 Welcome, thank you for joining us. My name is Andrea Matney and we are here for the National Archives Know Your Records program. The goal of the Know Your Records program is to provide educational resources on how to access and do research using U.S. federal government records. Because we are broadcasting live from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, I have several instructions on how to participate in today's live broadcast. For those of you who are watching online during the live broadcast, you can submit questions by first logging into YouTube on this page. Once you've logged in, you can type in your questions or comments and we will ask those questions of the presenter at the end of his talk. So you will find that link or you can log in and you'll find three links on this web page as well. One will take you to the presentation slides, another to the captioning, and the third one to the event evaluation form. So today's program is Digitizing Records from Pearl Harbor by Eric Kilgore. Mr. Kilgore is a supervisory archive specialist at the National Archives in St. Louis. He has been with the agency since 2010 and currently serves as the research room supervisor for textual and microfilm records. Mr. Kilgore holds a BA and MA in history from the University of Missouri. Since 2015, he has worked with the National Park Service to digitize the records of the casualties at Pearl Harbor, beginning with the U.S.S. Arizona. It is with great pleasure that I would like to turn over the broadcast to Eric Kilgore. Thank you Andrea, thank you for inviting me to be part of the Know Your Records program at the National Archives and allowing me to speak about the partnership between the National Archives and the National Park Service to digitize the official military personnel files of those people who lost their life due to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7th, 1941. In preparation for this presentation, I was asked why or how I became interested in the U.S.S. Arizona or Pearl Harbor and it's an interesting story and it kind of highlights why outreach and programs like this are important. When I was probably about 11 years old, I went to the school book fair and they had these close down the freedoms books and I found one called the story of the U.S.S. Arizona by Arton Redstein. I still have the book but that was kind of like the rabbit hole for me. From that point on I had to read everything I could about Pearl Harbor in the U.S.S. Arizona and I was fortunate enough to be able to meet a young art ranger named Daniel Martillas who came in front of us for a model convention. He was from the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial and after speaking with him and spending some time with him, he went back to Hawaii and pretty much raided the bookshop, sent me books, souvenirs, all kinds of stuff. I still have all of that today. Him taking the time to do that is kind of what set me on this path. I went to school or in my degrees in history. Now I work at the National Archives so in 2015 when Ranger Dan who is now the chief historian of the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial Contact again to participate in this partnership with the National Park Survey. We digitized the crew records starting with the Arizona. I was most definitely surprised and excited to take part in this. So with that I'm going to switch over to my slides. As I stated this project began in 2015 with the immediate goal of reviewing digitizing the official military personnel files of the 1,177 sailors and Marines who perished aboard the U.S.S. Arizona on December 7th, 1941. Soon after the scope of the project expanded to eventually include all of the military casualties sustained on the island of Oahu from the Japanese attack. In 2016 I was honored to be invited by the National Park Service to attend the commemoration of the 74th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor as a representative of the National Archives. I attended ceremonies, spoke with surviving members of the Arizona's crew, gave lectures about our holdings using the official military personnel files to highlight individuals that had historical relevance to certain sites around the island. Most importantly on December 7, 2016 I attended the internment ceremony of John D. Anderson and Clarendon Hettrick U.S.S. Arizona survivors who had passed away in the preceding months. I was able to return this last December for the 78th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and attend another internment for an Arizona crew member who had passed away, Lauren Broomer. I was able to meet Lauren in 2016 at the 75th anniversary. I spent some time talking about his ship at a time on the Arizona and although Lauren didn't like talking about the events of December 7, he was always happy to talk about his ship, his crewmates, and the fond memories that he had prior to that day. So a little bit of background about the Arizona. She was a Pennsylvania class battleship commissioned in October of 1916. She was 608 feet long. For perspective if you're familiar with the Iowa class battleships like the USS Missouri, Arizona was about 280 