How to tell the story of a World War II hero

Main contributor: Mary Kircher Roddy, CG

Have you discovered your World War II veteran’s story? If not, I have two words for you – Start Today! Firsthand accounts of any event are invaluable, and our WWII veterans are a priceless resource. Any still alive will be upwards of age 95. You will still likely be able to find records and documents to answer may of your family history questions, but the chance to interview your father or grandfather, uncle, or neighbor is passing swiftly. Don’t delay!

Capture the stories of all your veterans while you can. The sooner you begin, the greater chance you have of being able to tell their own story, perhaps in their own words. These stories will be treasured by their descendants now and far into the future.

Home sources

Whether or not you can interview your subject, take a look at your “home sources”:

Newspaper clippings
Letters
Photos
Scrapbooks
Funeral programs
Yearbooks, and more that your family might have saved.

Are there details pertaining there about military service? If you can, go through these items with your subject as you interview them. Any of these might jog a memory or elicit a story. Ask them about places they served, and events they were a part of. Don’t forget to ask about their friends and colleagues. Make special notes of their names for follow-up.

In your collection of home sources, pay special attention to letters. A return address on an envelope might be a clue. The letterhead on the correspondence might lead you to one or more bases where the veteran was posted. Research those stations – what was going on there? Some military posts produced yearbooks, with photos of all the members of a unit or aircraft crew. Google searches might lead you to a website with such books. If you have the unit number in which your veteran served, also search websites for that. Veterans, their descendants, and others interested in military history have created websites devoted to military bases or crews. Such websites often include diaries and photographs of people in the unit.

Additional sources of information

As you expand your knowledge of your veteran’s friends and colleagues, try to track them down. Social media and online telephone and address directories might help you to find them. Perhaps a newspaper search will turn up a mention of their participation in a military reunion.

If the friends and associates have passed away, their obituaries usually list survivors. Again, use social media and online directories to find them. They, too, may have stories or artifacts to share and perhaps some interest in collaborative research on the stories.

There are many strategies for finding obituaries, including several subscription newspaper databases. Some funeral homes put obituaries of their clients online. Websites such as BillionGraves sometimes have obituaries attached to grave memorials. If you know where they are buried, a Google search for the name combined with the cemetery name might lead you to an obituary.

Try to learn as much as you can about the physical environment where your veteran served. If it was an aircraft, a ship, or a submarine, seek out diagrams of the craft. Knowledge of the layout can help you understand how the crew interacted with one another and why the perspective and memories of various witnesses to the same events might have differed from one another.

Official military reports

Seek out all available official reports. For example, if you have an air crewman who was wounded or captured, look for a Missing Air Crew Report (MACR). These reports may contain crew lists with name, rank, and serial number, a next of kin list, reports of interrogation of former prisoners of war (POWs), and statements on the capture or recovery of members of enemy air forces.

If your veteran was captured and held in a POW camp, look for books written by others who were interned there. They may not mention your person of interest, but they will give you a glimpse into the conditions of the camp and the treatment of prisoners. These primary sources will serve to enhance the story you write.

Understand that while countries were at war, there may have been kind civilians or medical personnel who provided comfort and care to combatants from the other side. After the war ended, some veterans returned to the place of their capture or internment to thank the doctors and nurses who took care of them, regardless of their “enemy” affiliation.

If your veteran was killed in action, write for the Individual Deceased Personnel File (IDPF). The documents in the file may be uncomfortable to read, but from them, you may learn about where your soldier was killed, and the condition of their remains when they were found. The file might include correspondence between the military and the decedent’s family. Lists of the soldier’s personal effects – mundane items such as clothing and toiletries, and more cherished items like a class ring – help to get a picture of their life and history. A description of a class ring might lead you to additional research into another aspect of your subject’s life.

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Explore more about how to tell the story of a World War II hero

Notable World War II record collections on MyHeritage


Name of collection	Number of records
U.S. World War II Army Enlistment	5,998,078
Soviet Prisoners of World War II Held in Germany	1,255,187
Ukraine, World War II Casualties	1,639,902
France, World War II Prisoners of War	723,075
World War II Reserve Corps Records	333,442
New Zealand, Army Expeditionary Force Nominal Rolls	181,281
Kansas, World War II Selective Service Records	223,811
Georgia, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1940-1942	130,414
US World War II Prisoners of War, 1941 - 1946	107,979
Finland, Second World War Casualties	94,510

References

This article was adapted from World War II Heroes – Telling Their Stories, a webinar presented by Mary Kircher Roddy, CG on Apr 8, 2015. Watch the full webinar on Legacy Family Tree Webinars.