OMPF

Confusion & Anger Among Gold Star Families

April 19, 2021 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

They never talked about it.

They just shut down. You couldn’t mention his name. My grandmother wouldn’t allow anyone to talk about him. She was sad and angry as long as I knew her.

I overheard whispering after a family dinner about my father who died in the war.

It felt like there was a gap in our family and I did not understand what or WHO that was until I was an adult.

I never understood why my father was so angry and withdrawn after my brother died in the war.

These are just a few of the things I have heard from military or genealogy research clients or writing clients the last 11 years. The societal programming around military death and family lore is to accept and say, ‘They never talked about it.’ and just move on. Never go deeper into what was left unsaid. Never ask questions about the family’s pain. Never try to find out what really happened.

Every Gold Star Family from any war carries the pain. While I may provide examples from World War II, what I saw applies to any war and every family. So how do we investigate and attempt to put the pieces together for what really happened that caused our family members to shut down? We start with the military records. Specifically the Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF) which is the death file from WWII to present or the WWI Burial File. There are many other records to explore, but this is the primary start point.

After reading hundreds of IDPFs, one thing is very clear to me in 99% of cases. The families were given the bare bones standard military issue form letters when their service member died overseas. It doesn’t matter which branch they served in, the documents are the same or similar.

Most families questions about what happened to their service member, how they died, what happened to their remains, where are the personal effects, etc. were barely acknowledged. A standard form letter was sent instead. With the number of casualties, whether wounded or dead, there was not enough time or staff to properly answer every inquiry.

It is also important to remember that communication was very slow at that time. World War II was not the age of instant texts, emails, and Tweets. Information had to be sent up the line via messenger, telegram, radio, plane, ship, rail, and processed before going to the family.

Due to the lack of information and the time it took for a family member to be notified of a death, often between a few weeks and months, a lot of questions went unanswered as grief set in. Additionally, in some files I’ve read, a woman’s or mother’s intuition was basically disregarded when she wrote letters asking about her husband or son’s fate. You can learn more about this in an article I wrote about Navy Airman George Howe Jr. Then you can also view his IDPF and read more letters from his mother asking for the military’s help to locate her son, which she felt was still alive. He was never recovered.

In only a few IDPFs I have seen or other military records, did families actually get answers to what happened. Answers that either created more grief and pain or provided some healing and relief.

Two examples, first include a soldier buried in Normandy who I will write an article about soon. This soldier’s sister spoke her truth and demanded answers on behalf of her parents, for her brother’s death. Her energy is really quite amazing. Watch for this article.

Another example, which I am also writing articles on, is a Jewish 79th Division soldier who died in France. His IDPF is actually 361 pages long. His father had money, social standing & connections, and education. These factors contributed to him being able to receive answers. When you have friends in influential places…….

I have also linked two articles below that share a little of what a family went through as they processed their grief after the deaths of their sons. These articles and IDPFs ask questions you don’t often seen in other files. However, the details provide some information as to the family’s pain. Pain I wonder if was every fully processed.

Perhaps a great example is from Phil Rosenkrantz in his book, Letters from Uncle Dave, that dives deep into the research of Phil’s uncle who was KIA in the Netherlands in 1944 and unidentified for more about 70 years. Phil took a deep dive, per my suggestion, into his family’s war trauma and how doing the research helped him and several other family members heal and better understand what everyone experienced.

My Invitation to You

I invite you to sit with your research and family lore to dive deeply into the emotions your family has shared over the years. To look beyond the They never talked about it idea and start talking about it. Gather around the dinner table and open up the conversation. It may take you down a path you didn’t expect.

When the military archives open up again, obtain copies of the records for your military family members that will help you tell their stories and start to heal the ancestral lineage. When we remember our fallen, they are also healed. Most even have lessons and messages to pass on to family members willing to listen.

Are You Wasting Your Money Using a Genealogy Record Retriever?

