Help Save Access to Historical Immigration Records: Take Action with RecordsNotRevenue.com

2008 Press Release announcing USCIS Genealogy Program

Researchers with an interest in immigration and naturalization might be familiar with US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS, formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service, INS) and the Genealogy Program launched back in 2008. What might be less well known was the reason for the creation of the program, which was to provide “a dedicated queue for genealogists, historians and others seeking genealogical and historical records and reference services that generally require no FOIA expertise. As a result, USCIS will provide more timely responses to requests for records of deceased individuals.”

While response times ebbed and flowed during the first decade of the Genealogy Program’s operation, today’s reality demonstrates anything but a timely response. Currently, an Index Search request averages 245 business days for a result. The subsequent Records Request averages an astounding 275 business days to provide record copies.[1] That’s more than two years, start to finish, to obtain records once promised in less than 90 days.[2] Worryingly, more and more people receive correspondence telling them their file cannot be located. Some correspondence to Genealogy Program customers shows their files received extensive FOIA review, exactly what the creation of the program sought to avoid.

Trendline Graph demonstrating near-exponential wait times to receive historical record information from USCIS Genealogy Program

Now (January 2023) USCIS proposes changes to the fees for the Genealogy Program, as well as changes to the operational structure of the program. USCIS claims the need for enormous fee hikes reflects the cost to operate the Genealogy Program. It also claims the structural changes “might” improve the wait time to receive records, but only if records have been “previously digitized.”[3]

What the proposed fee hikes will do, if adopted, is certain: make access to historical immigration records unaffordable to most Americans. What the proposed structural changes will do, if adopted, is certain: mislead customers to think that they might receive all the records with one payment of $100. The reality, though, is that only one of the five document types serviced by the Genealogy Program is fully digitized.[4]

Back in 2020, USCIS promised to “transfer more files to NARA [National Archives] in the near future,” [5] yet only a small number of non-historic A-files have transitioned to NARA custody. Many historic files remain inaccessible on warehouse shelves because USCIS’ management of its historic records is quite simply, a mess. Over decades, USCIS put fixing this problem in the “too hard bucket” and now it expects customers to pay the price – up to 269% more than current fees.

These records should be at the National Archives, but it’s not as simple as calling in moving trucks. USCIS seems unwilling or unable to provide NARA the finding aids and index for the records in a usable format.[6] USCIS cannot simply dump records at NARA’s doorstep and expect NARA to fix the problem USCIS created. The resulting stalemate means it is virtually impossible to access records of 20^th century immigration.

Speak out! RecordsNotRevenue.com provides all the details on issues of access, efficiency and transparency with the USCIS proposed rule. RecordsNotRevenue.com has suggestions on how to craft a comment, and shows you the steps to take. Join RecordsNotRevenue.com in telling USCIS to get their records management act together. Ask USCIS to present to the public a real plan to fix the two-year (plus!) backlog. Expect USCIS to coordinate with NARA to create a plan to transition these historical records in a manner that makes them serviceable to the public.

The comment period ends 6 March 2023. Visit RecordsNotRevenue.com and take action today!

Illustration explaining the proposed new fees and wait times for the USCIS Genealogy Program — *This graphic illustrates the future if we don’t stop the proposed changes to the USCIS Genealogy Program*.

[1] https://www.uscis.gov/records/genealogy/genealogical-records-help/request-status, last updated 28 Dec 2022; accessed 9 February 2023.

[2] https://www.uscis.gov/records/genealogy/genealogical-records-help/record-requests-frequently-asked-questions, accessed 9 February 2023.

[3] https://www.recordsnotrevenue.com/take-action

[4] The digitized series, known as Alien Registration forms (AR-2), came into use in 1940. Some Certificate files (C-files) are digitized. All other documents – A-files, Visa Files and Registry Files – would be subject to the $240 per document fee.

