United States World War II Service Records

United States U.S. Military  WWII  Service Records

Official Military Personnel Files
The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis maintains World War II Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF).

Please Note: On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRCdestroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. The affected record collections are described below.

No duplicate copies of the records that were destroyed in the fire were maintained, nor was a microfilm copy ever produced. There were no indexes created prior to the fire. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred. Therefore, a complete listing of the records that were lost is not available. Nevertheless, NPRC uses many alternate sourcesin its efforts to reconstruct basic service information to respond to requests.

To order records from the National Personnel Records Center, in St. Louis:


 * If you are a veteran or next-of-kin of a deceased veteran, use eVetRecs, at vetrecs.archives.gov(or use the paper form, SF-180);


 * All others, use Standard Form 180;


 * Written requests (using Standard Form 180, or letter) should be mailed to: National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Ave., St. Louis, MO 63132-5100

Note: Access to Non-Archival Military Service Records is limited. Non-Archival records are those of service members who separated from the military less than 62 years ago. See Access to Non-Archival Records for more information. Records of individuals who left service more than 62 years ago are considered Archival Records and become records of the National Archives open to the general public.

The National Archives has an online database of World War II Army Enlistment Records with more than 9 million entries. The database is in the Access to Archival Databases (AAD) at aad.archives.gov/aad/series-list.jsp. Each record includes the serial number, enlistment date, birth year, and residence of the soldier.