Tales from Morning Reports: From Duty to Death

Although it was not directly about my father’s service in Greenland, I learned a lot about the place reading Greenland’s Icy Fury by Hansen, who was part of the Ice Cap Detachment stationed in Greenland during WWII. These brave few men battled the elements and topography to provide weather information to the Allied Forces about the north Atlantic and Europe. In the book there was a mention of a soldier taking his own life in Southern Greenland (p. 3). I wondered about the circumstances, how these isolated men might have come to have this knowledge, and if perhaps this might have been a story that changed as it was repeated until it reached them at a later time. I also wondered if this soldier had been in my father’s Battery (Battery A, 500th Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion).

Using the NARA Catalog, I searched for the Morning Reports of the 500th AAA Gun Battalion (shown in WWII Morning Reports using the NARA Catalog). Remember that when you traverse these records in ascending image order, you travel through them in reverse chronological order. In other words, as you go forward through images using the arrows next to the image number, you go backwards in time.

When I download Morning Reports, I typically download all of the Morning Reports for a whole military organization for each month, rather than just focusing on certain days or just when an ancestor’s name appears. There are common experiences within the units that may be expressed differently or in a different level of detail.

Going through the Morning Reports for the 500th Antiaircraft Artillery Gun Battalion, I located a report about the funeral service and burial of a soldier from Battery B. Battery B was stationed at Ivigtut [now Ivittuut], Greenland. Battery A, the battery to which my father was assigned, was stationed was stationed farther south in Narsarssuak [now Narsarsuaq]. Both are in the southwest of Greenland.

The story in Morning Report was very moving, describing the solemn ceremony that laid PFC Peter Golya Jr’s remains to rest in Greenland. The battery traveled to the the Green Valley Cemetery by barge for his funeral services for “Peter Golya Jr a well known and liked member of this organization.” The Green Valley Cemetery was listed as near Ivigtut in a finding aid for Cemetery Plat Maps in Record Group 92 (RG92) prepared by the American Graves Registration Service.

The next image sequentially was the Morning Report for the previous day, 25 September 1943, when not long after arriving in Greenland, PFC Peter Golya’s status had changed from duty to deceased.

I did more research into this soldier and found several records online with supplemental details. PFC Golya died as a result of a machine gun bullet perforating his head. He was 36 when he died. The hospital admission card recorded his death as being in the line of duty. In the hometown newspaper articles, his death was reported as accidental.  

The hometown local newspapers contained his obituary, accompanied by a photo, and the text of the telegram his mother received. The telegram contained the date of his death, and the fact that he died in the North American area. His obituary was titled: “Dupont Man Dies Serving His Country: Soldier Last Reported Stationed in Greenland Passed Away Sept 25. In Service 7 Months.”  When his remains were returned to the US, they arrived by train in 1947 escorted by a Staff Sergeant from the local area. Members the VFW Post, the American Legion, and Catholic War Vets met the train and escorted them to the fallen soldier’s father’s home. There was a military funeral, followed by a mass of requiem at his Catholic Church with the burial being in the parish cemetery.

As I located records, I added pieces of the story where I could. On FindaGrave.com I uploaded the Morning Report to the Memorial. I also created a subject page on Fold3 to collect the documents Fold3 had about him.

The records that were found pieced together a story of what happened to him and where. The Morning Reports were the only records containing details of the movement of the battery to bury him in Greenland. From the few words the reader learns about the soldier being well known and liked, and can imagine that cold barge ride, and march to the Green Valley Cemetery to bury a comrade who suffered an accidental death in the line of duty.

Resources that were located online (Note: some records can be found on multiple websites.)

NARA

• Access to Archival Databases (AAD)

Fold3

• US, WWII Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946
• US, WWII Draft Registration Cards, 1940
• US, WWII Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954
• US, Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945

FamilySearch

• Military • United States World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946

Ancestry.com

• U.S., Headstone Applications for Military Veterans, 1861-1985
• U.S., Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945
• U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947
• U.S., World War II Hospital Admission Card Files
• Pennsylvania, U.S., Veteran Compensation Application Files, WWII, 1950-1966

Findagrave

• A memorial for his burial in the United States

Google

• A finding aid for World War II Cemetery Plat Maps in Record Group 92 (RG92) prepared by the American Graves Registration Service listing the cemeteries in Greenland

Newspapers.com

• Hometown newspapers contained his obituary, and articles about the repatriation of his remains for funeral and burial in his hometown

American Battle Monuments Commission

I searched ABMC, but did not expect to find any record of his passing in this database, as there is no American Cemetery in Greenland. Through a FindaGrave.com search, I did find that his remains had been repatriated, and reinterred in the United States.

The WWII Hospital Admission Card Files are available on Ancestry.com and Fold 3. They contained only transcriptions of the Admission Cards, which including only summary data. Digging deeper into records from the hospital might not be helpful as it appears he died quickly after the injury.

A next step might be to look for his Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF). These records are separate from the personnel files that burned in the 1973 fire. As of writing this blog post, a small fraction of them are online at NARA, and PFC Golya’s is not among them. You can search at: https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/297287480?sort=title%3Aasc

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).

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

WWII Morning Reports using the NARA Catalog

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 website for NARA’s Morning Reports 1912-1946 can be found at: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/85713825

To begin your search, select the “Search within this Series” button, or go to https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/85713825

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.

Let me know how you do.