DPAA

Accessing Individual Deceased Personnel Files (IDPFs)

March 4, 2022 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

It’s been two years and the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis is still closed to researchers, but NARA College Park is taking appointments for short research slots. Individual Deceased Personnel Files are still really hard to obtain because of all the governmental red tape and games. It’s been like this for years unfortunately. Many people who just want answers about their family’s service member run into brick wall after brick wall.

Right now if you want an IDPF for WWII – Vietnam and the surname of the individual is between the letters A-L, you are out of luck until the NPRC opens and you can go there or hire a researcher to get the file. Those are in the custody of NPRC and Ft. Knox is not sending them out. Crazy because our tax payer money paid to have those files digitized for DPAA but we can’t access them.

If the surname is between M-Z then you can email a FOIA request to Ft. Knox at usarmy.knox.hrc.mbx.foia@army.mil and then wait for a response.

Let’s hope NPRC opens by the end of the year and researchers can gain access to personnel files, WWI Burial Files, IDPFs, and so many other records again. Families deserve to find the answers they seek and do some healing.

Can I help you with your research & writing?

While archives are closed or difficult to use, there are still ways I can help you with your WWI – Vietnam research and writing projects. Email me at info@wwiirwc.com to discuss a research or writing project.

Want to learn more about military research? Sign up for one of my webinars or pick up one of my research books.

The Power of One

September 20, 2019 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

We never know how we will impact the lives of others when we start a relationship with someone, whether it is business, professional or a mixture. Only time can tell, or show us this, and sometimes we are never made aware of the impact of using our authentic voice has on others. Or the impact our “seemingly small” life had on many.

Yesterday I attended a Rosette Ceremony at Margraten (Netherlands American Cemetery) for David Rosenkrantz who was Killed In Action in 1944 and finally identified and buried with his brothers in California in 2018.

As more than 20 people gathered for the ceremony, I was reminded again about the Power of One. Please watch the video and then scroll down to read more.

David’s Power of One

Many of us commented after the ceremony and during the luncheon, that David would probably be amazed that he brought together so many different people. Dutch and Americans. Civilians and some active 82nd Airborne personnel. The living and the dead.

All were in attendance at the cemetery yesterday. His life which ended in 1944 fighting for our freedom and that of Europe, still has an impact 75 years later. David’s spirit lives on through his nephew Phil and all of us who were in attendance, those who contributed to Phil’s work, and those who will read his book once it is published. The research and writing Phil has done to learn about David’s life and honor his death is certain to inspire someone else to follow a similar path to learn about their family member in the future.

Your Power of One

Thinking about the Power of One as I talked about in my video, I was reminded that my work has tremendous value, even if I never know how it has affected someone else’s life, their family, the dead, or the future. Many people have the point of view that they must speak to thousands and be famous to make an impact. I have never believed that. I have seen how helping just one person find the answers to their family secrets and stories, helping them find answers and closure, and heal on some level, changes everything. Not only for them but also me. Each of us, speaking authentically, become the Power of One to spread the word in some form or fashion.

Yesterday, Phil spread the word about the work I do with families, military research, PTSD, healing, and all that is related to this, in his few moments to present me with a photo of David. His beautiful and generous words reminded me that the work I do is valuable and will stay with me in times when the work becomes too emotionally difficult or I am unsure where to turn next for help so I can continue helping my clients and those I interact with.

Who knows where else his words will ripple out or who might enter either of our worlds asking for help. Maybe we will never know.

What is YOUR Power of One? What gifts and knowledge do you have that you share with the world? What gifts are you afraid to share with the world or do not see as valuable? I challenge you to sit with these questions and explore how you being your authentic self in life and business can help change the world one life at a time.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this and how you have impacted someone’s life or someone has impacted your life. Please comment below.

Can I help you?

Are you ready to learn the bigger picture of your family member’s military service? Would you like to see what is included in unit records for your soldier? We are taking new clients and can help you find the answers and tell a deeper story about your family member. Email us at info@wwiirwc.com to set up your free phone consultation today to discuss project options, fees, and time.

When the Dead Speak – An Unknown Soldier at Margraten

November 25, 2016 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

If you have followed my writing on my website, Facebook, or in magazines for at least a year, you know I’m a spiritual person. I feel and sense the dead, walk through a cemetery and hear their cries, feel their anger, sadness, and loneliness, and hear their stories. They communicate through me so I can give them a voice. I often help cross them over into the light. Through the work I do and places I go, I heal them, others, and myself in the process.

Some of my experiences in Europe can be found in last year’s trip articles Traveling In Their Footsteps. Since that time I’ve focused more on WWII education and things in life, than the spiritual side of my work. Recent events have pushed me to take a look at this side of work with fresh eyes and an open heart. The dead have so much to teach us if we allow it.