September 7, 2019 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

Over the last few years I’ve written a lot about the best practices when doing WWI, WWII, Korean War or Vietnam War military research, especially when the records burned.

Over the last year I’ve gotten an overwhelming number of new clients who previously hired a genealogy record retriever who offers the cheapest prices for record retrieval and only offers One Month of Morning Reports for the same unit that is on your discharge paper. That’s the only option you can choose when you order this and put it in the shopping cart in that individual’s business. You get a whole month of reports whether your soldier was actually in that unit or not – for all the months he was overseas.

Rather than be quiet and let people continue to be taken advantage of – I provide education and the reasons why this is usually a waste of your time and money. I also offer a better approach to reconstructing service to get the answers you require. I’ve spent a decade studying this and wrote the only books available on how to research and have taught this in the U.S. and Europe. There are answers available to you even if the records burned. At the end of this article there are also other articles I’ve written about what these records mean, why they are so valuable and other things to consider when hiring a researcher. It is all personal choice who you work with, and now you have a few more pieces of information to make an educated decision. We don’t know what we don’t know.

Clients come to me with months worth of morning reports and say:

I have no idea what this means.
My father is only listed on one report which shows him coming into this unit after the war ended.
I just paid for 8 months of reports and my dad is only in a couple at the end of the war. It says he transferred into this unit right before he shipped home. What do all these other reports mean and why do I have them if he wasn’t in this unit?

Why Does This Approach Usually Waste Your Money and Provide Few Answers?

What this record retriever does not choose to acknowledge is the proper way to reconstruct military history. It is not as easy as taking the unit on the discharge paper and making that the whole story. 95% of the time it is not.

Out of all the Army and Army Air Forces projects I do whether records burned or not – the men and women were in multiple units. The unit on the discharge may be a discharge unit only. Meaning they were put in there at the end of their service for the purpose of discharge. I just finished a project for a man who was in 6 – yes 6 units throughout his entire service and the unit on his discharge paper was not the one he was in combat with.

Men and women were transferred within a Division or into a new unit due to a number of reasons which may include – personnel changes, reorganization, wounds and being taken out of your unit for a long period of time, transfers through units for discharge, the job they did (perhaps they drove a tank) is no longer needed so they are put somewhere else doing something else.

When you allow someone to blindly copy months of Morning Reports because the discharge paper gave you a unit and the researcher copies them all for the period your individual was overseas does not mean you actually get reconstructed service.

Case in point – this week a client came to me with six months of reports copied by this researcher. His dad was not in months 1 or 2 – he transferred in at month 3 from a different unit. The researcher does not bother to trace through those reports this soldier – so in essence this man wasted money on two months of records and he only knows about the time his dad was in this unit and not the others he was part of before or after this one.

How Do You Properly Reconstruct Service Using Morning Reports?

It’s quite simple actually. You start with the unit on the discharge paper and then you work backwards through the Morning Reports looking for every instance the soldier appears. So let’s say he was F Company 358th Infantry Regiment 90th Division at war’s end – which for this example was the death date on 11 January 1945. You start there and go backward. You realize in December 1944 the Morning Report shows this soldier as being transferred into this Company from a different unit.

At this point you stop looking at F Company records and get the microfilm for the unit he transferred from and locate him in those records. If one shows he was transferred – as this particular soldier’s does in February 1944 – from a Replacement Depot and a few weeks before that from the 126th Medium Maintenance Company where he spent over a year training – you keep pulling those different units.

This allows you to see the units he was in. My firm will also pull every time the unit changes station (location) – unless a client wants every single day of Morning Reports that we find for each unit he was part of. So we can not only reconstruct his service history but also every move he made with those units.

Can you see how blindly pulling months of reports does not really serve you in finding answers? Our approach takes a bit longer to do – maybe a few hours depending on the archivists getting us the films. It does not usually take days unless the unit is obscure and records are illegible, to get the answers required.

