The MWR Libraries and data source

[Dash,Polder]

 

Don't know how many are aware of this tremendous resource available to anyone holding a qualifying DOD ID card, if you are in the DEERS system and have an ID number registered all its content is accessible at no charge.  There's tons of data bases and libraries available including ebooks, magazines, and journals that normally require subscriptions all available through the MWR access portal.

The best I've found so far is the Fold3 data base with all sorts of war records, combat reports, rosters, photographs, even selective service records, it goes all the way back to the revolutionary war.  I never knew I had a surname relative KIA in the Civil War till now.

As an example I put in a pilot who's on our county court house memorial plaque who was MIA.  All previous research left me with the impression he went missing in North Africa, always assumed he was shot down earlier in the war, but this isn't even close.  The records found paint a completely different story.

There are some various other reports he filed on combat operation, since he was the squadron operations officer at the time.  But basically he was killed by a direct flak hit which probably killed him instantly over Croatia. 

This is the kind of stuff in the data base.  Even found my Grandfathers selective service registration for WWII, he was forty years old in 1942 and apparently was still required to register.  An amazing resource.

dodmwrlibraries.org