My brother called me last night...he'd just received a package from my sister with all my father's personal affects from his service in the military (he was a 1st Lt. in the Army Air Force during WWII). Dad was a 'Hump' pilot...he flew the C46 from his base in India to China. Problem is, Dad never talked about his military service. In fact, I was a junior at A&M when he told me that he was a pilot during WWII. That was Dad...he just never talked about his service to our nation. All he would say was, 'son, I just served this great country.'

Dad died on Flag Day in 2009. My mother moved in with my sister, and she passed away last year. Essentially, my sister is 'liquidating,' and proceeded to send Dad's military stuff to my brother. In the package were two newspaper articles from many years ago that referred to my father's service and metals, including the Purple Heart. Problem is, none of us knew this, and there was no Purple Heart in the package.

Here's my question...how do I go about finding out about this? I've been told military archives were stored in a building in St. Louis that burned down in the 70's.

Any thoughts and perspectives would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Start here: http://www.archives.gov/st-louis/military-personnel/


Chances are they are lost.

You will want to look among his records for his discharge papers, equivalent to a modern DD-214. It will list his medals.

Have some hope. While the fire did damage a large number of records, the staff at MRC are still working to recover and salvage records from that fire.

Over 30 years later, they are still having a little luck in saving some of the records.

If you don't mind, please share with us what you find.

Many thanks to your Dad's humble service.

Good luck with your efforts.

Looking forward to hearing more.

If memory serves, once you locate the files , as a next of kin of the deceased service member you can receive a replacement medal for those lost or not issued. I believe I am correct in that.

WD AGO Form 53-98 identified at lower left corner.

My great grandfather was a pilot who was killed in WWII. I asked for his records and within six weeks I had EVERYTHING.

I received all his records, his macr, flight history and something more interesting was a letter my great grandmother wrote asking for information on his whereabouts because she and her children were worried. Somehow this letter made his file and it was fascinating to see

Point is, they have a tremendous amount of info from that time period, just request it and wait