[5] U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Fee Schedule and Changes to Certain Other Immigration Benefit Request Requirements, published 3 Aug 2020. https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2020-16389/p-830, accessed 6 January 2023.

[6] https://www.archives.gov/records-mgmt/accessioning/finding-aid.html, accessed 9 February 2023; and MiDAS System schedule N1-566-06-002, see item 1(b). After the initial transfer, the NARA copy was supposed to receive periodic updates.

[7] The full text of the mission statement of the National Archives: https://www.archives.gov/about/info/mission, accessed 10 Feb 2023.

The Eastern European Mutt is going to…

…nowhere! Once again, I’m going nowhere. But I will be speaking at 42^nd IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, August 21-25, 2022.

Check out my live panel presentation, The Future of USCIS Records: The Problem is More than High Fees, with Alec Ferretti and Marian Smith, taking place on 24 August from 5:15pm – 6:15pm EDT.

We will discuss what led to this moment of limited access to historical immigration records and the unclear future regarding preservation. Genealogists and genealogy societies play a vital role in influencing Federal records management and participants will come away with new information and key action steps targeting both the USCIS Genealogy Program and the National Archives.

I also have an on-demand talk, The Alphabet Soup of Naturalization Records: Meet the P-File. This session introduces researchers of 20^th Century immigration to the Petition File, a document that exists (or once existed) for immigrants who started the naturalization process between 27 September 1906 and early 1950. P-files, created by US Naturalization Examiners for every Petition for Naturalization filed, can provide a good deal of information on the applicant, sometimes information available nowhere else. These files, accessible only via a complicated FOIA request, are in the custody of USCIS, and scheduled for destruction in 2050.

These sessions are available to all conference attendees. The live panel will also be available as part of the conference recording package.

Will I see you online?

Odessa

No one knows why my grandfather chose Odessa for his place of birth. Like many children who immigrated to the United States at a young age, Max knew little of the place he left behind. Yet unlike his three other immigrant siblings, two older, one younger, he somehow knew something they didn’t – a specific place of birth – Odessa. How Max summoned the name of that fabled city to put on various government documents remains an unsolved mystery.

A scrappy deal-maker, Max would have fit into Moldavanka like a glove. His Prohibition-era experiences would have served him well in the underground markets. His love of being well-dressed, and standing out in a crowd, despite his diminutive size, would have found him strolling Derybasivska on a warm spring evening.

It’s hard to prove a negative, but I’m pretty certain Max was not born in Odessa. His origins are probably in Volhynia, near his father’s city of Novohrad-Volynskyi, or his mother’s town of Sudylkiv. With the essential help of an historian, genealogist and expert on Odessa[1], we scoured the vast archival records of Odessa, marking each Karol birth and death, looking for a connection. We even found a boy named Mordkho[2] born at the right time, with parents who were originally from Volhynia, but those parents, and their patronymics, did not match the names for Max’s mother and father. Maybe they are cousins.

I traveled to Odessa in 2018, taking in the romantic, gritty city on the Black Sea and pondering why my grandfather chose Odessa. I walked to the Brodsky Synagogue, home of the Odessa State Archives and thought about the lives and the secrets held inside. Now I think about the lives and the people trapped in Odessa, and across Ukraine, while this madman wages war from the east.

Historians say write it down now, while the history is happening. To that I say, it’s complicated being two generations removed from a place I’m not from and feeling such strong emotions about it. The branches of my family who left Ukraine are the branches who survived WWII. But Odessa, the place my grandfather never saw, is a place I also chose. And while history is happening, I feel helpless.

It wasn’t easy, but he managed to banish his memories. Then, livening up, he began where he’d left off, telling the Chekists who’d been sent down from Moscow about the life of Froim the Rook, about his shrewdness, his elusiveness, his contempt for his fellow man – all those astounding stories that have receded for ever into the past…
–Isaac Babel, from “Froim the Rook” in Odessa Stories, translated by Boris Dralyuk

The Eastern European Mutt is going to…

…nowhere! I’m going nowhere. But will be speaking at 41^st IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, August 1-5, 2021. Check out my live panel presentation, Know Your USCIS Records, with Rich Venezia and Marian Smith, taking place on 3 August from 11:15am – 1:30pm EDT.