feet shorter. However for a day she was an impressive hulk of a ship boasting four turrets of three 14-inch main guns, host of five-inch anti-aircraft guns along with an array of smaller caliber multi-aircraft defense weapons. Her displacement was 30,000 tons and in December of 1941 she had a crew of 1,512 men. Arizona was considered by many to be deprived of Pacific food and also served as the flagship of Battle for the Vision 1, which was commanded by Admiral Isaac C. Pid. Arizona was his ship. On the morning of December 7, 1941 at 7.55 a.m. the Japanese commenced their attack on Pearl Harbor. The general quarters alarm sounded aboard Arizona and almost immediately were going through his way in action. Admiral Kidd was on the bridge of the Arizona directing efforts to defend the ship and the harbor as Japanese planes strafed the food. Around 8.06 a.m. a second wave of high altitude bombers flying at around 10,000 feet relieved their bombs over Battleship Row. One armor-piercing bomb struck the Arizona between turrets one and two crashing through the decks before donating in the forward powder magazine. In that instant over a thousand of the Arizona's crew including Admiral Kidd and the ship's skipper captain Franklin Van Balkenburg perished. The heat from the explosion was so intense the only remnants recovered of these two men were Admiral Kidd's Naval Academy ring which was well with the armor steel bulkhead. The Captain Van Balkenburg's ring recovered from Navy divers on the navigation bridge. The crew of the Arizona fought valiantly to defend their ship, their home, and their country. Their terrifying and harrowing fight lasted all of 11 minutes. When the flames cleared and the wreckage of the Arizona settled into the floor of the harbor this was the human cost of the worst naval loss in U.S. history. 1,177 sailors and Marines that constituted almost 30 percent of the crew. Out of the 88 men on the Marine Detachment only 15 survived. A lot of people have heard these stats about the 38 sets of brothers, one set of quen, the father and son. It was a pretty horrific loss of life. Three years after the war ended the families of those lost on the Arizona as well as veteran organizations even Elvis Presley lobbied for the Navy to construct a memorial honoring those entombed in the hull of the Arizona. In 1962 that became a reality with the completion and dedication of the USS Arizona Memorial. The memorial which straddles the ship's hull contains a reflecting pool looking upon the depth of the Arizona and a shrine well constructed from Vermont marble inscribed with the names of the 1177 sailors and Marines who died as a result of the December 7th attack. Later additions were added like the one in the foreground of the photograph to display the names of 44 USS Arizona survivors who chose to have their cremated remains returned to the ship upon their passing. Like tombstones in a cemetery the elements are harsh and the shrine wall from time to time requires routine maintenance and replacement to maintain the beauty and dignity of the memorial. The wall was completely replaced in 1984 and again in 2015. Since the memorial's opening visiting family and friends have commented from time to time there were misspellings or incorrect rates of sailors or ranks of the Marines. National Park Service historians began to question what information was used for the inscription on the original wall and what group and a comparison of subsequent iterations revealed inconsistencies as well. In the lead up to the decision to replace the shrine wall in 2015 and in consideration of the discrepancies in the existing wall chief historian Daniel Martinez lobbied to conduct a review of all 1177 official military personnel files at the National Archives at St. Louis. The goals are simple. First verify that all of the spellings were correct using enlistment documents corroborated with other official documents or correspondence found in the OMPFs. Second ensure that the final rating or rank of the individual listed on the wall was correct. World War II Navy OMPFs are affectionately referred to often St. Louis as bricks either their stolen jacket resembling a red brick consists of two parts. The service booklet which followed the sailor and marine to which ever ship or duty station they were assigned to and the jacket which remained at the Bureau of Navigation which later became the Bureau of Naval Personnel in May of 1942. The idea being that as updates were transcribed into the service booklet a copy would be forwarded to the Bureau to be filed in that jacket. The reason for many of the inconsistencies in the ratings and ranks was due to the fact that at the time of the attack the ships clerks had not forwarded the most recent promotion or demotion documents to the Bureau of Navigation. Most of those records were lost when the ship exploded in the tank. Fortunately over 800 service booklets were recovered during the salvage operation in the weeks following the disaster. However until this project began these recovered service booklets remain sealed inside service records untouched. The Pearl Harbor Casualty Project would be the first comprehensive