Database of unaccounted-for WWII troops released
System will help researchers, families
by
Joseph M. de Leon
News-Post Staff
WASHINGTON — Scanning about 8,000 pages of photocopied military documents, then learning the data couldn't be converted to a digital text file was hard enough.
Hand typing the data from those thousands of pages, then verifying no mistakes were made, was worse.
Jean Mansavage and a team of dozens of graduate students and military reservists spent more than three years developing the "Service Personnel Not Recovered Following World War II" database.
Released in June, the database lists nearly 78,000 unaccounted-for soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen from World War II. It includes name, service number, military branch, rank and date of loss.
Mansavage, deputy director of archival research for the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, led the project.
The database adds to DPMO's databases from the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War and the 1991 Gulf War.
"It was very satisfying as a historian coming in to the project after everyone said it couldn't be done," she said. "Those individuals were not historians."
It wasn't as simple as going to a library.
The researchers digitized hard-copy sources, such as the 8,000-page "The American Graves Registration Service Rosters of Military Personnel Whose Remains were not Recovered," from the National Archives II repository in College Park, and microfiche records such as, "The World War II Rosters of the Dead."
They first had to photocopy paper documents, then scan the duplicates to minimize the risk of damaging the originals.
The scanner couldn't recognize the characters because the originals came from dot-matrix printers, which use a pattern of dots to make letters. Photocopying blurred the pattern.
Once the documents were transferred to electronic formats, researchers programmed a computer to compare the two lists and find possible errors.
"When we had discrepancies between those data sets, we, as historians, know what other military primary sources we could go to clarify those discrepancies," Mansavage said. "We had to take special care to make sure those discrepancies were ironed out and make sure the details are the most accurate possible."
Data entered by one researcher was quality-checked by others, Mansavage said. They used additional sources from the National Archives and thousands of personnel files from the Washington National Records Center to settle differences.
The project put a name to each service member still missing from World War II, Mansavage said. In addition to being a research tool, the digital memorial can be viewed by family members.
"What's more rewarding is to have done this database for all the individuals who are on that list," she said. "In a way, it's a tribute to them. It's a record for everyone to see and recognize their sacrifice."
The World War II database has fewer details than those of other wars. For example, the database for missing Vietnam troops shows hometowns and types of vehicle used when the service members were lost. The database for missing Cold War troops includes descriptions of the final incident and lists crew members serving on joint missions.
"You can see as the technology gets better, and we have learned lessons, our record-keeping gets better," Mansavage said. "The (World War II database) reflects the details available to us. The newer conflicts have more details because records are better."
The database will evolve as more data is included and names are added or removed.
The names of those whose remains are recovered and identified will be removed as families bury their loved ones. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii recovers about 100 service members' remains every year, one-third of which are from World War II.
A separate database could be developed to list those recovered troops, Mansavage said.
In the coming months and years, names and information will be added as historical documents and personnel files surface. That could include details such as reports listing what happened to crews lost on Air Force missions or which ship a sailor was aboard.
"We have access to Navy records that gives us ship details, so we can have a ship association," Mansavage said. "Take the U.S.S. Arizona. Those service members are in our data set, but we will not attempt to recover those individuals."
The Arizona sank during the Pearl Harbor attack Dec. 7, 1941. Most of the 1,177 crew members went down with the ship.
Recognition of the site started with a commemorative flagpole in 1950. By 1962, a memorial honored those lost on what came to be known as The Day of Infamy.
Many World War II families learned their loved one was missing by telegram. A year later, another telegram declared the missing service member dead but offered no details.
Mansavage hopes the database will offer families some closure.
"Even if we can't find them at the bottom of the ocean, we can tell them what ship they were on or what place they were serving in," she said. "I found that helps the family member a great deal to have that information."
