 Welcome to the National Archives and Records Administration's 2023 genealogy series. My name is Andrea Matney, the program's coordinator, and we are so happy you've joined us. In recognition of public service, we are offering a themed program that will provide family history research tools focused on both military and civilian records. You will also learn how to preserve your own family collections. Presenters are topic experts broadcasting from across the United States and offering sessions intended for beginners to experienced family historians. All are welcome. In addition, we invite you to join the conversation. Participate with the presenters and other family historians during each session's premier time. Here's how to engage in live chat. You can ask questions via chat by first logging into YouTube. Continue to watch chat because the speaker will answer your questions there in the chat. Type your questions about today's topic at any time. In addition, please select Show More to find links to handouts and the events evaluation forum. We are offering six genealogy sessions on Wednesdays at 1 p.m. eastern time, starting in May and ending in mid-June. If you missed the premier broadcast, know that the videos and handouts will remain available after the event and at your convenience. A presentation today is entitled Accessing and Understanding Korean War Army Unit Records by Rachel Solier. Rachel is a subject matter expert in modern military records in an archivist from the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, also known as Archives 2. Rachel started her career at the National Archives in 2015 as an archivist technician in the textual research room at Archives 2 and became an archivist in textual processing the following year. Since 2019, Rachel has served as an archivist in the augmented processing section and in the reference section of the textual records branch. Rachel has a bachelors of arts degree in English and German from Oklahoma Baptist University, a master of arts and doctor of philosophy degree in German studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a master of science in library and information science with an archives concentration from Simmons University. Prior to coming to the National Archives, Rachel worked as a professor of English composition, literature, and German at various colleges and universities in Massachusetts. Welcome, Rachel. I'm turning the broadcast over to you. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's session of the 2023 genealogy series. I'm Rachel Solier, one of the modern military subject matter experts in the textual reference branch at the National Archives in College Park, or Archives 2. As Andrea mentioned in the introduction, today I am going to discuss two large series of U.S. Army unit records for the Korean War era. Both of these series are in the custody of the textual reference branch at Archives 2. Neither series has been digitized, so you will need to contact Archives 2 and maybe even plan a research visit to the archives to access these records. During the presentation, I will share some information about both what you might find in these records and about what you will not find. We will also discuss search strategies along with other tips and extra resources towards the end of the presentation. I look forward to your questions and thank you again for joining us today. First July marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that officially ended the hostilities of the Korean War. Congress extended the dates of Korean War service to January 1955 in order to define a longer period of benefits eligibility for veterans who served in the war. That was in part due to the ongoing American presence in Korea and the uneasy peace negotiations that were taking place at the time. According to the Department of Veterans Affairs or the VA, 6.8 million members of the armed forces served during the Korean War period. And many of those were from the U.S. Army, although other branches of service were certainly also involved in the war. Just a brief note as we get started, although I will be focusing on Army records today, I also wanted to mention that you may contact Archives 2 for information about Korean War records for other branches of service. Or for Air Force records, you may also want to contact the Air Force Historical Research Agency. And also to request personnel records, if you were unaware, you can contact the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. It can be helpful to know the hierarchy or command structure of your family member's unit when you are researching Army unit records because you may need to search at a higher or lower level of the hierarchy depending on what records you are looking for and what records you may or may not be finding. These are the eight divisions and three regimental combat teams that the Army deployed during the Korean War. And each was comprised of a number of subordinate or affiliated combat support and service units. By the time of the Korean War, the Army was using what is known as a triangular division structure that eliminated brigades and made regiments the primary subunits of divisions with various battalions and companies below each of the regiments and with specialty units like medical, signal, quartermaster, ordinance, and others also attached to the division. Regimental combat teams were smaller than divisions and typically included an infantry regiment along with a field artillery battalion, an engineer company, a medical company, a signal unit, or other similar specialized units depending on the needs of that particular team. Since the 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center affected approximately 80% of the records for Army personnel who were discharged between 1912 and 1960, there is a strong possibility that the official military personnel file or OMPF for anyone who served in the Army during the Korean War was damaged or destroyed. It is important to note that the