The two-hour panel session will introduce researchers to Certificate Files (C-Files), Visa Files and Registry Files, Alien Registration Forms and A-files. We will work to untangle the misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding the records created by US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The session will help participants understand the fee-based USCIS Genealogy Program, what might be found duplicated in court records, and what might be at the National Archives. We’ll discuss the content of the records, value to genealogical research, and unclear status regarding preservation and future researcher access. Despite the interest in these records, and advocacy for them, future access to USCIS records remains in jeopardy if the community does not continue to work to protect the records.

I also have an on-demand talk, Three is Not the Magic Number: Better Ways to Add Up Evidence and Improve Analysis. Finding three examples of a piece of information equals a fact is a genealogy myth. This presentation breaks apart the notion of three, and replaces it with using documents to learn definitions of primary and secondary information, original and derivative source documents, and direct and indirect evidence – all part of using the Evidence Analysis Process Map to weigh and analyze the evidence before making a conclusion.

Examples of how the “rule of three” can result in incorrect conclusions will be discussed in case studies, which will also help participants understand how to build research plans, equaling better research, better conclusions and fewer genealogy “do-overs.” The records discussed in this presentation will focus on those easily available for a newer researcher: vital records (birth, marriage, death), headstones, Census records, immigration and naturalization records, Social Security number applications, and military draft cards.

Will I see you online?

USCIS Wants to Hear From You! Tell Them “Give us the Records”

US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) currently holds millions of records that should be accessible from the National Archives. The USCIS Genealogy Program, begun with the best of intentions, no longer functions, resulting in a difficult, time-consuming and very expensive process for genealogists, historians and everyday researchers to access immigration records of the late 19^th and 20^th century.

Previously, we fought back on the USCIS proposal to hike fees to access the records. Now, USCIS wants to hear from the public to identify barriers between their services and our satisfaction. The window of opportunity to tell USCIS about all the problems with the Genealogy Program closes on 19 May 2021.

Effective comments require specific feedback. Comments must address one or more of the 17 questions posed by USCIS. Comments must include reference to the Code of Federal Regulations. This sounds difficult, but it isn’t. The team at Records, Not Revenue (of which I am a part) outlined three steps to help you provide effective comments on the USCIS Genealogy Program.

If you are ready to take action now, click here. Remember, the deadline is 19 May 2021

If you want to know a bit more, continue reading….

USCIS focuses on citizenship and immigration services. Before it was USCIS, it was the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and before that, the Bureau of Immigration. These agencies created heaps and heaps of records that provide important and interesting details on our ancestors’ lives.

The Genealogy Program at USCIS, created to help genealogists, historians and researchers access these old records, no longer effectively services the records nor the community. In fact, historical records and records management are not mentioned in the USCIS Mission Statement, nor is the Genealogy Program, historic records or records management listed in the USCIS Core Values.

Anyone who tries to order records from the USCIS Genealogy Program knows that the program currently exists as an afterthought, a burden, as illustrated in this info graphic

I experienced this process while working to obtain files on my grandfather. I submitted an index request, and then had to submit a FOIA request, after paying for the index search. Then, I received the documents, poorly scanned, redacted and delivered on obsolete technology. This is just one example of the challenges researchers face in obtaining the records.

The home for historic records is the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). USCIS has signed legal agreements to transfer many of their historic records and accompanying index to NARA, but has so far failed to uphold these agreements.

There is a solution: USCIS must transfer the historic records (and accompanying index) of our ancestors, as they are legally bound, and do it without further delay. The records that are not subject to transfer and are open for research must be serviced by trained professionals who understand the complicated history of the agency and the records under its care.

