"Kindness is a language the dumb can speak and the deaf can hear and understand."Christain Nestell Bovee
Posted
Hi guys.... My grandmother recently passed. We have been going thru the house and I was given most of grandpa's war stuff. As you may or may not know he was a TM3/c. I don't understand what the c is for. Any ideas? I also would like to create a shadow box with his ribbons/ medals but I don't know which ones he earned. I don't have his ssn#. Does anyone have any ideas how to go about getting those. This history I would like to preserve for my kids and future grand kids. I also know that he was stationed in the Phillipines during the war. Thank You for all of your help.
The /c is for class. So TM3/c means Torpedoman's Mate third class (E4 now).
I believe that you can request a cover copy of his discharge paperwork from the VA. It takes a REALLLY looooooooooooooooong time for them to process it though (I filed for my grandfathers about 7 mo ago... still got nothing but the recipt sayin' "yea we got your request"). That will give you the generalities of the discharge, service dates, awards etc. None of the more specific stuff though, which is only for "next of kin", so maybe your parental unit?? can request.
Depending upon how old he was and how long ago he served, everything documented about his service would be by Service Number and not Social Security Number. Via this website, you can download a form to fill out and submit to the Military Records Center in St. Louis. It does take quite some time, but I was able to get almost all of my Dad's service record. Some stuff may not be available as a fire destroyed many records back in the early 60's but go for it anyway. See if there's anything that may have his service number on it. That will make things a lot easier...
Be advised that there is a certain segment of servicemen (and women) whose records were supposedly destroyed in a fire. It's not just a few, but a LOT, like everyone having served from X date to X date, and it includes many WWII vets. This is what I was told when I tried to get service records for my grandfather, who was in the Army in WWII, in the Battle of the Bulge, etc. Hope you have better luck than I did.
Thanks everyone I will try those routes. He was a WWII veteran and on a PT boat I have his squadron and boat number. I just think that this is very interesting. Makes me wish that I paid closer attention when I was younger when gramps was telling his "sea stories".
"Be advised" Navy records were not involved in the fire in St. Louis. No Navy records were destroyed. This is a persistent urban myth which seemingly will not go away.
Originally posted by 6396992: "Be advised" Navy records were not involved in the fire in St. Louis. No Navy records were destroyed. This is a persistent urban myth which seemingly will not go away.
"Mack the Knife" CDR USN (Ret)
Beg to differ Mack. Some of the documents I got about my grandfather were singed (you could see in the copy). He was Navy. Died on active duty on the way to supply the ghaaddam ruskies in Murmansk.
1. As Mack says, no Navy records were involved in the fire.
2. Having his service number and/or SSN helps, but is not essential. However, the more you can provide, the easier it is to locate the records.
3. In my case, NARA also provided me with a VA case # as my father had been receiving benefits from the VA.
4. Not sure what Erik is getting at. When I applied for the records from NARA and the VA, I did not have to document a family relationship. I could have been anyone with the same last name (and it is fairly common). I received an unredacted copy of everything that was on file.
One caveat - you just might find some family skeletons that are better left buried. I myself found out about a prior marriage amongst other things that I did not need to know about.