review of all of the official military personnel files of the Arizona crew ever conducted. This would include long overdue preservation treatment of the salvage service booklets finally making the information accessible. The records involved in this project as stated are the official military personnel files from Record Group 24, the Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel and Record Group 127 Records of the United States Marine Corps. However is the scope of this project expands to include Army personnel station at Hickam Army Airfield and Skowfield Barracks. Alternative sources will have to be consulted due to the destruction like the majority of the Army and Army Air Corps OMPFs in the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. While the project goals seem simple enough the National Park Service historians were not prepared for the trove of information contained in the official military personnel files. Besides the enlistment contracts and other administrative documents one would expect in Second Record they did not expect to find personal correspondence from families to their loved ones to the Department of the Navy and to the President in the United States. There were telegrams informing them that their sons, brothers and fathers were missing in action. These started to arrive within a couple weeks after the attack and one can only imagine the anxiety and anguish that these families experienced. Shortly thereafter the telegrams started arriving delivering the crutching news that many of them feared and sometimes felt as expressed in these letters began to arrive declaring that their loved one had lost his life on the surface of his country. It was clear at that point that the scope of the project had changed. The mission was no longer to simply gather data to ensure the accuracy of the names and rates etched into the wall but to use the documents contained in the records to resurrect the stories of the men who died so that they were more than just names on the wall. This partnership has the potential to change the way we remember Pearl Harbor and the way future generations learn about the men who died as a result of the attack. Through these records we remember the human cost and the personal stories that have faded with the passage of time. Although the examples that I'll share with you play along with a few of the 1177 men who died aboard the Arizona, they serve as a reminder that the legacy they left behind is much deeper than the names etched into that wall. Father and son Thomas and William Free served and died together aboard the USS Arizona. At the time of their deaths on December 7th, 1941, machine was making first class Thomas Augusta Free with 50 years old. He was an old salt by every definition of the term. His son William on the other hand was a fledgling seaman having been in the Navy for less than a year. However, the two months between the older Free's arrival in the Arizona and the day they died was probably the longest interrupted period of time they spent together in years. Thomas Free joined the Navy in 1917 at 26 years old while it would be easy for us to assume from his time in the Navy that he was merely an absentee father. The records reveal much more. Thomas Free divorced William's mother in 1929 at the onset of the Depression and while he was at the time he was awarded full custody at William and his younger sister, Mota. However, with the country in dire straits and work hard to come by, Thomas remained in the Navy and moved his children in with his sister. He sent money for their care every month. William, like most children, probably idolized his father as he approached the legal age he wanted to follow in his footsteps. William, Thomas Free was 16 years old, 11 months and 21 days when he pulled out his enlistment papers. And on this enlistment contract is you can also see the consent declaration and oath of parent or guardian. Since Thomas was a minor with a considered a minor enlistment of a minor age, he had to have a parent or guardian and sign a consent form, which his father Thomas did sign on December and December of 1940. On the second page, there's a note stating legal papers of divorce cited and transcribed by me custody of William Thomas Free awarded to father Thomas A. Free signed by H. A. Purcell recruiter. William attended basic training at the Naval Training Station in San Diego before getting his post assignment to U.S.S. Arizona. William reported on board the Arizona April 27, 1941. In this slide, you can see the re-enlistment contract of Thomas Free, who was 50 years old. In order to get state assigned to the Arizona with his son, he extended his enlistment for another four years and forfeited his ability to transfer to the reserves for at least two years. A few things that we can refer about Thomas Free that can be glinged from the details in this document was he was a sailor sailor. Over 20 years in the Navy and he was the machinist made post-class. The woman with this length of shoulders would most likely have made cheap machinists made at some point. He was not lacking in experience. Under the mark, et cetera section, which points out