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 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.
WWII Morning Reports up to 1943 are now available on the NARA website and can be located through the NARA Catalog. (More Morning Reports are being added, as I have located ones for 1944, too.) For those wishing to research WWI Morning Reports, I recommend using them on Fold3.
Why search for the Morning Reports?
These organizational records can tell us where all the assigned soldiers were on a specific day, and the activities being done. They tell us when and how soldiers moved from place to place. They show when there were promotions, sick for duty and when they were sent to the hospital. They also show if soldiers were assigned to other organizations for temporary duty, or when they were permanently transferred to another organization. At a minimum, a soldier’s name will appear upon transferring in and transferring out of an organization. Memos may also be tucked into these reports.
For those of us whose Army ancestors’ personnel files burned in the fire in 1973, without leaving enough to be restored through technical means, these records are a key part of the reconstruction process.
Why search for them now?
In this blog post, I will describe how to search for the Morning Reports and download them. The process is not as easy as searching through fully indexed records, which will definitely come soon.
Given that fully indexed records will be easier to search, the question becomes whether or not to wait. For me, there have been some research questions that I have been wanting to answer, and these records hold many of those answers.
Know before you search
Currently Morning Reports up to 1943 (with at least some beyond that date) are available to view and download through the NARA Catalog. That means if the military organization was not formed until after the last year that was loaded to the catalog, you will not find the records. It also means that if your soldier joined an organization after the last year currently in the catalog, you will not see them in the records.
The WWII Morning Reports were filmed by month, then organization. That means you will have to hunt down the group of Morning Reports month-by-month.
The images were filmed in reverse chronological order. As you see the image number increase, you will see dates in reverse order, and the names of organization backward. For example, I was searching for Batteries within a Gun Battalion, so Btry D will appear before Btry A. When the download the files, you will see the number in the filename decreases.
There is a SPACER image separating reports between organizations, so look for them at the start and end of the month.
Searching for a name
This approach is not recommended. Searching the NARA Catalog can be awkward, and when I did try to search for a name the search results gave no feedback to help identify if a result would be of use to me. Searching these records by name will evolve over time, possibly on another existing genealogical website.
Searching by military organization
This blog post will focus on searching for the military organization for a soldier.
The search box on the page contains the text “Search within this Series.” This box is where you type your search terms.
Searching option: I found it easier to search the whole catalog. Of course, the effectiveness of this technique will depend on the keywords that are used. You can try it both ways and see which way works better for you! I searched from: https://catalog.archives.gov
I scrolled through the results to scout out what was available.
Since I did not review the result for the Red Wings in 1999, I cannot be sure what how the search terms 500th and AAA connected with the record. Perhaps the result included words about a 500th game or goal, and AAA Hockey teams. Most results seemed more relevant to my goal of finding promising Morning Reports.
NOTE: YOU HAVE TO CLICK ON THE SEARCH RESULTS to see the links to the results within the set of images where the search terms are located. (You cannot open in new tab and to see the images with the search results (the organization)! If you were to click to open in a new tab, you would be taken to the first image on the roll, with no navigational clues to get to the morning reports of the organization.
I thought that September 1943 would be interesting, as it was the first full month that the 500th AAA Gun Battalion was stationed in Greenland.
Clicking on this result takes you to the first image on the roll, which is most likely NOT what you are looking for. See the list of links to the search results located on the right.
Since we know that these rolls were filmed backwards, we know that Image 249 is the last image of the Battalion for September 1943. Click on the link: Image # 249.
Image #249 is the last page of September Morning Reports for all of the 500th AAA Bn CAC. It is the last page of the Medical Detachment’s September Morning Reports (Med Det 500th AAA Bn CAC), which is the report for 30 September 1943. Below is a close up of the top of the report.
Keep looking at the Organization field to get to the battery, company or other organization you are seeking.
From the page with the image, you can view and download the image to your computer. The Download button is on the lower left of the document viewing window.
You can also click on Extracted Text to open a window with text that has been extracted from the image, and can be copied. Although a few errors may be present, the quality of recognizing the typewritten characters is good.
I left the Extracted Text window open as I viewed image by image, going backward in the days of September 1943 so that I could collect the text. (I am keeping an Excel Spreadsheet with the image numbers, links and other data.)