When you consider hiring a genealogy or military research professional – investigate how they are actually doing their job. Ask questions and if they are unwilling to provide answers on how they do the work they do or why they only do it that way – that is a red flag to seek out someone else. There are several researchers out there who operate in a more ethical and educated way to accomplish finding answers for our clients.

Additional Resources to Learn More

Are you ready to learn the bigger picture of your family member’s military service? 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.

WWI & WWII Graves Registration Service Resources

March 5, 2019 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

Learn about the Graves Registration Service during World War I and World War II. This section provides resources to understand their job, the records they created, and what happened to our military personnel when they were Killed In Action, were Missing In Action, or died during service. Read about current MIA recovery efforts here.

Need help understanding the history of the Graves Registration Service and the records they created, including the Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF)? We have a book, Finding the Answers in the Individual Deceased Personnel File that can help!

We also have a 10- week online course Finding the Answers in the IDPF.

World War I

View all ABMC WWI Educational Resources.

The Beginnings of the Quartermaster Graves Registration Service

World War I Education – World War I Burial Files

WWI Graves Registration Card Registers

Book: AGRS in World War I A three-volume history of American Graves Registration Service in World War I. Also visit Verdun1916 which hosts these volumes and has many graphic photos and videos of how AGRS handled our war dead for burial – temporary and permanent.

Videos:

Activities of Graves Registration Service, France, 1919-1920

World War II

American Battle Monuments Commission

Bibliography of Graves Registration Resources

Articles

Books

Cemetery Codes Word document created by the 7th Armored Division

In Honored Glory

WWII Graves Registration

Memorial Former American Cemetery at Foy, Belgium

Missing Marines

The National Archives

Quartermaster Records (Graves Registration Service falls under this.)

National Cemetery Administration

New York Military Museum’s Database of World War II Dead

The Quartermaster Foundation

The Quartermaster Museum

U.S. Army Film

Just for Remembrance (1944)
Men of the Graves Registration – Temporary Cemeteries

U.S. National Library of Medicine

Veteran’s Affairs

Claim for Standard Government Headstone or Marker

WWII Army and Air Force Casualty List on Fold3

WWII US Medical Research Centre

On the other side of the war, to learn about German WWI and WWII Dead and Prisoners, read the article on Many Roads.

Can I help you with your research?

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.

An Inspiring Woman

March 8, 2017 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

Today is International Women’s History Day. Who are the women in your family that you are remembering or honoring today? How did those women change your life?

There is one woman who is very special to me and inspired me to continue moving forward in a time of great change and sadness for me. Her name is Virginia, or Ginny. Ginny married my cousin, Flying Tiger Robert Brouk, in November 1942. Three weeks after they married, she watched him die in a plane crash as he trained pilots in Orlando, Florida. After Robert’s funeral, no one in the family knew what happened to her. When I began researching Robert’s story, I posted a message on the Flying Tiger message boards in 1996. In 2005, nine years later, Ginny emailed me. The rest is history as I wrote Robert’s book and then others before my marriage collapsed and I became a single mother.

I visited Ginny for the first time, a few months before I moved and started my new life. We spent only three days together, but we laughed, told stories, and only cried a little. Listening to how she coped with life after Robert’s death and moved forward, rather than giving up, inspired me. I wasn’t planning on giving up but in moments of great change and emotion, a lot of things run through your mind. Ginny gave me strength to move forward with less fear.

In 2013 I started writing my book series, “Stories of the Lost.” I asked Ginny if I could write her story, so it could inspire the world. At first she was hesitant because she told me she didn’t do much. She wasn’t [a man] on the front lines with a gun. I responded that she DID make a difference. Her choice to join the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), like many others during the war, allowed women of future generations, including mine, to have more choices in life than to be housewives, nurses, or teachers, all common life paths in the 1940s for women. She gave women of future generations the choice to join the military and serve their country. Ginny contributed to the war effort just as everyone else did and her service should be remembered.