identifying attributes or physical characteristics, we see that Thomas had a tattoo dancing girl right forearm tattoo sailor girl and TA Free on the left lower arm tattoo eagle and shield on the right arm tattoo rose and mother left upper arm. Over occupation, he was Mariner and finally under next of kin, he lists his son William Thomas Free USS Arizona. Two months after re-enlisting, the document on the right shows that Thomas Augusta Free reported to the Arizona Arizona on October 10th, 1941. As mentioned earlier, slightly more than half of the service booklets of the Arizona crew were recovered during salvage operations. William Thomas Free was among them. On the left, you can see the simple envelope that the Navy placed the recovered service books into before filing him inside the service jacket. The note on the envelope reads, original service record salvaged off USS Arizona do not destroy. The thinner document is William's consent signed by Thomas and the service booklet is on the right. It's open for the page showing William's arrival aboard Arizona on April 27th, 1941 with Captain Van Valkenberg's type signature at the bottom. A few things stick out right away. The black specks are actually oil that had seeped into the storage area where these records were being kept. There's rust from steel paper clips and staples throughout, but most obvious are the burn marks on the paper. While these records were not exposed to direct flame, the intense heat of the fires that raged throughout the ship caused the echo fasteners to act as heat conductors sending the records. As these records were provided to the National Park Service, these service booklets were removed from the records, cataloged, and will eventually be digitized for safe keeping. They are now treated as artifacts. In the weeks following the attack on Pearl Harbor, thousands of American families received the gut-wrenching news that they had dreaded since December 7th. For mortal free, that day was especially hard. She received a telegram informing her that both her brother and father were missing in action in the performance of their duties. Shortly thereafter, on January 23rd, 1942, her fears were confirmed when she received another telegram stating that Thomas and William had been officially declared to have lost their lives in the service of their country as of December 7th, 1941. More family on the Arizona. Here we have the Arizona's only set of twins. This was John Delmar Anderson, his brother Delbert Jake Anderson, who went by Jake. Although they were twins, John joined the Navy first with Jake following soon after. Both brothers at the time of the attack held the weight of those who made second class. And John survived the attack, his brother Jake did not. The photographs shown are not from our holdings. They are both family photos. Not all of these records contain photographs, and it was common practice, which we found that during the war, the Navy, the Department of the Navy, would often send photographic negatives from the enlistment photos to the families of those who died in service. So a lot of times you find that survivors have photographs and people who died in action do not have photographs in their records. But while John did not die in service, for some reason at some point, the Navy microfeached his entire World War II Navy record and in the process must have disheartened his enlistment photo. John Delmar Anderson enlisted in the Navy ahead of his brother Jake on March 16, 1937 and attended basic training at U.S. Naval Training Station, Great Lakes, west outside of Chicago. And on July 24, 1937, John arrived at his new assignment, the USS Arizona. And as you can tell, these are a little bit harder to read because these are blowbacks from microfeach on John's records. In this slide, you can see Mike Anderson, he enlisted two months after John on May 18, 1937. He too attended basic training at U.S. Naval Training Station, Great Lakes. The photos of Jake above, he chose him straddling down the street, the first one was Treasure Island, San Francisco. Very well could have been around the time of the World Fair in 1939. The middle image shows the jacket of the container, that's what we've referred to as the brick, that's the outer container that holds the Navy World War II personnel documents. Although it serves as a container for the record contents, it's actually part of the record. There's a snapshot of Jake's naval service, including his known service member, his enlistment duty stations and rates. This portion was generally updated when there was a status change in rate or duty station. At the very bottom, you can see there's a handwritten note of missing, and then the familiar stamp of officially that is as of 12-7-1941, which appears on the records of Pearl Harbor casualties. On the right side is Jensen with the contract and the active duty Navy for a commitment of four years. The document on the left is kind of special, dated August 4, 1937. It's the official request from Jake that upon his graduation from basic training that he be assigned to the USS Arizona. He goes on to say that my reason for the request is that I desire to serve with my