Take action now. Submit comments on the USCIS Genealogy Program. The deadline is 19 May 2021. Share this information with friends, researchers, librarians, historians, genealogy societies and your elected officials. Don’t let USCIS hold our history hostage.

Following My Own Advice: Tending to a Family Tree

Brickwalls, the figurative ones, exist to torture genealogists. I talk about them a lot. Why they exist, strategies to break them, condolences when it appears the brickwall might stay standing. In early 2021, I presented a virtual talk for the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, with a focus on methods a hobbyist genealogist can use to get to the next level. I push them to think about how they research, and what they do with the information they find.

In the talk, I point out that just like in real life, our genealogy trees need pruning and routine maintenance. Perhaps incorrect information got added during a late-night research session, or a clue missed on a previously reviewed document. Or maybe a brickwall can be broken with a genealogy “do-over,” because the information needed is now accessible, or more easily available.

Work on one of my brickwalls traces back more than a decade. I wanted to determine the relationship between my great-grandfather, Samuel Brand, and Harry Brandt. Samuel Brand traveled to the United States with Harry’s family, lived with them, and bought a house with Harry. They shared a surname, kind of, but how were they related? Sam was about 18 years younger than Harry. Was Harry an uncle, cousin, much older sibling, or no relation at all?

I needed to know Harry’s father’s name, and the most likely place to find that was on a death certificate or a headstone.

Harry Brandt and his son Aaron vanished from St. Louis about 1913, and I could not figure out what happened to them. Did they go back to Russia? Did they relocate? Another of Harry’s sons moved to Chicago, and I could find a suitable Harry Brandt there, but not with enough information to prove a match. Parts of the family spelled the surname Brand, and I could find men named Harry Brand, too, in St. Louis, Chicago and other locations. But the right one? No clue.

A lot less was available online when I first began work on this problem. I ordered Harry’s naturalization documents from the National Archives in Kansas City, and the copies were sent to me on a DVD. I scoured the St. Louis Public Library’s obituary index, ordering any Brand or Brandt, and the library sent me photocopies in the mail. I visited the St. Louis Recorder of Deeds and using both microfiche and microfilm, got copies of the home ownership papers.[2] I photographed every Brand or Brandt at Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery. I tried to make use of digitized newspapers at Chronicling America, but their OCR search combined with the last name Brand(t) gave me thousands of hits for every advertisement of “Brand Name” or “Brand New” and trying to find Harry in that haystack of hits was not possible.[3]

I traced Harry’s other children, and where they went. I contacted some of their family members. No one knew what happened to Harry. I needed Harry’s father’s name to try and place him within my family’s Brand(t) lines. And I could not find it.

Fast forward to March 2021, and a project I am a part of with a group of other professional genealogists who focus on late 19^th and 20^th Century immigration to the United States. As part of the effort, we collected examples of naturalizations from different courts around the US. I pulled up Harry’s file, but no new revelations came from reviewing the documents, and a naturalization doesn’t have the one piece of information I needed to include him in the project – his date of death.

I typed Harry’s name into a genealogy database search, wondering if anything new might show up. And there it was. A death certificate in Los Angeles, from 1914, for a man born about 1862, named Harry Brandt. I clicked on the thumbnail to open the image. At first glance, it seemed to be another record that might not give me enough information to form a conclusion, as the name of the informant was helpfully written as “son.” But Box 18 offered literally,

SPECIAL INFORMATION …. Former or Usual Residence: St. Louis

I was on to something. I obtained a photograph of the corresponding headstone, and finally solved this brickwall. Now, I can welcome my great-grandfather Samuel Brand’s older brother, Nachman Tzvi son of Mordechai Leib, to the family.