I also explained what LOST meant in the context of my books. Not that you’ve lost your mind or your car keys, but you lost something important that could not be recovered. She lost her husband after three weeks of marriage. All their dreams of the future were gone. My grandfather came back from the war changed and spent the rest of his life in a VA hospital. He lost seeing his boys grow up. My grandmother, his wife, lost her husband in a sense and became a single mom. My cousins who were in their early 20s and died in the war lost their futures. No love, no college, no adventure.

Two books were written and published by early 2014. Stories of the Lost and The Tiger’s Widow. Stories of the Lost contains four stories of my family members who died in service. Robert’s story is in this book. Ginny’s story continues in The Tiger’s Widow, in which we hear a little of Robert’s story and move through Ginny’s experience. It is a good idea to read Robert’s first so you understand everything that happened.

Ginny’s book, The Tiger’s Widow, begins with the following, which illustrates how souls can help and heal each other. The one thing I never expected when I wrote her story, was to end up as part of the story. You’ll have to buy the book if you want to know what happens.

Five Hearts Joined Together

Love knows no boundaries of time and space or life and death. It exists forever in our hearts as we remember and honor those who have gone before us. Through those memories we pass life lessons on to the next generation. We teach others there is light after darkness, hope after despair, and love is the glue that puts shattered hearts back together. This is a story of five hearts separated by time and space; hearts which would meet in the perfect moment. It is a story about never ending love that lived on even after death.

A famous pilot met a young beauty and the two fell in love, Robert and Ginny. Their love soared with the eagles. Their time together was brief but they lived so fully in love in the moment, it is as if nothing but death could have broken them apart. Then death knocked on their door and a plane fell from the sky in a fiery ball. One heart silenced on earth but lived forever in death. One heart shattered into a million pieces.

A year later on another continent, two brothers fought a war, Harvey and Fred. The boys grew up as orphans and wanted a heart to come home to. Fred flew a bombing mission over Austria and was lost, listed as missing for a year. Harvey feared the worst and waited for word which came a year after Fred went missing. A brother’s love lived on after death.

Less than a year after Fred went missing, Ginny found Harvey. A chance meeting and two hearts became one. Pieces of Ginny’s shattered heart started to glue back together, slowly at first and then more quickly. Harvey’s heart had finally found its home with Ginny. He was no longer an orphan or alone. They found each other during a time of war when the world around them collapsed in chaos. Together they created a new world filled with joy, love, and the memories of those lost before their time.

Almost 65 years later, another heart emerged. A young woman trying to start a new life after her heart was shattered. She and Ginny, now a widow for the second time, connected. Little did they know the impact that meeting would have.

Five hearts separated by time and space that met in perfect time, would change the lives of all they touched. Their love would span decades. Their life lessons would provide hope to others in the future.

Five hearts joined forever.

CRASH Airwar Museum Program 25 February 2017

March 2, 2017 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

Last Saturday, 25 February 2017, I gave my third WWII program on research and writing at the CRASH Airwar Museum near Amsterdam, Netherlands. We had a bit of a glitch as I brought my brand new laptop and didn’t realize it only had the HDMI port. The museum didn’t have that cord or connection to their beamer. Sometimes technology just doesn’t mesh. We made things work and I spoke for an hour on research and told many stories.

Stories have more impact than screen shots of documents.

Capture people with stories full of emotion and you cannot go wrong.

The room was almost filled and I met a lot of new people. I was also able to speak with some I met on previous engagements at the museum. CRASH is one of my favorite places to speak because the men who run the museum and programs are fantastic. It feels a bit like coming home when I am there. The museum collection is amazing too. If you have not visited the museum, I encourage you to do so.

Sebastiaan Vonk, founder of the Foundation United Adopters American War Graves (Stichting Verenigde Adoptanten Amerikaanse Oorlogsgraven,) attended to sell my book Faces of War to benefit the foundation’s programs. I signed several books after the program ended and had the opportunity to speak with several people.