brother, John D. Anderson, Seaman Second Class, U.S. Navy, who is serving in that vessel. The officer in charge states that the above name man will be available for transfer on 15th of September, 1937. On that day, newly minted apprentice human, Delbert Jake Anderson, departed Naval Training Station Great Lakes and was received aboard the Arizona four days later on September 19th. Over the next four years, both John and Jake thrived in the Navy reaching a rate of those who've made second class. Both men also re-enlisted in the early months of 1941. Why wouldn't they? By this time, the Arizona had made its home port at Pearl Harbor and both men had achieved respectable ratings. And again, there was Pearl Harbor. Their shipmate, Donald Stratton, described Hawaii in his book as a paradise, a show real on the Pacific, unspoiled by the rest of the world. On that Sunday morning, when the Japanese attack began, a general quarter sounded aboard the Arizona. John and Jake scrambled to their battle stations. Jake and an aircraft gun captain ran to midships near the bridge in formats the man had done. John went to the aft number four turret reporting for duty. John and his gun crew sat there inside the 14 inch turret with little to do. The Arizona's big guns were for knocking out ships and shore bombardment. John remarked to his gun captain that he didn't see any ships and they weren't taking fire from naval guns. He said he much rather go help his brother out on the anti-aircraft guns where he could do some good. He told the officer that if any ships appeared or if they started taking fire, he would return right away. The gun captain agreed. As John made his way forward, the ship erupted as the forward magazine exploded. The force threw him off the ladder he was climbing and back across the deck. When John came to, the ship was aflame and sinking. Red men and body parts were strewn about and his brother was gone and every one of four in midships was dead. Over a month after the attack, John and Jake's parents received word that Jake had been officially declared dead. A few days later, a form of condolence letter from the office Mike Knox, secretary of the Navy arrived. Just two days after the attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor, Moses made second class John Anderson was reassigned to the destroyer USS McDonald and headed out to sea. He would remain with the ship throughout the war. He participated in various specific raids and landings at Guadalcanalal as well as the naval battle that ensued days later. He participated in the Aleutian, Gilbert, Marshall Island campaign along with a host of others. The McDonald even sunk a Japanese submarine on April 30th, 1944. John would make a career out of the Navy and live a long and fruitful life before passing away on November 14th, 2015. In May of 1943, while John was still in the Pacific, his parents received Jake's Purple Heart Medal and certificate. They replied with a gracious letter to Randall Jake, chief of naval personnel, saying about Jake, although his death is still a great loss to us, we will never be forgotten. On behalf of Mr. Anderson and myself, again, thank you. John Anderson decided that upon his death, his cremated remains would be returned to his ship to be reunited with his brother and his shipmates. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend this internment ceremony in December 6th or 7th, 2016. Clarendon Clare-Hetrick, another Arizona survivor who had passed away and returned to the same day. It's the only time the two Arizona men returned to the ship on the same day in the same ceremony. Following the service, I was honored to present the Anderson's with digital copies of both John and Jake's official military personnel calls that had been being done during this project, as well as the Hetrick family with a copy of Clare's OMPF. In typical Anderson fashion, John's wife sent me a very nice thank you note a few weeks later, which hanged in my office today. The next individual I'd like to highlight was a young Marine Corps sergeant named Dexter Wilson Fincher. Dexter was one of the Marines killed aboard the Arizona. What makes his record stand out are the letters his mother wrote to the commandant's office in the years after her son's death. The document on this on this slide is the letter Dexter's mother received notifying her that her son had been report who had been reported as missing in action December 7th was now in fact the player dead. In October of 1949, after pleading unsuccessfully with the Department of the Navy to get a grave marker for her son, she wrote a letter expressing her frustrations. She wrote, perhaps I am entirely out of order expressing my wishes for a suitable memorial to show that one Dexter Wilson Fincher did exist. I know the precious body was not recovered. However, I feel that a memorial to them should be erected in a family plot. While Miss Fincher would have to wait another 13 years, she and the other families of the Arizona would get their suitable memorial. Warren Jr. bit of a curious case. His is the last name inscribed on the memorial for the Navy men, but he wasn't actually a member of the Arizona's