Figuring this out opens a lot of research doors for this line, but for now I will sit and ponder if the answer had been there all along? Probably not. Genealogy website search engine algorithms are funny things. But why did I decide to check again, and why did it show up right away? Our brains are funny things, too. We see information we might have missed the first time, we interpret and analyze documents differently with fresh eyes. New data is added to genealogy sites daily. It’s hard to keep up, but important to remember that trees need occasional maintenance. A spring cleaning, if you will.

[1] St Louis Recorder of Deeds Archives, 1909, book 2255, page 423.

[2] This was a feat unto itself. A researcher has to start with the name of the present owner of the building, then work their way back in time, from grantee to grantor, charting the numbers of each transaction, until the name of the people in question are located. This information is on microfiche. The numbers located are then used to pull up, on microfilm, the copies of the deeds.

[3] The Library of Congress’ free digitized newspaper collection. This was before any other online newspaper search engines launched.

[4] “California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994,” database and images, FamilySearch. Death Certificate #1778, 1914.

Veterans Day 2020

Just before the National Archives closed to the public in March, I was able to finish gathering the information from records to tell the story of my great uncle Irv’s WWII experience, and confirm his participation in the Liberation of Ohrdruf.

The following links are to previous blog posts that trace the research steps I took, and the documents and photos I uncovered. The process could be used for research on your WWII Army soldier.

While the research tells Irv’s story, this post is dedicated to the United States Armed Forces veterans I have known: my father, a captain in the US Air Force, my uncle Nate (US Army), my uncle Sandy (US Navy), cousins and friends.

*Irv Carl second from left, standing, at the 94th Evacuation Hospital in Italy, 1945*

The Persistence of Myth

Your family’s name was not changed at Ellis Island. And yet, again and again, the response to that factual statement is a retort of “well, in my family it was.” I understand. No one wants to call their grandparent a liar.

Grandpa said his grandpa was called Schwartz and now our name is Black. It was changed at Ellis Island.
Grandma said our name was Weiss and now it’s White. They were given that name on color day at Ellis Island.

I’ll tell you what is black and white – records. The documents have the facts, which are not always the same as the oral history. Previously, I documented the evolution of the surname on my paternal side. Let’s break down the myth again looking at my maternal line.

Growing up, I was told that this document was my great-grandfather’s steamship ticket – in reality it is an inspection card. The inspection card, issued to immigrants and steerage passengers, was filled out in Southampton, England. It bears the stamp of the US Consulate in Southampton.[1] 1904 Gotcher inspection card

This little card provides multiple points for cross-referencing:

the ticket number (upper right – 20600)
the ship and date of departure
last residence
page of the ship manifest (stamped “AA”)
number on the page AA of the ship manifest (5)

and, of course, the name in the center – Solomon Gotcher. That’s not his signature. This was filled out for him. How do I know it’s not his signature? Other documents required his signature, such as his Declaration of Intention to become a US citizen.[2]

1917 Dec of Int sig

But this signature says “Solomon Ketcher” not “Solomon Gotcher.” How did the name change happen?

A look at the ship manifest[3] shows a mirror of the inspection card. Solomon Gotcher appears on sheet AA, line 5, with the ticket number 20600 penciled in. That’s not his signature, either.

1904 Gotcher St Paul Manifest

How did Solomon get from Gotcher to Ketcher? Well, it was more of a return. In February of 1904, Solomon married in Daugavpils, Latvia.[4] The surname, written in Cyrillic, Кацерь, is underlined. It transliterates to “Katsher,” which is pretty close to Ketcher. And it has nothing to do with Ellis Island, or baseball.

1904 Dvinsk marriage

Resources on Inspection Cards:

More resources on name changes that never happened:

[1] A faded stamp to the right shows he passed inspection in New York.

[2] US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Declaration of Intentions. Vol 40 p365, 1917 Solomon Ketcher, Declaration 18469, citing St Louis County Library Film 68, FHL Film 1749653.

