Greenland in WWII (Background)

As part of researching my father’s WWII military service, I have been doing a lot of reading about Greenland, especially its WWII history. Greenland was the site of amazing stories of the US Coast Guard, the Sledge Patrol and weather observers who were isolated for months on end. There are stories of heroism, survival and loss.

Greenland has a strategic location in the North Atlantic. It was a advantageous stopping point for aircraft traveling between North America and Europe, and could provide a prime location for a sub refueling base. It is also where the weather for Europe originates, making weather observations there critical for operations in the North Atlantic and Europe. Ivigtut (now Ivittuut) also had the largest commercial cryolite mine in the world. Cryolite was used in making aluminum for building aircraft.

Greenland has had an interesting history of settlement and colonization. Greenland was under Norway’s control until the Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway joined together in 1380. In 1821, the Kingdoms separated and Greenland remained as a Danish colony under the Treaty of Kiel. In 1931, Norway made a claim to Eastern Greenland, which the Permanent Court of International Justice decided against in 1933.

The Nazis occupied Denmark on 9 April 1940 and exactly a year later, the US-Greenland Defense Agreement was signed with the Danish Minister in Washington DC. Even though the US had not yet entered WWII, the protection of Greenland was necessary under the Monroe Doctrine. That same day the agreement was signed, the US Marines and a surveyor party landed ashore. In July and August of 1941, US ships arrived in the fjords.

Prior to the Nazi invasion, Denmark had sent two years of supplies to Greenland. After the occupation of Denmark, 200,000 Greenlanders had to rely upon America for food and supplies. The US and Canada both provided supplies to Greenland, and both established Consulates there. During WWII, Greenland became self-governing, fueling a greater democracy for itself.

As strategically important as Greenland was to the Allies, it was just as important to deny it to the Nazis. That’s where my father and the 500th Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion entered the story. They traveled in secrecy mere months after the disastrous sinking of the troopship USS Dorchester by a U-boat, notable for the heroic actions of the “Four Chaplains.” The AAA Battery to which he was assigned was stationed at the main US base at Narsarssuak (now Narsarsuak), which was the home of the Air Forces base codenamed BW-1 (Bluie-West 1).

WWI Classification Lists Part 2: What’s in Them

Classification Lists show the results of the examination of the draftees, as well as where they were to be sent. Classification Lists are the Provost Marshal General’s Office (PMGO) Form 1000, that are found in NARA’s Record Group 163, the Records of the Selective Service System (World War I). As of this blog post being published, the Classification Lists at NARA are not available online.

The sections shown in each column header of the Classification List refer to the applicable instructions in the SELECTIVE SERVICE REGULATIONS, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1917. Although these regulations are not needed to use the Classification List, but they can be found at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Selective_service_regulations_prescribed/6lB8dUkQtYIC?hl=en. Part X (ten) of this document contains blank forms.

Left-hand page of the ledger appears below.

The order number 2 is abbreviated, and is really 1792.

Right-hand page of the ledger shown is below:

0Going through a few highlights of the document.

The serial number shown in Column 4 (787) matches the one shown on the draft registration card.

The order number is shown in Column 1. It was the number in the national lottery for the draft assigned to that serial number.

The questionnaire to Joseph McMahon was mailed out on 2 Jan 1918, and was returned on 3 Jan 1918. (My reading suggests that these questionnaires no longer exist.) The notice of his physical exam of Class IA was mailed out on 29 Jan 1918. The notice to appear for a physical examination was mailed on 30 Mar 1918. He appeared for the exam on 1 Apr 1918, and the decision based on physical examination was mailed on 4 Apr 1918. He was told to report to his Local Board on 28 May 1918, at 8 a.m., for military duty and entrain for transportation to a mobilization camp. He was accepted at the mobilization camp on 30 May 1918. In the notes, were notes that may correspond to the fact that he was a Clerk in civilian life, he was inducted under General Call #385 and would be going to Camp Wadsworth. From columns without entries, I learned that he had not filed an appeal. He was not rejected or discharged at the mobilization camp.

