Military, Civilian, Aircraft, Ship, & Unit Research Sites

Sites To Help You Find Out Information About Specific People or Units

Finding the Right Research Source

These are some of the main web sites that contain official government records online where you can research military or civilian personnel, ship, unit and aircraft records.

These sources either provide addresses where you must write to obtain information, some allow you to fill out online forms, and a few have online search that display the actual information of individual people, ships, aircraft losses online.

Some sites also provide summary data of information in their specialty topic (loss by day, month, campaign, personnel strengths etc).

This is not an exhaustive list.

• National Archives & Records Administration General purpose site for storing information of and about the USA. May or may not have anything that you are looking for. You have to do an online search and see if it does.
  Request records of deceased military personnel. National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) owns the files but now you can request online via NARA.
  POW records from WWII can be located at: http://aad.archives.gov/aad/
  (For all Nation Records Archive side archives.gov you then use the dropdown selection boxes to choose at this page .)
  US Enlistment records - WW II 1938-1946 Search page http://aad.archives.gov/aad/
• WWII Burial Sites US Army Carlisle Barracks list of burial sites. The upper level area, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usamhi/finding_aids.htm contains a index to other good sources for unit histories, Army Post histories and bibliographies.
• National Cemetery Administration under the Veterans Administration runs the US Military Cemeteries. They know about who is buried in the US states, and other governed United States lands. They have a specific page for grave location at http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1
• American Battle Monuments Commission - lists the names, rank, unit, and grave location of all US personnel buried overseas.
• Arlington Cenetary.NET - a private site that concentrates on Arlington National Cemetary. Better organized than the offical government site.
• Merchant Marine Deaths WWII Lists names of all those who died at Sea, or as POW and where. Also statistics on ships built, sunk and other data.
• Stalag Luft 1 Luftwaffe POW camp information
• Army Air Forces Statistical Digest, Carlise Barracks Mostly lots of numbers concerning number of items produced, damaged, destroyed overall and in different combat theatres plus numbers of people per military specialty by region. No detailed information on people.
• Air Force Historical Research Agency Have details on some air crew losses but not organized in a manner to make it easy to find them. Lots of good studies on air crews, training, operations etc.
• National Records Center. Go here to request specific information (general public type info) on US military personnel. Provide them with Name, Rank, Unit, dates of service etc during the request.
  National Personnel Records Center
  Attn.: Air Force Reference Branch
  9700 Page Blvd.
  St. Louis MO 63132
• MACR Missing Aircrew Combat Report This is the page to go to when researching aircraft lost in combat. MACR #, Tail number, date of loss or Group (squadron) are four ways to search for information.
• MACR information can also be obtained giving the name of the person lost in combat (helps to also list the unit the person was in) by writing to:
  National Archives and Records Administration
  Attn.: Textual Reference Branch
  8601 Adelphi Road
  College Park MD 20740-6001
• If you think a person was KIA or MIA to confirm you can write to:
  U.S. Total Army Personnel Command
  TAPC-PED-F
  2461 Eisenhower Ave., Room 984, Hoffman Bldg 1
  Alexandria VA 22331
• Allied Aircraft crash sites in the Netherlands (Holland) . Download the app which then queries the online database. Jan Nieuwenhuis runs this as part of the museum on Texel Island.
• Military Aircraft Loss Reports they state accident reports so not sure if they also have WWII data. This site charges you to get the aircraft loss report.
• Florida Aircraft Accidents in WWII specific site. Robert Widner maintains a site which details all accidents that occured during WW II in the Florida Military district.
• US Military Casualty Information (1980 to current)
• American World War Two Orphans Network (AWON) Started in 1991 for all who lost a parent as a result of WWII. Open to all, you do not have to have lost a relative to join.
• US Civil War Ressearch. This site contains URLs and instructions on finding out about Civil War Veterans. Easier to reference a speciality site that has done the work than repeat it here.
• The Nafziger Collection Designed for war gamers but has OOB - Order of Battle - information that will help in researching battles and units involved
• QuarterMasters Foundation (Non Government). Good history about Grave Registration units of the USA.
• British Graves Commission. aka Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Has detailed records of every British and Commonwealth soldier killed and where they are buried from WWI onwards. Unlike the USA, whose next of kin could request the return of the body after the war was over, British soldiers are buried and remained buried where they were killed - at least through the 1950s. Not sure if they are returned now or not.
• British National Archives Good online database plus links to enable searches of other archives.
• British War Records research of military personnel in all eras.
• War Experience Personal arhcives saved and organized by Peter H. Liddle in the UK.
• Station X The codebreaks of Bletchley Park
• SOE Women Spies recruited and trained by Special Operations Executive during World War Two
• National German Military Grave Registration Service (this site is in German) - Handles correspondence for Wehrmacht personnel KIA. This organization maintains a database of more than 2 million names of missing and dead German soldiers from both World Wars. You can search this database online or write to them for assistance. Notes for searching: Nachname=surname; Vorname=first name; supplying a date of birth or death is optional. Click on "Suche beginnen" to start your search. You then must register with your name and address to continue the search. On the registration form, the following items are required: Vorname (first name), Nachname (last name), Straße / Nr. (Street & Number), Land/Plz/Ort (Country/Postal or Zip Code/City). Then click on "Zur Ergebniseite" to continue. On the next screen click "Suchanfrage ausführen."
  Would be the best place to start on web.
  
  Via letter:
  DEUTSCHE DIENSTSTELLE (WAST)
  EICHBORNDAMM 179
  13403 BERLIN
  PHONE: 0 30 4 19 04 290 (MON - FRI, 0900 - 1400)
  FAX: 41 90 41 00
  
• German Military Archives (In German) lists books and POC to write to on these pages. Easier to reference these pages than to duplicate them.
•   Bayern (ehemaliges Königreich) [Bavaria (former Kingdom)]
•   Preußen (ehemaliges Königreich) [Prussia (former Kingdom)]
•   Sachsen (ehemaliges Königreich) [Saxonia (former Kingdom)]
•   Württemberg (ehemaliges Königreich) [Wurtemberg (former Kingdom)]
•   Deutsches Reich (since 1918) / Deutschland
• Kriegs Marine Operations Encyclopedia of ships and operations during World War II.
  
• Biographical Sources for Poland- Victims of War. Contains the reference number of books that in turn list names, dates of people killed in the camps in Poland. Also lists of cemeteries in Poland.
• Polish Air Force Association
  Fundacja Stowarzyszenia Lotników Polskich
  Mr Aleksander Maisner - President
  238-246 King Street
  London W6 0RF
  tel: 020 8846 9487
• Polish Army in France (WW I) Haller's Army Index
  Haller's Army Index Database Search
  Description of the Army
  About the Records Index
  How to obtain copies of the records once an entry is found in the index
  About the PGSA Library Research Policy
• Polish Military Records
  WW II
  Wojskowy Institut Historyczny
  00-910 Warszawa- Rembertow
  Poland

• The Austrian State Archives (War) Has references to books that it has that contains real information, and you can visit in person to look at, but nothing online that I could see.
• Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum Not much there, very recently came online. In Pittsburg, Pa.
• Israeli Weapons Covering all types they have used since 1948. (In their initial war of Independance they have Bf 109s escorting to B-17s defending against Egyptian Spitfires. They never lost a B-17 nor a 109.)

General Research

Institute for Operations Research Has published items relating to WWII. Specifically: Operations Analysis in the Eighth Air Force, 1942-1945: Four Contemporary Accounts ISBN:1-877640-05-0

The history of "Taps".