[3] New York Passenger Arrival Lists (Ellis Island), 1892-1924, database with images, FamilySearch, Roll 473, vol 928-929, 2 Jul 1904-5 Jul 1904; citing NARA publications T715 and M237.

[4] Latvijas Valsts Vēstures Arhīvs, Rīga. Latvijas Ebreju Rabinātu Metriku Grāmatas. Fond 5054, Apraksts 2, Lieta 276, page 15, entry 35.

Liberation of Ohrdruf

On 4 April 1945, members of the 4^th Armored Division, supported by an attachment from the 89^th Infantry Division, liberated the Nazi forced labor camp known as Ohrdruf.

Most Americans first learned of the atrocities of the Nazi camps in 1942, but it was not until April 1945 that US soldiers witnessed what happened firsthand when they liberated Ohrdruf.

[1]

I never thought I’d write about the documentation of a tragedy while living in the midst of another. It is hard to write about concentration camps at any time, and it’s harder now with the world currently facing Covid-19. This post continues the series on researching World War II service, recalling the efforts and sacrifices of the past, and presenting the evidence that tells us what happened. The past must be documented, and we, and succeeding generations, must learn and remember.

The 89^th Infantry Division, of which the 914^th Field Artillery Battalion was a part, has been commemorated by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the US Army Center of Military History as a Liberating Unit. Their guidelines define a Liberating Unit as

Recognize units only at the divisional level;
Accord the honor of liberator status on the basis of unit records housed at the National Archives and Records Administration, not oral testimony; and
Accord liberator status to those divisions arriving at the site within 48 hours of the initial division’s encounter.[2]

I knew from reading the history of the 89^th that some units were attached to the 4^th Armored Division during a couple key dates, specifically 3 – 6 April 1945. These units were

355th Combat Team[3]
914th Field Artillery Battalion
314th Engineers Combat Battalion, Company C[4]

The 4^th Armored Division, like the 89^th, was recognized as a Liberating Unit of Ohrdruf. It seemed from the general history of the 89^th that my great uncle Irv Carl would have been a witness to the atrocities of the Ohrdruf camp. The unit histories of both the 4^th and the 89^th also document their presence at Ohrdruf, as does the history of the 914^th. To learn the daily movements of each company of the 914^th Field Artillery Battalion, and access every possible record available, I needed to review Morning Reports.

Morning Reports are the most granular of the documents available to WWII military researchers – they were created the morning after events took place. The reports are omission-based, meaning that if nothing happened to a soldier that day, his name would not appear, just some descriptive details of what the company did and experienced. Reports only show the names of men wounded, sick or who arrived/departed the unit on a particular date, meaning that the vast majority of soldiers’ names were not in Morning Reports.

Morning Reports vary in detail, and in preservation quality. Morning Reports were microfilmed by the National Archives and are housed in St. Louis. Some reels have fared better than others. The 914^th Field Artillery Battalion reports have some gaps – days when the “buck slips,” the small slips of paper on which the reports were filed, were not received. The data was input on later dates.

The Morning reports for the 914^th Field Artillery Battalion – for all Batteries – are missing buck slips for many days of the first two weeks of April. Even so, the Morning Reports for Battery C – the Battery to which Irv Carl belonged – provide details on exactly where and when. On 4 April 1945, after traveling more than 200 miles in less than three days, Battery C arrived 2 miles southeast of Meteback, Germany[5] at 1130. The next morning, 5 April, it was onward to take Gotha. Battery C arrived at Ohrdruf in the rain, at 1600 on 6 April 1945. They remained at Ohrdruf for several days, departing at 0630 on 10 April 1945.

A few days after the 914^th Field Artillery Battalion departed Ohrdruf, General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived, along with General George C. Patton. In a letter to George C. Marshall written on 15 April 1945, Eisenhower described the experience[6]

6995916_042_Page_2 Eisenhower ltr to Marshall crop

Resources

First person accounts of Ohrdruf:

[1] Record Group 407: Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1905 – 1981, World War II Operations Reports, 1940 – 1948. Entry (NM3) 427, File 389 – FA(914) – 0.1 History 914^th FA BN, 89th Inf. Div 2 Feb 1942 – 30 Oct 45.