crew. There seemed to be some confusion as to how he came to die on the Arizona, but the ship's sooner surviving officer, Lieutenant Commander Fuqua, figured it out. Fuqua is the senior surviving officer had the grim past of auditing the ship's multiple roles to provide an accurate counting of the ship's compliment. The digitized muster roles on Anstestry.com contained the handwritten remarks of Lieutenant Commander Fuqua noting survivors from the dead. Thanks to his efforts and attention to detail, the records tell us Warren's story. Seaman 1st class, Michael's Warren was actually assigned to the destroyer USS Alet. Warren was a bit of a troublemaker and at the end of November, he found himself in trouble once again. This time he wasn't simply being reduced in rank or going to Captain's Mass. He was going to be tried by General Court Marshall. However, the Alet was getting ready to go out to sea and didn't have a brig in which to confine Warren, so he was sent to the Arizona. In the brig, as the attack unfolded, at some point, we don't know if it was at the beginning of the attack or after the ship's magazine exploded, but Warren was released from the brig and began attempting to help fight. During the attack, he was shot multiple times and died four days later from his wounds. He was awarded the American Defense Service Medal, World War II Victory Medal, and Purple Heart Medal, possibly. In July of 1942, Michael's sister wrote a letter requesting more details about her brother's death. Up until that point, all the family received was the telegram calling them of his brother's death on December 7th. Her brother's death on December 7th. The Navy omitted all details of his impending trial and confinement from correspondence with the family, simply stating that he was assigned to the Arizona for temporary booty and was on board at the time of the attack. The letter went on to say that he sustained serious wounds and died four days later. These documents are from the record of fire controlman third class, Lauren Faye Greener. Lauren was fortunate enough to survive the attack on Pearl Harbor, but did not escape on the escape. His name might sound familiar. Lauren passed away in September of this year at age 98, and on December 7th, 2019, the 78th anniversary of the attack, Lauren rejoined his shipmates aboard the Arizona. I was fortunate enough to meet Lauren during the 75th commemoration in 2016. We talked about his ship. I even got to have a beer with him at Smith Union Bar in Old Town Honolulu. It's been an operation continuously since 1937. It was the Arizona cruise watering hole when the men came aboard on shore leave. Over the years, I got to help Lauren with some information on his shipmates and his best friend on the ship, Alvin Dvorak, who passed away from his wounds after the attack. He was a great guy and was happy that people wanted to learn about his equipment shipmates. Out of the remaining USS Arizona survivors, Lauren is the last scheduled to have his remains entered in the ship. This is the telegram Lauren's mother received for her after the attack on Pearl Harbor and forming her that her son had been wounded in action in the performance of his duty. Lauren was a fire controlman for the ship's five inch anti-aircraft guns. His duty station was in the ship's port side director, which is a large range finder that calculates direction and altitude of attacking aircraft. The circled object in this image is Lauren's port director, who along with Donald Stratton, another living Arizona survivor, and others were in this director, which is essentially an armored steel box on the full mask when the ship's forward magazine exploded. While it shielded them from the blast, the director became an Alvin. The men inside sustained serious burns over most of their body. If you ever watch film footage of the Arizona explosion, the director is not visible. It's completely involved in flames. Although they survived the blast, they were now trapped 70 feet above the deck of their burning ship. These men would not have lived if it weren't for one sailor on the UFS vessel more along the side of the Arizona. Joe George saw them entrapped on the floor mask. During the sinking, Arizona would pull them down or experience another explosion. George's commanding officer ordered him to cast out from Arizona. He knew Lauren and the others would surely die if he did. He refused that order and threw them in a rope, which then used a cross over the burning cauldron below. In 2017, Joe George's daughter, Joanne Payle, accompanied by Lauren Burner and Donald Stratton visited the White House where President Trump presented Joanne with a bronze star for her father's action 76 years ago. The letter on the right is from Lauren's mother Lucille. Reply an update on her son's condition dated January 8, 1942. Presuming that the Navy wasn't releasing details for fear of information falling into any hands, Lauren's mother attempts to put the rest any fears or questions about the family's patriotism. I will read this letter in its entirety. Dear Sirs, I'm writing you concerning my son, Lauren Fayburner, the old Finder Operator and Fire Control Division