After the Classification Examination, the registrant received a notice of their classification by mail. Note that they could file an appeal, and that would be recorded in the Classification List.

The registrants also received proof of their classification.

Thanks to Classification Lists, I now know what my grandfather was doing during several days of his life: filling in the questionnaire, going through a military medical physical, being notified of his date and place of induction, and his acceptance at the mobilization camp (and the fact that he was not rejected or discharged from there).

Since transcribing a document can make you engage with its data, you can download a blank Excel worksheet to transcribe the record for your soldier. After adding the data, remember to save the file and include your soldier’s name in the filename.

Special thanks to Peggy Ash and Michael Strauss for their informative, detailed, and motivating presentations about the US Drafts.

WWI Classification Lists Part 1: How to Order

Thanks to Classification Lists, I now know about events during several days in my grandfather’s life.

Why you might want this record: to learn more about the process between an ancestor’s registration for the draft and induction, which might include indication that an appeal or deferment was made.

What you need to know before ordering: the draftee’s name and local draft board identification number, which can be found on the WWI Draft Registration Card for your ancestor.

Groups of men who registered for the draft and were determined to be in the Classification I category (based on filling in a questionnaire), were called in for physical examinations.

Classification Lists show the results of the examination of the draftees, as well as where they were to be sent. These lists are found in NARA’s RG163, and as of this blog post being published, the Classification Lists at NARA are not online.

I searched FamilySearch.org for Joseph McMahon’s WWI Draft Registration Card at https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/1968530

The identification code for Joseph McMahon’s local draft board is circled. This number is used by the NARA archivist to identify the book for the Classification List containing Joseph McMahon’s entry.

Courtesy of FamilySearch.org

I emailed this information with an attached image of his draft card to the NARA branch in Atlanta at: atlanta.archives@nara.gov

An automated response was sent to my email in reply. Shortly after that, a response from an archivist followed with confirmation that the record had been found, and how to pay for it. The cost was $20. The scanned record was emailed to me after the archivist confirmed the payment.

Human archivists are involved in the process of lookup, scanning, and communicating. That means the timeline for responses may vary based on archivists’ workload. Also know that payment must be verified before the record is emailed.

In the next blog post, we will take a look at the Classification List itself.

Special thanks to Peggy Ash and Michael Strauss for their informative, detailed, and motivating presentations about the US Drafts.

WWII Orders of Battle

Since my father’s personnel file burned at the NPRC leaving nothing behind, learning about a military organizations is important so that I can reconstruct his service using organizational records.

The Ike Skelton Combined Arms Research Library (CARL) digital library is home to an important collection for beginning research into military organizations. This massive collection was donated by George Nafziger to the Library. The Nafziger Collection of Orders of Battle contains detailed information about military organizations spanning from 1600 to 1945¸all of which can be downloaded from the website.

The Nafziger Collection of Orders of Battle is available at: https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15040coll6

The finding aid can be downloaded from by clicking on the link to its page, or from: https://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p4013coll11/id/1277/rec/1

To locate information about WWII, I clicked on the button

This brought me to a search page for the collection that already had the “World War II” filter selected.

There were many results to browse, so in the search bar, I entered the terms: 500th AAA

The results narrowed down to a small number of relevant documents. The first result was the one I wanted, “American antiaircraft artillery, barrage balloon and coast artillery battalions, 1941-1945.”

I clicked on the result and was brought to a page where I could view, download and print the document.

I downloaded this PDF file, and copied the source information into a document where I keep links and annotations about what I locate.

The document is a long table, listing information about all these WWII Battalions.

The first page contains the column headers (slightly misaligned):

Page 5 is the Battalion I am interested in:

What does this mean:

The 500th AAA Gun Battalion (Semimobile) was raised (began on) 20 January 1943. It was disbanded on 20 September 1944.

What to do with this information:

This information about this organization becomes part of the timeline of my father’s service. It will also be combined with information gathered from other sources.

When reconstructing records of my father’s service, this is key information for looking for military organizational records. This will help to unlock the data found in the Morning Reports. Since the Battalion was disbanded in September 1944, I will have to look to those Morning Reports for that month to find out what happened to the men of the organization after that. My father was still in Greenland until November 1944.

