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Old 5th November 2017, 01:05
Frank Olynyk Frank Olynyk is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2004
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Re: AAF pilot serial numbers

Kent,
The problem, as far as I can tell, is that the Army (and the Air Force after it seceded from the Army) never published Reserve Officers Registers, only Regular Officers Register. The Navy and Marine Corps did publish Reserve Officers Registers.

There are only two sources I have found for names and service numbers of Army Air Force officers, neither of which exists in any complete collection. The first is the graduation orders from the Advanced Training Air Fields, for pilots, navigators and bombardiers. In the best cases they put the list of graduates in alphabetic order, with full name (ie, middle name included, not just middle initial), and then assigned them sequential service numbers. Sometimes it is only middle initial; and sometimes even the service numbers are left out. I do not know if those training fields still in operation (for example, Luke and Randolph) have copies of their advanced training graduation orders for the wartime years.

The other source are the General Orders (GO) issued by the various commands. I have never seen General Orders giving middle names. Sources for these would be the AFHRA at Maxwell, and the MPRC in St Louis, but neither collection is complete as far as I know. And GOs will involve a lot more paper than advanced training graduation orders, since they will contain the full text of award citations. And the GOs are usually unavailable after 1970 when the services went to using Social Security Numbers instead of assigned service numbers.

Enjoy!

Frank.
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