aboard the destroyed battleship Arizona. I received a telegram from your division stating, quote, Lauren Fayburner, fire controlman third class U.S. Navy, has been rooted in action in the performance of his duty. And we'll furnish you further information promptly. I've received no information concerning him, Vince. I do feel that I should know something about him and where he is, whether in some hospital or aboard some ship and what one, and why I can't get some letter or word from him. Other mothers have gotten telegrams, letters, and etc. from their sons who live near our town or from their sons at the front. We are all for America. You may sincerely know, a way back through the ages, we have an all American record. This, for example, great-grandfather Mr. Ork, a Civil War veteran, wounded in action and died later some three years from the wound. A grand-uncle, Mr. Frank Smith, veteran of the same war, wounded in action. Grand-father Mr. Burner, also a Civil War veteran. An uncle, Mr. J. Burner, an overseas veteran of World War 1 with one-and-a-half years of overseas duty in the Army. His father, Mr. Roy Burner, was in the Navy and now Lauren is taking his stand for his country. His heart and soul is there, a wonderful character and personality with absolutely no enemies. A letter at hand from Captain Train written aboard ship, Lauren Faye Burner is doing good work aboard ship, an excellent gunner with high grades, a very good record. I don't like to brag about my son while I have the right to do so. I only wish to know that nothing you may say or tell me will reach no enemies of our Grand Country. I want to know some direct address. The old address USS Arizona doesn't seem just right anymore. Sincerely, with Lucille Kellerman. These are photographs from Lauren's internment ceremony on December 7th, 2019. The Navy Honor Guard, as you can see in the lower left hand picture, was positioned on the USS Vesto's mooring quarry, instead of on the memorial, which was usually standard. This was no doubt in tribute to Joe George, the Vesto crewman that saved Lauren's life. Chief historian, Daniel Martina, has escorted Lauren's remains along with Lauren's family to the awaiting divers who would take the year into the opening of the number four after where it would be placed inside. Lauren was never without a smile and he wanted to be in a place where he would get lots of visitors. I'm not one to end on a down note, so to wrap this up, I would like to introduce you to one of my favorite Arizona crewmen, Freeman's second class William McCary, formerly Musician's second class McCary. The Navy photo on the left was taken at Block Arena during the Battle of the Bands on November 22nd, 1941. William McCary is not in this photo because on October 4th, 1941, he found himself in the sort of trouble that sailors only get in in peace. William McCary was charged with disobeying a lawful order when ordered by Musician's first class and charged with the band of the ship to stop playing a trombone and using abusive and threatening language towards his female officer. McCary did not desire counsel and made no statement as punishment he was reduced to the next inferior rank. With anything, Freeman's second class McCary reminds us that sometimes you just gotta play your trombone, you never know what tomorrow brings. I hope you enjoyed this presentation and I am happy to answer any questions at this time. Thank you Eric for your presentation. I'm particularly touched by that you were just recently in Pearl Harbor for that last internment. So I do have some questions for you. I was wondering if you're a researcher and you wanted to find these records, would you go to the National Archives or the Park Service or the Navy? How would you want to find these records? So these records are in the physical and legal custody of the National Archives at St. Louis. Eventually when the digitization project is finished those digital images will be turned over to the National Archives and if it's so desired they can be placed on the catalog. But right now we are the repository and if you want to access those records you can come on the site or you can do a reference request through the mail as well. Thank you so much for that and if you don't mind switching over your screen so we can see you again. Got you. Okay thank you so much. I was also wondering about the who's doing the preservation work. I found that the quality of your images or the digitization quality is really excellent. Is that being done by the National Archives or again with the National Park Service? Any preservation efforts are done by our announced preservation team here in St. Louis. Due to the fire in 1973 we have a fairly extensive preservation operation here so they can handle any of the tasks that we throw at them. As bad as some of the salvage materials from the Arizona are they're not nearly as bad as the burned records from the 1973 fire the Army, Army Air Corps and Air Force records that they deal with on a daily basis so those aren't those aren't very much trouble for them. Thank you. I was also wondering as a researcher can a researcher assume that they would be able to find their