If Only You Were Here Mr. Griffith, This would be a piece of cake. April 20 1944?

[SirCaleb]

SF180 faxed to St. Louis. Wonder what the waiting time will Be like? 10-14 business days? I’m not sure if someone mentioned the July 1973 fire that destroyed 80% of WWII Army Documents of personnel discharged November 1. 1912 - January 1. 1960. I have a bad feeling. Either way we have some good stuff here. Would be cool to find more!!!

[Tank Destroyer]

3-6 months

[SirCaleb]

3-6 months

[Chopperman]

Interesting thread
Good luck on your search.

[SirCaleb]

Thanks for the kind words, Chopperman!

I’m hoping and praying that there won’t be any hassle getting Mr. Griffiths replacements even though I am not next-of-kin. I am thinking with these legal documents, there has to be some sort of “exception or special case” where they will award the vet with replacement medals to the owner of his estate??? What a bummer that humans have to come and go... No one said life was gonna be easy though.

[Rakkasan187]

Caleb,

Happy to hear that you sent away for the records. I did forget to mention the wait period.. As Marty has stated it could take 4-6 months, longer or shorter depending on who is working your file. Keep in mind also that there was a very large fire at the records center in the 70's and many records (millions) were lost.. BUT there is hope.. You may get the letter from NARA stating that the records were lost in the fire, so be prepared for that.. but there are also outside research organizations that can find records even after NARA said they couldn't.. But based on the records that you have shown us, there should not be any reason that NARA could not issue replacement medals..

If this happens, I would recommend a research company called "golden arrow research. The gentleman there Geoff Gentilini and his crew of researchers are absolutely remarkable. They researched a family member for me that I kept drawing a blank on.. He was able to get deep in the weeds and I got a great file of information on my relative.. Worth the cost.. So you have this to fall back on..

Golden Arrow Research-Research a Veteran


Keep us informed of the process..

I have been requesting NARA records for years, have several hundred in the hopper right now and when they come in the mail, it's like Christmas.. Some are of course the Fire Letter, but as I mentioned before, these records are pulled by government employees, not knocking them in the least bit, but in one case that I got the Fire Letter 2 times for the same person I was researching by 2 different researchers , I was not going to give up and guess what,, on the third time, the researcher pulled the record and I got copies of what I needed.. so again it all depends on how motivated the clerk is to do work...

Smitty

[SirCaleb]

Smitty,

Thanks for sharing the great info regarding what I can do if I so happen to encounter an employee who is "having a bad day." Is it bad that, I am expecting a bad news letter from the Nation Archives? :P

I will definitely use the people you recommended if this is the case! Thanks again!

Regards Caleb