How To Check If I Am Registered For The Us Military Draft

Gerald Ridenour, an Aviation Cadet in the U.S. Ground forces Air Strength, died in World War Two. He was just shy of his 21st birthday. When my mom showed me his grave at Highland Cemetery in Perry County, Ohio, I knew I had to discover out more about him.

The Casualty List

I found him listed on the WWII Regular army and Army Air Force Casualty List on Fold3. The information includes name, serial number, rank, and something pertaining to the death.

It was when I looked for the significant of "DNB" (Died Non-Battle) that I discovered there is pregnant in the serial number, too referred to as a service number.

WWII United states of america Regular army Serial Numbers: Meaning in the Offset Digits

The U.S. Ground forces began issuing serial numbers to aid avoid mixing the records of people with the same name. (A genealogist's dream come truthful!) When nosotros dig a little deeper into the number itself, we can learn a bit about the person.

Look at the Outset Number or Letter

Some prefixes were used in World War I. Still, the following organization began presently before Globe War Ii. The first grapheme gives us a lot of information.

1 = Enlisted in the Army (in other words, volunteered rather than drafted)
2 = Federally recognized National Baby-sit
3 = Drafted
4 = Drafted
O (that's the letter O, not a nothing) = Male commissioned officers
W = Male Warrant officers
T = Flying officers (Army Air Strength)
50 = Commissioned officers of the Women'due south Army Corps (WAC)
V = WAC Warrant officers
A = WAC enlisted women
R = Hospital dietitians
M = Physical therapy aides

Looking back at the casualty list, nosotros now know:

Gerald Ridenour enlisted
Arthur Porter was in a federally recognized National Baby-sit unit
Robert Pratt and Wilfred Ratliff were drafted
William Petruzzi was a commissioned officer. (We too knew that from him being listed as a two Lt. But if his rank hadn't been listed, we would have discovered he was a commissioned officer based on his serial number.

Expect at the Second Number

When y'all have an viii-digit serial number, the second number shows the Service Command. This narrows downward where the person enlisted or was drafted. If you take a series number for a member of the WAC, look at the number after the letter prefix.There'due south an exception.Think those serial numbers that brainstorm with "2," showing National Guard service? Y'all need to look at the tertiary digit. (The 2nd digit for those will always exist a null. You knew in that location'd exist some exception, didn't yous.)

1 = Connecticut Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont
two = Delaware, New Jersey, New York
three = Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia
4 = Alabama, Florida, Georgia Mississippi, N Carolina, S Carolina, Tennessee
five = Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Westward Virginia
6 = Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin
7 = Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, S Dakota, Wyoming
8 = Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas
nine = Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington
0 = When the start number is 3, the zilch means he was drafted outside the U.Due south. (301 indicates Panama; 302 indicates Puerto Rico)

Since the second digit of Gerald Ridenour's serial number is 5, we now know that he enlisted from either Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, or West Virginia. The same for where Robert Pratt and William Ratliff were drafted. Arthur Porter, from the National Guard, also enlisted from ane of those four states, since thethird number of his serial number is 5.

A Annotation Nigh Twins

Co-ordinate to the introduction to the Globe War II Honor List of Dead and Missing:

"Serial numbers are assigned with peachy care and according to a set of regulations. Consecutive series numbers, for case, are non assigned to twins since this might crusade defoliation of identity between 2 persons with the same birth date and same general concrete characteristics."

Other Resources

Jennifer Holik, Stories from the Earth War 2 Battlefield: Reconstructing Ground forces, Air Corps, and National Baby-sit Service (Vol. 1), (Generations, 2015). Jennifer has put together a tremendous resource for researching members of the Ground forces, Air Corps and National Guard from WWII. [NOTE: This is an Amazon affiliate link.]
"U.s.a. Regular army WWII Dog Tags" by Alain Batens onWorld War II Living History & Reenacting Information has great info about dissimilar styles of WWII dog tags and how to decipher them.
The U.s. Army Serial Number Generator atHero Files will generate an accurate WWII-era Army series number based on the criteria you lot enter. Useful for authors and reenactors.

References

War Department, World State of war 2 Honor Listing of Dead and Missing: State of Ohio, (Washington, DC: by the War Dept., June 1946), p. ii. Available on Fold3.
"Service number (United States Ground forces)" on Wikipedia.
"United states of america Regular army WWII Canis familiaris Tags" by Alain Batens on Globe War 2 Living History & Reenacting Data.