Genealogy 101

News Release: U.S. Department of Defense

No. 689-07
June 04, 2007

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that an electronic database listing the names of servicemembers still unaccounted for from World War II is now available for family members and researchers.

This new listing will aid researchers and analysts in WWII remains recovery operations. Prior to this three-year effort, no comprehensive list of those missing from WWII has existed.

This database, listing nearly 78,000 names, was compiled by researchers from DPMO and the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command. They used hard-copy sources including “The American Graves Registration Service Rosters of Military Personnel Whose Remains were not Recovered” from the National Archives II repository in College Park, Md., and “The World War II Rosters of the Dead.” Once transferred into electronic formats, they used computer programs to compare the two lists and determined possible discrepancies among the entries. These differences were then resolved using additional sources from the National Archives and thousands of personnel files from the Washington National Records Center.

After more than three years of research and coordination to transfer information into an electronic format, efforts to gather more data on unaccounted-for WWII servicemembers continue. New names and information will be added as historical documents and personnel files are located. The names of servicemen whose remains are recovered and identified in the future will be removed as families accept the identification and inter their loved ones in cemeteries of their choice.

This WWII database, along with databases listing the missing from the Korean War, Cold War, Vietnam War and Gulf War, are available on DPMO’s Web site at http://www.dtic.mil/dpmo . For additional information on the Defense Department’s mission to account for missing Americans, visit the DPMO Web site or call (703) 699-1169.