For almost two months, there is a story that wants to be told, which I have debated telling. I can’t hold it back any longer.

On 30 September 2016, I visited Margraten Cemetery. My fiancé adopted two graves there which we were visiting, and also the grave a friend asked I visit. This grave was for Sgt. Fernando Rangel, 776th Bomber Squadron, 464th Bomb Group (Heavy). He was KIA on 11 December 1944 and buried at Plot P Row 22 Grave 13. This is the last row of the cemetery on the right side if you are standing in front of the chapel looking at the graves.

Next to Rangel’s grave at Plot P Row 22 Grave 14 was an Unknown Soldier. My fiancé touched his grave and quickly removed his hand and commented on the energy. I touched his grave and felt extreme sadness, anger, and loneliness. It felt like this soldier had a story that must be told. I stood at the grave with my hand on it for a long time sending him healing and listening to him. After a short time the energy shifted but not enough to make him happy.

Who was possibly in this grave? I had to see what the records said. I went into the office at Margraten and asked for the X-File number of this grave.

Did you know, for every single soldier, sailor, or Marine who was Killed In Action or died during the war, there is an IDPF – Individual Deceased Personnel File. The IDPF lists the name, unit, serial number/service number, and death information for that individual. This file exists even for those who are still considered Missing In Action today.

For the Unknown soldiers who are buried in graves marked Unknown – there is an X-File. An X-File contains the same paperwork in most cases, as the IDPF, except it does not have the soldier’s name, unit, serial number/service number. That was unknown to Graves Registration Service at the time identifications were being made. You can view IDPFs and other records under RESEARCH on this website. There are file examples. Under EDUCATION you will find articles about these records. Under BOOKS you can order a copy of one of my WWII research books to learn even more about IDPFs and death records.

AMBC cemeteries seem hesitant to give out X-file numbers, at least that was the response I got. I was questioned as to why I wanted this information, even though the office staff knew who I was and what I do. Perhaps this is because most people do not understand the records created for Unknowns and it would stir up a lot of discussion and issue with ABMC, DPAA, and other organizations doing MIA research. There was no education about Graves Registration and identification after the war and almost none exists still today to the general public.

I was able to get the X-File number for this Unknown and I did obtain his X-File. I’m still waiting for Ft. Knox to open up their servers so IDPFs can go out again (it’s been down 2 months,) so I can see the IDPF for the soldier that might be in this grave. The X-File pointed much evidence to a man named John W. Gordon. Gordon is listed on the Wall of the Missing at Epinal.

The X-File had information on the death, identification that was attempted, burial, and information from the next of kin, which stated unless a positive identification could be made, the widow and John’s mother, did not want to hear from the military again. Reading this made me understand why John W. Gordon felt so angry and sad. Maybe he could have been identified then, or maybe not. The technology we have today with DNA, did not exist back then. Based on dental records in his file, a positive identification could not be made at that time. Today, maybe one could be made if a case was strong enough for DPAA to disinter the remains and test.

John W. Gordon was KIA 17 Jan 1945. He was part of G Company 157^th Infantry Regiment 45^th Division. His last residence in the U.S. was Winnetka, IL. I live about 30 minutes away from Winnetka. John received posthumously, a Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and CIB. I felt the close connection I have to where he lived was one reason he reached out that day.

I did some research on John W. Gordon and found a FindAGrave entry with his photo. He was a very handsome young man. I also contacted the photo contributor and have learned a lot about John, his life, and the research the family today has done into his service. His family has been in touch with DPAA and submitted DNA.When I emailed the contributor, John’s spirit was with me, guiding me as to what to write, and encouraging me to not let his story die.

I pulled some of his Morning Reports to learn a little about G Company and where he was KIA. I know he was sick a lot in the field hospitals between October and December 1944. According to Morning Reports, the day John and several men in his company went Missing, they were located near Phalsbourg, France. I’m still waiting on his IDPF to see what other information it contains. His OMPF (service file) burned in 1973.

There is still much to learn about John, his life, service, and death. There are lessons to pass along and healing to be done. Once his story is told, maybe he will be at peace. Maybe he knows he can be identified and wants DPAA to look at his case again. Maybe he wants us all to remember those who died during the war, and those who have died since, and know they ALL have stories to tell. It is up to us, the living, to give them a voice so their sacrifice will not be forgotten. The sacrifice of death in war or the sacrifice of leaving their lives to go fight and return.

Are you telling the stories of the dead? Are you passing their lessons on to the next generation? Do you walk into the cemetery and feel their pain, hear their voices, and want to help? Not everyone can sense this, but we can all do the research and write the stories so these men and women will not be forgotten.