Friends old and new at the CRASH Museum.

Several friends attended the program and our plan was to have lunch afterward. I met a couple who adopted a grave at Margraten. This couple planned to meet me at the program because we had been talking already with the family member of the soldier. The stories they told me were incredible and moving. Not enough stories are told or written about what civilians went through during the war in Europe. Not enough stories are passed down so families can heal their wounds of war, which are invisible in many cases, but felt, through the generations.

As we walked out of the museum, two program attendees who I was not previously friends with on Facebook, stopped to ask questions. We invited them to join us for lunch. Our lunch became not just a gathering of old friends but new ones and many stories were shared across the table. It was FANTASTIC!

How does it get any better than doing what you love, teaching, healing souls, and making new friends at the same time? I look forward to visiting my friends and teaching at the CRASH museum in the future.

WWII Program Saturday at the CRASH ’40-’45 Museum

February 20, 2017 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

International WWII historian, speaker, and author Jennifer Holik, will be presenting Stories of War at the CRASH Air War and Resistance Museum ’40-’45 on Saturday 25 February at 13.00. Her program will be a combination of WWII research and tips on writing the stories. Admission to the museum is € 3,50 per person and that includes the lecture.

During 1944 and 1945, thousands of men and women serving in the U.S. Army, Army Air Forces and Navy, fought to defeat Germany and liberate Europe. Their stories are those of life and death, hope, friendship, love, memories of those left behind, and dreams of the future.

Many questions surround the service history of these men and women. How does one conduct research from Europe? What records are available and how can they be accessed? How can individuals connect with families of the fallen, the sweethearts, or who shared their homes during the war? And finally, how can we preserve their stories? In this engaging and informative presentation, Jennifer shares:

A trip through time, exploring the service history of several Army and Army Air Forces personnel.
Resources to search prior to obtaining military records.
Information on obtaining Official Military Personnel File and the Individual Deceased Personnel File.
How to reconstruct service history.
Resources for the Prisoners, the Missing, and the Dead.
Tips on weaving military, genealogical, family, and historical records together to create a story.
A formula for writing a military story.
Writing prompts to get your writing flowing.

The Foundation United Adopters American War Graves (Stichting Verenigde Adoptanten Amerikaanse Oorlogsgraven) will bring a limited number of my book, Faces of War: Researching Your Adopted Soldier, to the event and have a limited number books available that day for sale. The foundation will donate all proceeds to its The Faces of Margraten tribute at the Netherlands Cemetery.

Jennifer will have a limited number of copies of her writing book Stories from the World War II Battlefield Volume 3: Writing the Stories of War.

Genealogical Information in the WWII IDPF

February 16, 2017 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

I’ve written before on the Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF) in both what documents they contain and how to access them. I have examples of these files under RESEARCH on this website. Today I’d like to talk about the genealogical information you can find within this file.

Many genealogists tend to avoid WWI or WWII research because they believe that all the records burned and nothing can be found (that is wrong). They also avoid it because it is too recent and not much is online. For those genealogists with family members who died in service or are still MIA, you are missing out on a lot of information by not doing this research.

Genealogical Information in IDPFs

Vital records information: birth and death dates and places. Sometimes marriage or divorce documents are also included. One file also contained a Marine’s Adoption records.
Health and dental history.
Photographs.
Vital records for family members. I have seen death certificates for parents and birth certificates for younger siblings.
Legal papers. I have seen FBI search results, mental hospital admittance paperwork, police reports, and probate documents in these files.
Change of Address forms. When the next of kin moved while a soldier was in service, they submitted change of address forms. This allows researchers to trace families after the 1940 census.
Family details. The IDPFs almost always contain handwritten letters from family members. Sometimes these letters talk about other siblings of the soldier who are in service.
Military details. The entire military service record is not included, but in cases where a soldier was MIA or still MIA, his training information is included in the documents.