Army unit records that I will be talking about today are not a replacement for service records that were lost in this fire. You will not find information about individual soldiers in these records. But if you know which unit your family member served with, then learning about the activities of the unit as a whole might offer some insight into their experiences during the war. The first series we are going to look at today is the command reports in Record Group 407, which is the records of the Adjutant General's Office. If you are at all familiar with World War II unit records, you will notice that this is the same record group that includes the large series of World War II operations reports. The Korean War records are in a separate series within Record Group 407. This series includes a variety of documents like historical reports and operations journals. While there may be an occasional photograph or map mixed in, these are by and large regular textual records, so you should not expect to find other types of records here, although you may be surprised by what you find. As you can see, this is quite an extensive series of records with over 6,500 boxes. Luckily, the individual file units, or folder titles, are listed and searchable in the National Archives catalog. Because the files are searchable in the catalog, it is not so important that you understand the exact arrangement of the series. Just be aware that the files you are interested in may be in multiple boxes, and those boxes may not be altogether or consecutive. So this is a screenshot of the top of the main series-level National Archives catalog description for the command reports in Record Group 407. The top of this entry has information about the record group, the dates of the records, the creating organization, and other details like that. The black banner at the top of the entry also includes a blue button with a magnifying glass that says, Search within this series. You will want to click this button to get to the next page, where you can enter the name of the specific unit you are searching for. Just another quick note, there is also a second way to get to that next page from the main catalog description of the series. If you scroll down the main entry, which is what this is a screenshot of, you will see a sample list of the files that are included in the command reports. Just above that sample list of files is a tan or yellowish box that includes a Click Here link. This link takes you to the same page as the blue Search within this series button that I just mentioned on the previous slide. Either way, you will want to get to the next page in order to search for your specific Army unit. And here we see a screenshot of the file unit's page, that second page, within the command reports description. You can see that the title is still there, so you know which series of records you are searching in. In the blue banner at the top of this page, you will see a white search bar that says, Search within this series. That is where you type the name of the unit you are looking for. Then hit enter or click the blue magnifying glass at the right end of the search bar. We will look at some specific examples from the series in a minute. But first, I want to share some general information about the second series of Army unit records that we are discussing today. The unit histories in Record Group 338 cover a much wider date range than the command reports in Record Group 407. So when you are searching this series, you may find records from World War II, for example, that will not necessarily be relevant for your family member who served in the Korean War. These two series are the primary sources for Army unit records for the Korean War at the National Archives. Just as we saw with the command reports, here is a screenshot of the main series level catalog description for the unit histories in Record Group 338. You will notice that it has the same blue search within this series box in the black banner at the top of the catalog entry. And farther down the page, it also has the same second click here link above the list of sample files in the series. Again, you will want to get to that second page to search for the particular Army unit your family member served in. As with the command reports, the unit histories include a wide variety of records for Army units that served during the Korean War. With both series, it is important to note that the extent and quality of the records can really vary from unit to unit. The type of records and the quantity of records is not the same for every unit. For some units, you will find a lot of records and unfortunately for other units, you won't find any records at all. You have to remember that the vast majority of federal records that are created either by the Army or by any other federal organization or agency are not considered permanent. And then even when records are considered permanent and should be saved and eventually transferred to the National Archives, many things could prevent that from happening, especially during wartime. Like the command reports, the files in the unit histories are also searchable in the catalog. That means that this index that's listed on this slide is not necessarily needed by the typical researcher. Please note that this is not a name index. It is an index of the units in the series. As I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, neither of these series includes information about individual soldiers and there is no name index to the records. Now that we have covered some general information about both series of unit records, let's take a look at some examples of the types of documents that you might find in them. First, we have unit histories and historical reports. Since these are usually narrative documents, you could say that they tell the story of a unit. They are summaries of the main activities of the unit. So in this example, if your family member served in the 179th Infantry Regiment, you could read this unit