At the bottom of the image viewing window, I used the Next button to see the previous Morning Report.
Since I went through the images sequentially, they began with the end of the Medical Detachment and ended with the beginning of the Headquarters and Headquarters Battery. The very last image was the beginning (because they were filmed backward), rewarding me with confirmation of what I knew about the 500th AAA [Gun] Bn parent and its sub units:
VARIATIONS ON SEARCH TERMS:
I did try a variety of search terms, experimenting with spelling out words, using more of the organization’s name, and the specific battery. Some of the results were for other battalions numbered in the 500’s (e.g. 502, 506). Definitely try different combinations of names and abbreviations when searching for military organizations.
What’s next for me
Downloading more of the 500th AAA Gun Battalion’s Morning Reports, searching both backward and forward to learn of their reorganizations. Of course, I will search for when my Father transferred in and out of the organizations to follow his history throughout his time in service.
I will also be trying to see if it might be more straightforward to search for the organization’s Morning Reports other ways.
WWII Military Research can have challenges for many reasons. Of course, the fire at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) may have burned an army ancestor’s file. Unlike WWI records. Not many of the WWII records are online. This means a little more work is required in identifying which records will help and then traveling to the repositories.
We had known that my father was stationed in Greenland as a soldier during WWII, and that he traveled to Greenland by ship. He spoke very little about WWII, but that was some of the very little that he had shared.
His Report of Separation contains the date that he departed the Continental United States, in Box 36.
Date of Departure: 1 Aug 43
Destination: Greenland
Unlike the WWI ship manifests, the WWII ship manifests are not digitized and indexed. That means to use them you have to take a trip to NARA II in College Park, MD. The problem is that these records are stored by ship name, so you need to know the name of the ship to find the manifest. (In contrast, we can search using a soldier’s name to locate the ship manifests without knowing the ship names upon which our WWI ancestors traveled.)
Timelines are one of my favorite tools in genealogy. Of course, I have been busy building a timeline and gathering information in a binder dedicated to researching my father’s WWII experience. Without the ships’ names, there was some missing data in that timeline.
Having that timeline, I had explored this book for candidate ships carrying him to and from Greenland. I had identified potential ships and eliminated many.
The one clue that has been taking me places was a single sheet of paper found in my father’s personal belongings. It commemorated his crossing of the Arctic Circle. This certificate included his name, superior officers’ signatures, and the latitude of the Arctic Circle. Being concerned with operational security during wartime, this certificate had a blank line for the ship name as well as for the longitude where they crossed the circle. The day of August in 1943 was also blank. But there was one clue, his military organization: Btry ‘A’ 500 AAA Gun Bn
Morning Reports are a wonderful resource. Several years ago, I brought my research team with me to NARA St. Louis to view and copy the Morning Reports for the 51st Pioneer Infantry Regiment, in which my grandfather served in WWI. The WWI Morning Reports are now online, which makes them very convenient to gather and use. However, the WWII Morning Reports have not been digitized and require a visit or the use of a retrieval service.
Here, at last, was information about my father’s outgoing trip. On 1 August 1943, Battery (Btry) A of the 500th Antiaircraft Artillery (AAA) Battalion (Bn) of the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps (CAC) was onboard the SS Yarmouth.
Now, I could learn more about the USAT Yarmouth from Engineer Charles’ book.
At this point, it was time to slow down and record the collection of evidence that I had. One of the best ways to understand something is to undertake explaining it to others, so I created a document to share with my brother. This document contains the facts I know, so that they can be summarized in a research plan.
We remembered mentions of the outgoing convoy, and now I can investigate them. I will contact NARA to see if I can arrange to view the Yarmouth’s manifests, and perhaps consider looking at the deck logs. Both should be located at College Park, MD.
Genealogists know to look for all available sources of information when doing their reasonably exhaustive search. We also know to list the resources when creating reports and proof documents.
But how do we know what we don’t know?
The best way is to keep learning. Keep reading, seek out publications about topics of interest, attend webinars and learn from other genealogists.
A great place to look for source material is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Without knowing what sources are available, searching using the catalog is daunting. With that in mind, this blog post contains some resources from NARA to learn more about a topic you are researching. The topics are discussed from the perspective of records that NARA holds, and they could help identify sources to help solve your genealogical problem.