Every file has similar documents but is also different. They range from 10-20 pages to over 375. That’s the largest file I’ve seen and it just arrived yesterday. To access these files, read the articles linked above about the IDPF.

Have you used the IDPF for your genealogical research? What information, secrets, and military history did you discover?

2nd Lt. David Baird Finch – Stories of War Submission

February 7, 2017 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

This is a guest post written by Baird (Barry) Otis Barr-Finch. His father’s story was originally posted on AWON’s website and is reprinted here with his permission.

My Dad, David Baird Finch was born in Atkinson, Illinois, on June 5, 1912 to James Madison Finch and Kate Nichol Finch. His father was a Congregational Minister, farmer and sometimes county Judge, so that the family moved around a lot, mostly in Nebraska. Dad completed his high school years at Bellwood Nebraska, where he played basketball. He attended one year of high school at Caldwell, Idaho, where his parents retired. He attended Wayne College in Nebraska for a while. He was the youngest of eight children and spoiled by all with a lot of attention and affection. His two oldest brothers served in the Army during World War I. The oldest, Robert was killed in France in the Battle of Belleau Wood 6/6/18. He is buried at the American Cemetery, and the other brother, Durell, received permanent injuries from gas.

Dad was considered to be very charming and a strong bond existed with all the family. It is quite apparent from the letters they wrote about him and the few stories that have been told about him, that he was the kind of man they all admired greatly.

He played semi-pro baseball in the Midwest during the 1930’s and since work was hard to get, he worked with the Civilian Conservation Corps. He also worked with a surveying crew and the Bureau of Reclamations at Caldwell, Idaho.

In 1937, he joined the Idaho National Guard 116th Calvary Unit where is was a Sargent. When the war began, Being older and unmarried, the military had a huge need for officers. He was asked to resign from the National Guard and joined the regular Army. He attended the Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia. After graduating in 1942, he went to training camps at different locations around the country, one of which was Fort Lewis, Washington. His outfit served in the Aleutian Campaign after getting his commission.

While at Fort Lewis, he met my mother, Zelpha Galloway Hawkins, who was living in Seattle with her five-year-old son, Ed. As Dad said in a letter to his sisters, they “fell for each other pretty hard.” They were married in the Chapel at Fort Lawton, Seattle. Much of their remaining days together were carried on through the mail, and while some of those letters survived, most of them “disappeared.” Of course much of their correspondence was about me and my brother. Before I was born, all they could talk about was how excited they were about having a little “girl.” They didn’t even have a boy’s name picked out so they had to scramble to find one. Dad did get to be at the hospital at the time of my birth on March 27, 1944, but he was not allowed to hold me, even after he tried to bribe one of the nurses. He did write to his sister about how “proud” he was of his family.

Soon thereafter, he was sent to the Pacific where the invasion of the Philippines was being planned. After the initial landing on Leyete, Philippine Islands, on October 20, 1944, as part of General MacArthur’s invasion. On November 13, 1944 he was sent on a mission in the foot hills west of Guinarona to determine the location and strength of enemy positions. The patrol had to cover ground thick with tall grass and bamboo thickets. Approaching a high ridge, they were suddenly hit by deadly machine gun and mortar fire at close range. The enemy was strongly entrenched and well concealed by the thick brush. Realizing that he was greatly out numbered and his position extremely perilous, he started withdrawing his men to safety. To do this, he had to expose himself to enemy fire. Hit by sniper fire, he died almost instantly. The men he had so bravely given his life for brought him back to the American lines. His captain wrote that “David had won the admiration of officers and the respect and affection of his men by his sincerity, his courage, and cheerfulness.” Another comrade wrote that “his loss to the Co. was a great blow, as the men liked and admired him so much. He was well liked and thought of by his fellow officers too.” He was buried in a temporary grave on Leyete. Later his remains were taken to a central cemetery on Leyte and in 1947 his remains were taken to Manila where the decision was made to put his remains in the Manila American Cemetery there along with 17,200+ men.