Read John’s X-File

Read John’s IDPF

UPDATE 31 January 2024

John W. Gordon was identified on 13 July 2022. You can read about it on DPAA’s press release. I’m so excited! I hope his spirit has chosen to pass to the next level on his journey now that he has been freed from his Unknown status. He was buried on 23 October 2023 at Wood National Cemetery in Milwaukee, WI. His obituary and video of his funeral can be found at the Harder Funeral Home website.

Can I help you with your research?

Clarification from NPRC on IDPF Availability

November 21, 2016 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

I received the following from an archivist at NPRC regarding my prior post about the IDPF availability change. I also understand the servers at Ft. Knox which hold the IDPFs are still down. It’s been about two months and we are still waiting to find out when these files will be available again.

The National Archives-St. Louis is in the process of receiving large portions of the Individual Deceased Personnel Files (IDPF) created by the U.S. Army to document deaths in service that occurred during the period 1939-1976. Eventually the National Archives-St. Louis will hold all of the records. By early February 2017, it will have received approximately half of the records that cover the period ca. 1939-1954. These records were maintained by the Army in an alphabetical arrangement, and selected files in this group are being digitized by the Defense Prisoner-of-War/Missing-in-Action Accounting Agency (DPAA). DPAA has completed their digitization of the A-L portion of the alphabet, and these records along with the post-Korean War files (1954-1976), which are NOT being digitized, are currently being shipped to St. Louis from the Washington National Records Center (WNRC) in Suitland, Maryland. To date (November 18, 2016), the National Archives-St. Louis has received five (5) of eight (8) tractor trailer shipments; the 8^th and final load is due to be received the first week of February 2017. The remainder of the 1939-1954 alphabetical group will be received as DPAA completes its digitization project over the next few years.

It should be noted that the Army’s Graves Registration Service had responsibility for dealing with the remains of deceased personnel from all branches of the military until well into the 1950s or early 1960s. As a result, records for deceased members of the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and independent Air Force may be included among the earlier files. Furthermore, it must be emphasized that DPAA’s digitizing effort has been conducted for its own business purposes and does not involve comprehensive scanning of these records. Only selected files, and in many cases only portions of selected files, have been scanned. The only complete instance of this records series exists in the original paper files that have been transferred to the National Archives.

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Are you ready to learn the bigger picture of your family member’s military service? Email us at info@wwiirwc.com to set up your free phone consultation today to discuss project options, fees, and time. You can also sign-up for our free newsletter and receive the Start Writing Your Military Story Today free! Are you following Jennifer and all her work on all her social media sites? Click the link to learn more and find different content. © 2016 World War II Research and Writing Center

WWII Education – Tarawa and a Study of Graves Registration Service During WWII

July 22, 2016 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

Throughout the course of my World War II research the last several years, one of my primary focuses has been the work of the Graves Registration Service (GRS). I focused on this group because so many of the soldiers, sailors, and Marines I research were Killed In Action or never recovered. Many people have no idea about the number of records the men of the GRS created and how valuable they are. These men created one file available to all researchers, for every service man or woman Killed In Action or unrecovered (still MIA.) This file is the Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF) for identified service members or X-File for unidentified service members. You can read more about the IDPF and other records in the Education section of my website.

Through one of the Facebook groups I’m in for World War II, I saw a post about a book called Tarawa’s Gravediggers by William L. Niven. Having researched several Tarawa Marines and observed many conversations, sometimes very heated on Facebook, I highly recommend this book for anyone wishing to understand why our Marines and other service personnel buried on Tarawa are still being recovered.

In general, from what I observed through research and conversations, the American people were not educated enough during and after the war as to what took place with the burials on Tarawa or any other location. Today, Americans are uneducated for the most part regarding the job GRS did (or did not do) on Tarawa or in general during the war. Too many people today are angry and frustrated over the fact we still have so many MIAs from World War II, yet have no comprehension as to why this is. This book does an excellent job explaining the process and resulting issue of unrecovered men.

One reason people are angry is because many often look at the past through they eyes of today. They think if we have DNA today which can identify people and remains, why didn’t they use it during the war? That technology, like so much other technology, was not available then. During the war, our clerks and GRS men were using paper, pencils, index cards, and forms. There were no computers available. No databases to store and sort information into. We need to remember to look at the past and put it into historical context rather than jump to anger over what was not done, just because it can be done today.

Whenever I get a book like this, the first thing I look for is the bibliography of sources used, footnotes or endnotes, and the appendix. This book does not contain an official bibliography of sources used. It does contain a list of general records used by the author. It also contains no index, footnotes or endnotes.

