Re: William Harold Smith, Btry c 863 FA Bn,
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In reply to:
William Harold Smith, Btry c 863 FA Bn,
Debby Fohn 10/20/02
Debby Rose - This is not official but I was once hunting for info about a person I thought might have been court marshaled and was told at that time by an archivist at NARA that all court marshal cases that were convicted were to be kept forever. That if the person was judged innocent all such records would be destroyed. It sounds as though some thing like that might have happened. My reasoning is that I know of one court marshal case where the man was judged guilty. He lost his rank and was fined. I don't know if those records would still be at NARA but you might try. At the end of the war all Special Orders which are those that would have contained the result of those cases were destroyed and the rank was returned. And here I don't know if that applied to one division or all divisions. Others on this site are probably better informed. Mary