My mother remarried in 1946 to another “Vet.” While I bonded with him as my “Dad”, and he adopted my brother and myself, I was allowed the freedom to get to know the memory of my fallen father. My step-father once told me many years later that my Father was the one true love of my mother’s life. I had a good relationship with most of my fathers siblings, who lived nearby. It took taken 55 years to come to a point of healing that I have today and realize how much I missed knowing a great man. I can now be so thankful for his life and all the blessings I have received because of him. He is my hero.

This is a short story of my father, who died in WWII. I am the author and sole owner of this narrative. I want to share his story so that his sacrifice will not be forgotten. This story appears on the AWON (American World War II Orphans Network) Father’s page. AWON is dedicated to preserving the memory of our fallen hero fathers. The sources of this story come from oral stories told by family members, from letters written by family members, military comrades, and from Military records.

Do you have questions about this story? Please contact Barry for more information.

Would you like to share your story here? Please read how you can do this.

Share Your Soldier’s Story

January 31, 2017 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

The World War II Research and Writing Center receives a lot of messages and emails from people seeking information about a soldier. Some people really just want someone to hear the story they have to tell. Others need assistance in locating a record, identifying people in a photograph, or locating family members. Many have no idea where to begin their search in the U.S. or Europe. And a few have traveled to Europe to walk in their soldier’s footsteps, stood in historic places, or are preparing to travel.

Everyone has a story.

Last August I launched a program, Honoring World War II Service Together, to help bridge the gap between American and European genealogists and WWII researchers, to help educate researchers and preserve more stories of war before they are lost in time. Part of the mission of the work I do in the U.S. and Europe, is to help others tell their stories of war. Whether you are a family member, grave adopter, tour guide, researcher, genealogist, film maker, photographer, or anyone else interested in the stories of war, I invite you to tell your stories.

I am taking guest article submissions for the World War II Research and Writing Center’s website. To have your story considered for publication on the website, it must contain the following:

The story of the soldier, sailor, or Marine, you wish to share written in English.
- No more than 1000 words.
Include one or two photos to accompany the story. You must have rights to these photos and provide a caption and source of the photo.
Tell our readers why are you interested in this soldier’s story. Are you a family member, grave adopter, re-enactor, other.? Please explain why sharing this story is important to you.
Provide details about his or her military service and life.
- Please add a section at the end of the story telling our readers what sources you used to tell the story so our readers learn about other record sources. Everyone comes to a story through different avenues. (IDPF, OMPF, newspaper articles, family members, letters, Morning Reports, Mission Reports, War Diaries, photos, etc.)
If you are a grave adopter, were you able to connect with this soldier’s family? How did that experience help you and the family learn about the soldier, the war, and answer questions that may have been buried for years?
Important! What questions do you still have or what information are you seeking?
How can people contact you if they would like to learn more or share information with you?
- Please include your email, website, or Facebook page if you have one so people can contact you directly.

Submissions can be emailed to info@wwiirwc.com with the subject STORIES OF WAR SUBMISSION – please put the story in the body of the email. Photos can be attached. If your story is selected to be posted, you will be notified.

Looking for an American Soldier in Dijon 1944/1945

January 31, 2017 by Jennifer Holik Leave a Comment

This is a guest post written by a woman in France looking for an American soldier. Please contact her directly via her email listed in this article.

Hello, I am looking for an American officer, who was in the tanks, in Dijon in the years 44 / January 45, he would have been killing towards the pocket of Colmar.

In January or February 45, his jeep would jump on a mine … I have no element on his battalion … apart from the two photos in uniform, would it be possible to finally put a name on my photos.

I am at your entire disposal if you have any questions for me.

I thank you in advance.

Email: Marie-antoinette Sainte-croix

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