[2] USHMM, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/us-army-units?parent=en%2F7836, accessed 30 March 2020.

[3] A Combat Team is a temporal fighting force, depending on the tactical situation. In the case of a Regimental Combat Team, it stays in the base unit (Infantry Regiment), allowing the Commanding Officer (Regimental Commander) to add heavy weapons, antitank assets etc. as needed for the situation. Many thanks to Patrick Brion, Förderverein “Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Walpersberg“ e.V., Sitz Kahla for assistance with the abbreviations and definition of a Combat Team.

[4] US Army Center of Military History, https://history.army.mil/documents/ETO-OB/89ID-ETO.htm, accessed 30 March 2020.

[5] There is more than one Meteback. The one mentioned here is located at 50.9698, 10.6091

[6] Eisenhower, Dwight D: Papers, Pre-Presidential, 1916 – 1952. Principal Files, 1916 – 1952. File Unit: Marshall, George C. (6), Letter, Dwight D. Eisenhower to George C. Marshall, 4/15/1945. Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas. To view the entire letter, see here: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/12005711.

After Action Reports

On 26 March 1945, at 0200 hours, the 89^th Infantry Division began crossing the Rhine on its march eastward. Imagine the coordination between the divisions, brigades, battalions, batteries to make this happen. As the crossing began, the 914^th Field Artillery Battalion provided support to the 355^th Infantry Regiment. The crossings were made near St. Goar and Oberwesel. My great uncle Irwin Carl, a corporal in the 914^th Field Artillery Battalion, was there. He was one of 88 men in Battery C, positioned 1500 yards east of Niederburg. 12th Army map web [1]

How do I have such detail, down to his exact position? After Action Reports.[2]

After Action Reports typically comprise a narrative, plus S-3 and S-2 Reports and a Unit Journal. The “S” stands for “Staff.” The “3” refers to “Operations,” and the “2” to “Intelligence.” The After Action report is a high-level narrative, written in the weeks after events. It does not give names. For the 914^th Field Artillery Battalion, the 10 – 31 March 1945 report was submitted on 1 April 1945.

Reading through the After Action report for 24 – 29 March provides much detail on the Battalion, and each Battery within the Battalion. It details the locations, and exact timing of movements of troops – even the type and amount of ammunition expended.

From reading the primary source material, I know that the Rhine crossing took days – the 914^th Field Artillery Battalion, Battery C started crossing at 0130 hours on 28 March 1945 – 48 hours after the first troops headed across – and they finished at 0400 hours on 28 March 1945.

Primary source materials, and drilling down into the details, tells the soldiers’ stories. These documents helped inform this blog post:

914 FA Bn After Action Rpt WWII cropped web 914 FA Bn After Action S3 Rpt WWII cropped web

914 FA Bn After Action Rpt WWII Unit Journal web

Many thanks to Eric S. Van Slander, Archivist at National Archives, College Park, for his assistance locating a mislabeled box, without which this research would not be possible. See also:

Know Your Records: WWII Army Unit Records from the National Archives Text Message Blog
89th Infantry Division of World War II

Next in the series… Liberation of Ohrdruf

[1] Allied Forces. Army Group, 1. E. S. & United States Army. Army Group, 1. H. (1944) HQ Twelfth Army Group situation map: Battle of the Bulge–France, Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany. 26 March 1945. [England?: Twelfth Army Group, to 1945] [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2001628569/, 26 March 2020.

[2] After Action reports are located in Record Group 407: Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1905 – 1981, World War II Operations Reports, 1940 – 1948. The 914^th FA Bn: Entry (NM3) 427, File 389 – FA(914) – 0.3.