With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

WWII MIAs Now Listed In Electronic Database

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that an electronic database listing the names of servicemembers still unaccounted for from World War II is now available for family members and researchers.

This new listing will aid researchers and analysts in WWII remains recovery operations. Prior to this three-year effort, no comprehensive list of those missing from WWII has existed.

This database, listing nearly 78,000 names, was compiled by researchers from DPMO and the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. They used hard-copy sources including “The American Graves Registration Service Rosters of Military Personnel Whose Remains were not Recovered” from the National Archives II repository in College Park, Md., and “The World War II Rosters of the Dead.” Once transferred into electronic formats, they used computer programs to compare the two lists and determined possible discrepancies among the entries. These differences were then resolved using additional sources from the National Archives and thousands of personnel files from the Washington National Records Center.

Read entire article at DefenseLink