NARA offers Reference Information Paper (RIP) with illustrated descriptions of specific topics. The descriptions show what can be found in several different NARA record groups (RG).
The RIPs that have been digitized and are online will show a link to view web version of the document. If there is a pdf icon displayed at the end of the link, that means that the RIP is available for download.
The RIPs that have no link associated with their description are unavailable. These appear to be those containing dated material.
NARA staff have also authored Research Reports, these are now called Reference Reports. Some are not up-to-date, and do not necessarily reflect everything that is now available online. They can provide good explanations and good ideas for what records might be available.
The Mount Vernon Genealogical Society Inc offers a page about NARA Research Reports. A good place to start would be with the Reference Reports Table. This document contains information about the status of Research Reports, as well as links to where they or similar information might be found. Links to these can be found at: https://www.mvgenealogy.org/fileDownload.php?sid=16
Recently I attended The Army Historical Foundation’s Genealogy Seminar at the National Museum of the United States Army. The Museum is located at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. You can read about that seminar in Army Historical Foundation’s Genealogy Seminar.
After the presentations, I had a little time to go through the Museum exhibits. As you might expect from my books and blogs posts, I headed to the first floor to look for the exhibits about WWI and WWII. With the Museum closing soon, I glanced around the Nation Overseas Gallery, which was about WWI. There is so little about the Pioneer Infantry Regiments in museums, and I was thinking this would be no exception. Then my husband pointed out the image of a soldier from the 2nd Pioneer Infantry Regiment. The photo showed Alex L. Wingo, a wagoner who served with the Supply Company of the 2nd Pioneer Infantry, on the right. (Mules were also featured on this display!) It was exciting to see one of the Pioneers featured in such a prominent place, in such a prominent museum.
Then I looked at the next image and it was of a soldier from Company L of the 806th Pioneer Infantry Regiment, Theodore C. Banks, who received the French Croix de Guerre for gallantry.
As you can imagine, I was very excited to see the Pioneer Infantry Regiments represented.
A little bit of research about these soldiers yielded some additional information. Liner Alex Wingo was from Roebuck, SC., and muster rolls told more about his service. He enlisted on 25 May 1918, and on 8 July 1918 he was appointed a Wagoner in the Supply Company of the 2nd Pioneer Infantry Regiment. From US Army Transport Service records, confirmed by Find A Grave, his brother Wagoner Guy H. Wingo served in the same company. From a photo on Find A Grave, the man on the left in this picture appears to be his brother. He returned to the US with a casual company on 25 May 1919.
Corporal Theodore Christopher Banks was from Salina, KS, and served with Company H of the 806th Pioneer Infantry Regiment. (In the rosters there was a soldier of this name in Company H who served from Aug 1918 to Aug 1919. There was no soldier named Banks in the rosters for Company L.) He enlisted on 5 August 1918 and ended his service on 19 August 1919. He began his service as a Private, and was promoted to Private 1CL in October 1918. He was then promoted to Corporal in June 1919. (His VA Master Index Card shows his birth year in 1896, while other records show the year as 1903.)
Of course, I was so excited that the Pioneer Infantry Regiments were represented in the Nation Overseas Gallery, that when a Docent said hello, I shared that with him. Docent Jim was interested in what I had found, so as we walked over to the pictures, I shared a little bit about the Pioneers, and told him about the books I had written.
Personally, I always ask a docent questions if I have any. When I do not have a question, I ask these dedicated and trained people about the areas of the museum which coincide with my areas of interest. One of my favorite questions is to ask about the highlights, especially when there is little time.
So I asked Docent Jim about highlights of the WWII exhibits and he had the time to lead us through the Global War Gallery. He showed us some very interesting highlights and the stories behind some of the displayed equipment.
Without a doubt I must return to this Museum when I have more time to tour it properly. There are audio tours available, and while I might use them, I will always ask questions of the docents.
Thank you, Docent Jim.
And to thank you to the soldiers of the Pioneer Infantry Regiments for their service in the Great War.
