388th Bombardment Group Research

[kb]

A high school friend contacted me and asked if I could help her track down her father's military records. He was a navigator with the 560th Squadron. His personnel records were destroyed in the big fire in 1973; they had difficulty proving he was a veteran so he could be buried in a National Cemetery. Like a lot of vets he didn't talk much about the war and passed away in 1983. She mentioned he once said he flew on a mission to Poznan; it appears the 388th BG went there four times in the first half of 1944, so he was in the UK at least part of 1944. He was injured (apparently not combat related) and evacuated to the military hospital in San Antonio.

She has tried working through the 388th BG Association, with little success. Any other ideas?

[Leendert]

KB,

I'm sure our forum members will have an extra starting point if the name of the navigator can be provided?

Regards,

Leendert

[kb]

Sorry, meant to have provided.

Harold Leon Branum. 1stLt. Entered USAAF in July 1942, trained as a navigator in Louisiana. His name appears in records on the 388th Bomber Group Organization web page as a member of the 560th Squadron.

[Tony Kambic]

I'm sure you are aware of the National Archives in College Park, MD. You can access Bomb Group records there. I have personally researched my Uncle's missions and demise ( 389th BG at Hethel) and my sister's Father-in-Law ( 2641st Special Group "Carpetbagger" co-pilot at Brindisi) missions. Unfortunately you need to go there on-site, and it takes time. It takes about 1 day just to go through the process to access the records area, and to learn what is available for what you seek. It could take days to find his records.

If the dates of service are known or at least scoped, you can narrow your search, but it still takes hours of sitting and scouring through folders and documents, trying to find crew lists on missions, etc. You also need to handle documents very carefully and can only work with limited sets of folders at a time.

You can purchase a copy card, and make copies of most items. When I was there years ago, many documents were still marked 'Secret or Classified' and one needed to get approval from the staff before copying an item.

There are professionals who offer the service of researching for you. I believe some offer on this site and others you can locate on the Web. Not sure of how they charge.

Tony

[kb]

Thanks Tony. I passed your advice along, which was greatly appreciated.