Re: Looking
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In reply to:
Looking
Elaine Thomas 6/13/08
Elain,
Here is what you are up against. There were more than 16 million people serving in our military in WWII. I am only guessing but there may have been 100 to 500George Mitchells serving. I know for certain that there are 7 George Mitchells buried in our overseas military cemetaries and there may have been a few more who were returned home for burial.
What you need is whatever information you can scrape up to differentiate your George Mitchell from all the rest. If he served in the military he had a personell file that was handed over to the National Archives. Unfortunately, many of the Army files were damaged or destroyed in a fire in 1973. You should apply for those records anyway. You will get a quicker answer if you have some important details like his service number.
It is important that you collect whatever documents have survived from his service or any veterans benefits he may have recieved. When he returned from the Army he had a "separation paper" later called a DD214. Veterans were advised to have this recorded by the recorder in the county they lived in. This has all the basic stuff like his Army Service Number, when and where he went in, the same for when he got out and maybe a small summary of what he did in between. Also whatever military awards he was entitled to.
There isn't any internet magic that will deliver this stuff to you. The more records you can unearth the better chance you have of obtaining more from the NARA (National Archives).