history to get a better sense of the types of situations they encountered during the war. Here we have the table of contents for that same unit history example. You can see that there is information about training and movements before the unit actually goes to Korea. And then of course it details operations and engagements once the unit does get to Korea. So even though histories like this relate to the unit as a whole, you can really get a sense of what your family member service may have been like if you know which unit they served in at a given time. This example is from a command report for the 65th Infantry Regiment. While these records do not include details about individual soldiers, you can use them to learn the names of commanding officers, the locations of unit headquarters, and other details like that. And here we see the next page of that same command report. Once you get into the main text of the document, you may find information about specific locations where a unit was stationed or about which battles or engagements they fought in. This is a cropped view of a portion of that same document. Although this is a 65th Infantry Regiment document, you will also see that it includes information about the organization of the regimental combat team that the 65th was part of. It lists affiliated units like the headquarters and headquarters company, the service company, the medical company, the heavy mortar company, and the tank company of the 65th Infantry Regiment, as well as the 58th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, Company C of the 64th Heavy Tank Battalion, and Company C of the 10th Engineer Combat Battalion. This is a very good example of the extensive use of abbreviations and acronyms used in the Army and other military branches. It is also a good example of why it can be useful to learn the hierarchy or command structure of your family member's unit. When you are searching in the catalog for relevant records, you may not get any results for the lower level company or battalion units. In that case, we always suggest that you go up a level or two and take a look at the records related to the regiment, for example. And this again was a 65th Infantry Regiment document that includes information about all of these other units. Here is another 65th Infantry Regiment document. This example is a journal for headquarters 3rd Battalion under the 65th Infantry Regiment. You can see that it lists patrols for individual companies under the 3rd Battalion. So again, to find this information, you would need to search at the regimental level in this case and then look for information about specific subordinate battalions and even companies related to that regiment. General Orders or GOs are another type of document that is commonly found in these records. Some general orders provide information about special staff assignments and changes in commanding officers, like this example here. Please be aware that general orders do not list all of the personnel for a given unit. For that information, you may want to look at morning reports or rosters, and those are at the National Archives in St. Louis. General orders may also include information about unit assignments. In this document, for example, you can see that the 3,271st Training Squadron was attached to the 51st Field Artillery Battalion. Remember, if you are searching the catalog for the 3,271st Training Squadron, you may not find many or any results. In that case, you would want to search for the battalion and then the regiment that the squadron was attached to. One of the most common reasons to search for general orders, though, is to learn information about medals that were awarded to individual soldiers. This is the one exception. This is the one type of document that includes names of soldiers. There are, however, very few details. This particular general order, for instance, states that the Purple Heart was awarded, quote, for wounds received in action against the enemy in Korea on dates shown opposite their names, end quote. And really, that is just the typical reason that any Purple Heart is awarded. This general order also includes columns for the name, rank, and service number of the soldier, as well as their organization or unit, the date they were wounded, and where they entered federal service from. Please remember that there is no name index to these records. So in order to search for the general orders that relate to your family members' medals and awards, you really need to know either the general order number, which is usually listed on their service records, or you would need to know the unit that granted the medal and the approximate date when it was awarded in order to conduct a search of these records. Please also be aware that while the textual reference staff at College Park can offer some assistance, they are not able to comb through all of the records searching for a single document for you. The more information you provide, the easier it will be for them to assist you. Keep in mind, though, that it is likely that you will need to visit the archives to search the records yourself. Here are two additional examples of general orders that relate to medals that were awarded during the Korean War. On the left, you can see information about soldiers who were awarded the good conduct medal. As with the Purple Heart example on the previous slide, this general order only includes basic information about the soldiers and does not have any details about their service. The example on the right is a general order awarding the bronze star to 1st Lieutenant Richard C. Leavers. This general order includes a brief narrative of Lieutenant Leavers actions that earned the bronze star. Typically speaking, the less common the medal, the more information you will find in the general order awarding it. So in this case, because the bronze star was awarded less frequently than the good conduct medal or the Purple Heart, we have a brief narrative, but for the medals that are awarded