How to Find Records of U.S. GIs in WWII
Millions of American men fought as soldiers in World War II, a group that is known as the "Greatest Generation." The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) maintains a massive database of military enlistments from the war that is available online. NARA also offers several specialty databases from WWII, such as its prisoners of war (POW) databases, useful to anyone researching family history.
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Instructions
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Visit the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) page at NARA.
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Select the link for "World War II" under the "Wars/ International Relations" heading.
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Click the "Search" button for the database labeled "World War II Army Enlistment Records, documenting the period ca. 1938--1946--Record Group 64." This database contains more than 9 million records.
Note that the WWII database is composed of two subset databases that can be searched independently. Be sure to click on the button for the master database that combines both subsets.
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Enter the name of the soldier your are searching. For unusual surnames, enter just the last name. For more common names, enter a first and last name in order to narrow down the results.
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Click the "View Records" button to see a list of soldier records found in the database. If names are found in both database subsets, there will be two "View Records" buttons displayed. Click each one in turn to see the full set of records.
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Review the list of names for the soldier you are searching, then click on "View Record" by the name to see the full World War II enlistment record for that soldier.
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Take note of the other smaller WWII databases available at AAD. There are two prisoners of war (POW) databases, a list of Japanese Americans relocated to camps and a database of Navy Intelligence personnel. Search any databases relevant to your soldier's history. Searching is the same as for the enlistment database.
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