Hi folks, My name is Geoff and I am a military historian living in MO. I wrapped up my M.A. (in military history) a couple of years ago. I wrote my thesis on the Hurtgen Forest fight during WWII and ended up spending a lot of time at the National Archives in St. Louis. When I was there I realized a lot of the potential for reconstructing military service records. For those who are not aware a major fire destroyed the vast majority of U.S. Army records in 1973. So what I do is trace individual veterans through WWII using alternate resources as a way to reconstruct their service histories. Mainly I do this for family members hoping to learn more about their veteran's time during the war, but I do a bit of work for historians and collectors as well. I also work with a lot of Navy and U.S.M.C. military service records. As someone who loves history I feel like I kind of hit the jackpot to be able to do something that I love. I'm looking forward to learning from the forum and contributing as well if I can.
Hail and well met. It sounds like you have created for yourself an interesting little business. Let us hope we can work together.
My father was in the Hurtgen Forest battle. He was weapons platoon officer for company k of the 112th infantry regiment, 28th division. He and several of soldiers formed a patrol to get help for the men trapped southwest of Schmidt from Nov 4 through 8. He and two others made it back to American lines at 3 a.m. on November 9. I know the name of one of the other men with him and I have his military i.d. number. Wondering if you can suggest how I might find out about him and the other soldier who was with my Dad.