more frequently, there's less detail, less information for them. That was a quick look at the two series and some of the types of records you might find in them. There is, of course, much more to discover in the Army unit records. But let's take a few minutes now to talk about search strategies and what to do if you are having trouble searching these records. First, I recommend that you search both series for the unit you are interested in. These series are not duplicates of each other, so you may find different records related to your family member's unit in each series, or you may find that one series does not have any records, but the other does. Next, you may need to vary the terms you use when searching the series in the catalog. First, for example, try spelling out the unit designation, and then maybe try acronyms or abbreviations or variant names. And as I mentioned earlier, you may also need to search for the unit above the specific company or battalion that your family member served in. Here are just a few reminders of some of the points I mentioned earlier. These records have not been digitized, and they are not indexed or searchable by name, so you may need to visit archives too to search for relevant records. There may also be different types and quantities of records available for different units. You can always email the textual reference branch directly for assistance with these records. If you do not know which army unit your family member served in, you may be able to find that information in other records. These are some examples of places you might look. For instance, if the soldier was buried in a federal cemetery or has a military headstone, there may be a headstone application or an internment control form. If they were wounded, there may be a hospital admission card or a listing in one of the Korean War databases on the National Archives Access to Archival Databases website. If they registered for the draft, then their classification history, which is separate from the draft card itself, their classification history may provide further clues to follow. Court martial records are another possibility. Really any record that shows information about the individual may also list their unit or the organization they served in. Generally speaking, records that include personal data about individual soldiers will not be at archives too. These are most likely to be at the NPRC or the National Archives in St. Louis. Once you learn your family member's unit, then you can search the command reports and unit histories for more information about it. Finally, I want to share some extra resources with you that may help you learn more about your family member's service in particular and about the Korean War in general. First, although the records I described today are in the custody of the Textual Reference Branch at Archives 2, other National Archives units and facilities also have records related to the Korean War. These are just a few NARA reference units that may have relevant records. This is of course in addition to the NPRC and the National Archives at St. Louis that I've already mentioned. Next, if you want to post questions and discuss your family history research, I recommend that you check out History Hub 2, which is the National Archives online research support community. And finally, of course you can always explore descriptions of other records in the catalog. You may even find some records that have been digitized. To really dig into Korean War research, you might also want to take a look at some of NARA's reference information papers that serve as finding aids to the records from this time period. These particular finding aids relate specifically to the Korean War and then to prisoners of war and missing inaction personnel, to presidential library holdings related to POWs and MIA personnel, and also to African American service. These reference information papers are all available online. You may even want to check out some resources outside of NARA. The Army, the Department of Defense and the VA are just a few federal organizations that might have some useful information. The Army Center of Military History, for example, has a number of online resources related to the lineage and honors for individual units, and the Army Heritage and Education Center has a large collection of published unit histories. If your family member received VA benefits, then there may still be some relevant records there. Some veterans registered with state and local veterans organizations after the war, so you may wish to contact the veterans office in the area where your family member lived for more information. Thank you again for attending today's session of the 2023 genealogy series. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have about the presentation now. Thank you again for watching. This ends the lecture portion of the broadcast, but we will continue to take your questions about today's topic in the chat. If we do not get to your question, please send us an email. Note that the presentation's video recording and handout will remain available on this YouTube page and our website. We plan future programs based on your feedback. Would you please take a minute to complete our short online evaluation form? At this time, I'd like to thank the genealogy series team who contributed to the success of this program. We are grateful for your work. And if you enjoyed this video, check out the Know Your Records program. We have over 100 educational videos on how to do research with us, including playlists for civilian service and U.S. veterans. In the autumn of 2023, the Know Your Records program is offering this schedule of sessions. We invite you to participate with the National Archives presenters and other audience members. Although this concludes the video portion of the broadcast, we will continue to take your questions in chat for another 10 minutes. Please stay if you have questions. Thank you for joining us for today's presentation.