Combining this date information with my other reading, it may be that my father was in this Gun Battalion at Camp Davis, NC.

An interesting point is that the 500th AAA Gun Bn was redesignated (renamed) from the 500th CA Bn in June 1944. The redesignation was noted in the Morning Reports. This previous name was not reflected in the list, but combining the date with the older designation will help me locate the appropriate Morning Reports.

Reference from the Department of Veterans Affairs

The Department of Veterans Affairs offers a useful and interesting resource that can be downloaded. It is titled “America’s Wars.”

As the title suggests, it contains a list of US Wars, as well as the years of the conflict. It goes beyond the dates to include the number of service members who were involved and the number of battle deaths. For most wars the number of non-mortal woundings is also reported along with other statistics. Notes that document estimated values are included.

The second page of the reference includes dates of death for the last veteran, the last widow and the last dependent of earlier wars. The U.S. Veterans and Dependents on the VA Benefits Rolls as of 2023 is included. There is also predicted estimates of the number of living WWII veterans until 2039. This is a reminder to interview those who are still among us!

This is a reference you will want to download https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/factsheets/fs_americas_wars.pdf

More WWII Morning Reports using the NARA Catalog

While hunting for the rest of the Morning Reports for Battery A, 500th AAA Gun Battalion, I located a different format of the original roll, that offered a different option for downloading. (You can read how I searched for and download the Morning Reports of the 500th AAA Gun Battalion for September 1943’s at WWII Morning Reports using the NARA Catalog).

The interesting thing about these Morning Reports is that June and July for the same organization were filmed sequentially. This makes me curious if the reason may be related to the redesignation of the Battalion on 8 June, when the Coastal Artillery (CA) Battalions were redesignated Antiaircraft Artillery (AAA) Gun Battalions.

There was another surprise in store: these records could be downloaded in PDF files containing chunks of the Roll. (That means you do not have to download these one-page-at-a-time!)

I searched the NARA Catalog at: https://catalog.archives.gov using the keywords: 500th AAA Gun

I have been going through the results to determine if they relate to the Battalion that I am researching.

This took me to Image 1 (of 640). Not the links next to the thumbnails.

The links on the right side are navigation to the results.

I clicked on the link for Image # 643.

Even though my browser was not loading the PDF file, this page was different than others I had found. It had an option to download the PDF file.

Image # 644 looked familiar to me, based on the Morning Reports I had viewed for this organization. It was a page indicating the previous name of the organization before it had been redesignated.  

The above image is the thumbnail view of the image below.

Of course, I downloaded the PDF file.

The filename was one of the 30 listed below the image, 85713825_1940-01-thru-1943-07_Roll-0711-04.pdf

Rather than have to download each image separately, the downloaded file contained the Morning Reports for June (beginning on 8 June) and July 1943 for Battery C, Battery D and the Medical Detachment of the 500th AAA Gun Bn.

The pdf files present the Morning Reports in chronological order, rather than the way the images are presented counting down (in the order they were photographed on the original roll).

Since this filename with -04 on the end suggested it might the 4th piece of Roll 711 (4 of 4), I took a chance and downloaded the file with -03 on the end.

Page 5 of the pdf had my answer! This file contained the Headquarters Battery of the 500th AAA Gun Bn

Both of these PDF files contained 125 images, so I know that when I locate these downloadable files in future, I will probably have to locate the rest of the organization by checking the files before or after the one that I am viewing.

Although I am not yet sure what triggers the conversion of individual images to being grouped together into PDF files for an organization, I will continue to look for these records and ask questions.  

Minor update: I have located with two links Morning Reports for the 500th AAA Gun Battalion for June and July 1943, with each link leading to a page with a different type of file to download. One link is for downloading individual TIFF file downloads of each page, the other is for downloading PDF files.

The link for downloading individual pages as TIFF files: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/426883037?objectPage=550

The link for downloading PDF files: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/426886040?objectPage=561