Obtaining Military Records (Resources I Used)

Hello All,

I recently went on the hunt for more information about my great-uncle David C. Williams Jr. who was a 1st Lt. in WWII but was KIA when the B-29 he co-piloted was hit by enemy fire and exploded over Siapan on January 27, 1945. I could see that this date and his B-29 had been written about extensively, but the information I needed on him was probably in his personal files.

I started with this website (seems mostly Air Force) and made a checklist: http://www.armyairforces.com/ResearchHelp/tabid/99/Default.aspx

I wrote the various places and was able to obtain is Missing Air Crew Report (MACR) as well as his Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF). There was something called a "Graves Registration" but I am still researching more on that. Some states offer their own military sites dedicated to those who have served, such as this one in Michigan:

WWII Honor List for Michigan:
http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17449_18640_18660-153294--...

Here is the Department of Veteran's Affairs Gravesite Locator: http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1

Here is the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, National Grave Registration Project: http://www.suvcw.org/graves/graves.htm

I have also found that utilizing various military forums online (such as: http://www.ww2aircraft.net) is also helpful. At that particular forum I found a man in Japan was researching the very B-29 that my uncle was on and so we collaborated and it was great.

Lastly, if your ancestor was held in a POW camp, sometimes you can find a roster of the individuals held at these camps such as this one where I found the survivors of Haley's Comet (B-29): http://www.mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/tokyo/omori/omori_ya...

Angelique