A little bit of research about these soldiers yielded some additional information. Liner Alex Wingo was from Roebuck, SC., and muster rolls told more about his service. He enlisted on 25 May 1918, and on 8 July 1918 he was appointed a Wagoner in the Supply Company of the 2nd Pioneer Infantry Regiment. From the US ATS and FindAGrave, Wagoner Guy H. Wingo was his brother. From a photo on FindAGrave, the man on the left in this picture appears to be his brother. He returned to the US with a casual company on 25 May 1919. Corporal Theodore Christopher Banks was from Salina, KS, and served with Company H of the 806th Pioneer Infantry Regiment. (There was a soldier of this name in Company H who served from Aug 1918 to Aug 1919. There was no soldier named Banks in the rosters of Company L.) He enlisted on 5 August 1918 and ended his service on 19 August 1919. He began his service as a Private, and was promoted to Private 1CL in October 1918. He was promoted to Corporal in June 1919. (His VA Master Index Card shows his birth year in 1896, while other records show the year as 1903.)
On 11 May 2024 I attended The Army Historical Foundation’s Genealogy Seminar, hosted at the National Museum of the United States Army. The seminar was entitled “Unlock your military legacy.” There were attendees both in person and online, and I was able to attend in person.
The speaker lineup was impressive: Richard G. Sayre, COL (USA-Ret.), Pamela Boyer Sayre, and Rebecca Whitman Koford, CG, CGL. Many of you know Rick and Pam from their outstanding presentations. Among her many accomplishments and extensive service to the genealogical community, Rebecca currently works as Executive Director of the Board for Certification of Genealogists® and is the Director of the Genealogical Institute on Federal Records (Gen-Fed) which is held annually at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Rebecca began the seminar with an excellent presentation about “Records of the U.S. Army held by the National Archives and Records Administration.” Sharing her hands-on experience, she demonstrated the types of records and how and where to locate them. Demonstrations of how to use the NARA Catalog are always beneficial. She also shared examples with us of records she had found about her ancestors.
“Map Repositories in the Washington D.C. Area” was next, and in that presentation Rick discussed more than the repositories; he explained the history of mapping in the US. It is significant to know about the maps, including who created them and their purpose. He showed what was on the maps and their usefulness for using them in the context of an ancestor’s war experience. He shared so many great examples!
After a delightful lunch, and having been inspired by the two previous presentations, I was ready for the next presentation. Pam presented “Tracking an Eighteenth or Nineteenth Century Soldier.” She showed us how to time travel using Google Earth Pro. First she demonstrating what could be done, then she explained the steps in detail for how to use those features to document your military ancestor’s life in a visual and engaging format. Not only is this a great way to share information with non-genealogists, but this is also a great technique for immersion into the context of an ancestor’s service. This is something I had been considering, and using her approach will make the task straightforward and manageable.
The last presentation was by Rick and Pam, “Learning About a Twentieth Century Soldier.” This session presented resources and brief case studies about researching the service of twentieth-century soldiers at NARA facilities. Rick and Pam decided to focus on WWI, and a follow-up presentation for learning about WWII soldiers will be recorded and distributed to attendees at a later date. After the resources were discussed, a clear methodology was presented. Of course that methodology included the use of one of my favorite tools, timelines. Rick clearly described the homework that a researcher needs to do before contacting and visiting a NARA facility.
The presentations were very practical in nature. While it is great to find out about resources and how to use them in your research, it is also important to know where and how to find them. Being able to use them and share them is also incredibly valuable. The NARA Catalog can be awkward to navigate, so insights that the speakers shared were appreciated. There are always things to learn from such distinguished genealogists.
The final presentation held a couple of surprises for me. Two of my books were listed in the bibliography for the final presentation. Of course I was delighted to be included. The real surprise is that Rick and Pam showed a slide that contained the cover of my recent book, “Researching U.S. WWI Military Members, Military Organizations and Overseas Noncombatants: A Research Guide for Historians and Genealogists” I was happy for my book to receive a shout out. (They had no idea I would be in the audience!) I was even happier to see that the Pioneer Infantry Regiments were also mentioned in the presentation. If that was not enough, I was delighted when Rick asked me unexpectedly to say a few words about the Pioneer Infantry Regiments. What a privilege, and how great to see the Pioneers’ stories being told.
This all-star line-up held an informative seminar and disseminated actionable information! Thank you!
In the next blog post I share more about my visit to the Museum after the seminars concluded.
