Genealogy 101

Research at the National Archives

Records of Military Personnel Who Died as a Result of Hostilities During the Korean War, created, ca. 1977 – 11/1979, documenting the period 1/1/1950 – 2/7/1957

This series contains selected descriptive data about U.S. military personnel who died by hostile means (i.e. battle deaths) as a result of combat duty in the Korean War. The data were usually extracted from Department of Defense Form 1300 (Report of Casualty) as well as from each of the four military services of the Department of Defense. The variables available from each casualty record include: Military Service Branch, Country of Casualty (always Korea), Casualty Group, File Reference Number, Name of Casualty, [record] Processing Date, Service Number, Military Grade or Rank, Pay Grade, Date of Casualty, Service Component, Home of Record (place and state), Birth Date (year only for most records), Cause of Casualty, Aircraft Involvement(air/non-air casualty), Race, Sex (all are male), and Citizenship. The majority of the records have no meaningful data in the “cause of casualty” or “air/non- air casualty” variable. The series lists as the home of record the county for those casualties in the Army and lists as the home of record the city, town, or municipality for those casualties in the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.