veteran if that veteran was at Pearl Harbor? Would their records be with you or and also would they be able to find special things like these photographs? Is there something for every veteran who was at Pearl Harbor that day? Sure for the most part any of anyone who served in the military in the 20th century there's some exceptions to that we have some Spanish American war veterans who were in prior to the beginning of the 20th century but stayed in service past that you know that time period and we'll have a lot of their records but for the most part people who served in the military or civilian service during the 20th century those records are located here in St. Louis. So that includes Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force after 1947, Army of course we have Coast Guard records and then a host of civilian civil servant records as well. If you're looking specifically for a relatives military record World War I, World War II the easiest way to do that is we need depending on a certain factors the more information that you can provide the better. Back then World War I, World War II even in Korea service personnel had service numbers later on like when you get into Vietnam and later periods they switched over to social security numbers so a lot of times people try and provide us a social security number that doesn't really do much good especially if that person's not deceased you don't want to be thrown social security numbers around so if you've got the service number of that individual that makes things a lot easier if you don't there's other things that we can do to help you out to try and get you connected with that information but name, service number, date of birth if you know where they were from that helps immensely especially if there's a common name because we can use those other pieces of information to kind of cross-examine their you know check off different boxes to locate the individual that we're looking for. Thank you that's very helpful. I appreciate you're going a little into how a researcher would find their bet. Is there anything else that you would like to add? I'm waiting to see if we have any online questions at this point we don't but if you have any other additional tips feel free. As far as tips go you know in the researcher operations I mean we we exist to provide access to the holdings of the national archives and that's what we love to do so if you are interested if you're not sure the military records like the official military personnel files anybody who's been discharged or out of service 62 years or more from today's date it's a rolling date those records are archival they're open to the public and anybody can access them it doesn't have to be any like a next of kin or a family member once it gets past that date and that includes reserve obligations those records become open to the public when during the 75th anniversary I gave talks at various sites around Oahu the USS Missouri the Pearl Harbor visitor center you know Pacific Aviation Museum and what I found were people were amazed that they could access the records you know especially of our world war two generation so as long as they didn't stay in the reserves for a long time which wasn't very common unless they were officers reserve service for enlisted personnel really didn't take off until Korea but generally you know if you're looking for a world war two veteran those records most likely are going to be accessible and available to the public and if you can't make it here to st. Louis we do mailed in reference requests as well there are fees involved with the reproduction services but there's no fees for like searching or finding the records and anything like that but basically if you don't want to come here you can't come here you can go to our website just go to archives.gov and click on the link for researching military records that's going to direct you to us the National Archives of st. Louis you can fill out the request forms right online send it to us we'll do a search if we find your record they'll send you an invoice depending on how big the record is the amount of copies that it has and then you pay the invoice and then we mail you the copies and sometimes we're even doing digital delivery now so you won't get paper copies you'll get nice scanned digital images of the records. Oh that's really excellent thank you for all of that I didn't know that we were now sending electronic versions of the records that's so helpful I do not have any additional questions so thank you Eric I would like also to be on thanking you to thank our audio visual staff Jamie Atkinson Jason Winston Alexis Van Dyke Brian Sipperly and Julie Reed in addition thank you to Linda Frost for creating captions from our spoken words please note that the presentation video recording and handout will remain available on this youtube web page we value your opinion so please take a minute to complete a short evaluation your comments help us maintain the quality of our services and plan future programs find the evaluation link on this video's description where it says more information on behalf of the National Archives thank you for joining us