Niven explains at the very end of the book in his section on Replication and Validation, how he did his research, how he set up the book, why he did not use footnotes, where he got his sources, and why this work is important. I wish he would have put this at the beginning of the book because it would have made the book make more sense. I also would not have wondered why a historian who was creating such an important work failed to document his information. Niven had a purpose in how he arranged the material for publication. Maybe this means I should be reading the end of these types of books first, if authors are putting this kind of information there.

Every author is different in the way they present their information. What is right for one is not necessarily right for another. While I wish he had included an index, that would have lengthened the book by scores of pages. I was lucky enough to find William Cowart, a still MIA Marine, discussed on pages 11-12. He is one I researched and hope is recovered soon.

What will you find in this book?

This book is the result of years of research, data analysis, database creation, validation, and writing. It is more than 460 pages long and contains the most in-depth information on Tarawa I have ever seen compiled in one place. The book includes the methodology Niven used to work through the problem of locating every cemetery and information on every Marine or other service man buried on the island. There are countless pages of tables showing what he compiled in his database. He has photographs and maps with explanations as to what they are and their importance.

Why is this book important to those researching non-Tarawa Marines?

Many may wonder why they should read this book if they do not have a family member listed as unrecoverable from Tarawa. I encourage you to read the book because of the depth of research Niven conducted. The analysis is unlike what most researchers do, but he has a lot to teach everyone who picks up the book and is looking for information on their soldier. He also provides a lot of information on the GRS and their records. This is important for anyone researching someone who died during the war or is still unrecovered.

Niven also is very honest and forthcoming about potential errors in his work. Why? Because people make mistakes. He discusses the errors found among various official military records he used throughout his research. He discussed errors he made in entering the data into his database. He shows us that no one is perfect. No record is perfect and all of this must be taken into account with any research we do.

Finally, Niven gives a great description of many military records available for all branches of the military. Each of these were used in his study and are of great value to all researching soldiers, sailors, or Marines in World War II.

Want to know more about this incredible book? Pick up a copy today. If you’ve read it, I’d love to hear your comments.

Need more help?

To learn more and go deeper into your research, pick up one of my Stories from the World War II Battlefield books if you are in the U.S. or Faces of War: Researching Your Adopted Soldier if you are in Europe.

Please contact me if you need to hire a researcher to help you with your family’s World War II research.

Traveling in their Footsteps – The Final Days

December 23, 2015 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

Monday 2 November arrived and brought with it the last two days of my trip. I spent the day packing and writing before I drove to Amsterdam to check into my final hotel of the trip. That evening I was supposed to meet with DPAA, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. This was another meeting scheduled at the last minute prior to my trip. Someone who knew I was speaking at Groesbeek altered one of the DPAA WWII historians about me. After some emails and a phone conversation, I was going to meet Christine C. and her team in Amsterdam the day they flew over to the Netherlands to do whatever they planned to do.

I met the group for dinner and we had really great conversations about their work and mine. One important component was the topic of education. I feel strongly that people do not have enough information about the Graves Registration Service and their job during and after WWII. Nor do they have enough information about WHY bodies could not always be recovered or why it has taken 70+ years, in some cases to recover them. This will be the topic of a future article and will feature in Volume 4 of my book series in 2016. The meeting was great and who knows. There may be an opportunity to work together in the future.

Tuesday, 3 November brought my final full day in the Netherlands. I felt as if I had done everything I was consciously and somehow, subconsciously, I was supposed to on the trip. I was at peace and ready to go home the next day.

I spent the day with a friend at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and enjoyed the art, artifacts, and conversation. The museum was full of energy, a lot of it centered in rooms which held medieval period art and artifacts. Especially the weapons room where I wondered, how many ways can you kill a man?

That room brought up a lot of feelings and issues from the past and a lot of negative and heavy energy. Some of it was attached to my friend because I knew he and I went back lifetimes. I did a lot of clearing in that room around these issues coming up and the items in the room. A few tears fell in the process but in the end, it is what was necessary.

Jen 3 Nov 2015 (1) — Peaceful and ready to head home.

At the end of a great day I prepared to fly home the next morning, grateful for all the experiences I had, people I met, and ready for the next stage in life. Once I navigated my way through the airport and had breakfast and was waiting at the gate, I admit to a little happy dance that I had traveled alone. This was not something I thought I could do a year ago, but when the time is right, magic happens. I was certain that a three year period of working too much and solidifying the foundation of my ever changing business, was over and a new one was beginning. A period in life where it would not be all about work but some balance would arrive.

So what else happened on this trip? What led me to travel alone besides what I already talked about in these articles? And what happened on the first trip to Europe that changed everything? I guess you’ll have to wait for the book to come out!

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