged to become the premier Antiarcraft Artillery (AAA) Training Center for basic and unit training, and about its associated AAA School courses. As the tour progresses through time, you will view Camp Davis from various aspects in different parts of the book. Continue along to walk through the details of the daily lives of the personnel at the Camp, and even those who visited it. A scrapbook of images from the activities and times at the Camp are collected in an engaging appendix.
Those interested in the local history of Wilmington, North Carolina, as well as readers of World War II history will enjoy this book. This book is also incredibly valuable to those who had ancestors who were stationed, trained, or employed at Camp Davis. Mr. Tyndall’s tour is as close as we can get to visiting Camp Davis in WWII.
The book is also of value to those interested in the roots of today’s Air Defense Artillery (ADA). For a brief time starting in 1941, Camp Davis was home to the three branches of the Coast Artillery: seacoast, anti-aircraft, and barrage balloons. From the perspective of one Army base, readers can follow when and how the Coastal Artillery, tasked with the mission of protecting our shores, gave rise to the antiaircraft artillery that accomplished both anti-aircraft and ground support functions.
My favorite chapter may be Chapter 3, about Training and Organization. This chapter explained what happened to the new recruits as they arrived. It described their daily routine and the technical aspects of the equipment the AAA trainees would master. The technical descriptions certainly help us to understand the duties and challenges that these soldiers would face during their operational assignments. As in the other chapters, the personal reflections of those who were at the Camp are also included along with the results of extensive research. Appendix D holds a summary of the AAA weapons’ specifications. In this way, I was able to learn more about my father’s time in training. Knowing that my father was trained at Camp Davis, the appendix listing the units trained there will be useful when combined with Morning Reports from his next organization, for insight into when he moved to Camp Stewart.
Through the other chapters I also learned about what the buildings and food were like at the Camp, and how the lack of transportation and the isolation of the location made recreational facilities so important. For a young man from Brooklyn, New York, such as my father, this had to be a significant adjustment.
Stories about the roles of women and racial integration at Camp Davis hinted at future changes to the military. As expected during that time, there were racially segregated training, barracks, and entertainment facilities; what was unexpected were examples of some fully integrated training and billeting at the Officer Candidate School (OCS) and at certain specialty AAA courses. The groundwork for women’s future roles in military service was paved at Camp Davis. In August 1943, some of the first women who were WAACs (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps) became female soldiers of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs). The Women’s Air Service Pilots (WASPs) learned how to fly tow targets at the Camp, then supported the AAA training.
Your tour of Camp Davis through time finishes in the current day, showing the few remnants of the disassembled Camp that still remain after its deconstruction and the surplusing of everything in it.
The 2024 Addendum includes additional research done since the book’s first edition. Among the topics are more about the construction and labor unrest, the Camp’s post exchange and its Newspapers. We also learn that at least one of the ten female officers (WACs) who were trained in antiaircraft artillery techniques was stationed at Camp Davis.
The book represents Mr. Tyndall’s passion and commitment to telling the story of Camp Davis. The personal stories he gathered through extensive oral interviews add an additional dimension to his wide-ranging research to uncover details of Camp Davis’ story. The chapter notes document the plethora of sources used, and when combined with the selected bibliography, may inspire your own research.
Books such as this make me grateful for the rise of independent publishing, so that valuable information can get into the hands of interested readers.
The 2nd edition of Greetings from Camp Davis is available at local museums and bookstores in Southeast North Carolina and via the author’s book website: www.greetingsfromcampdavis.com. A Kindle version of the 2nd edition is planned for some time in the future.
Note: A review copy of the book was provided by the publisher.
