WWII Unit Histories/Books with rosters

[36thIDAlex]

Hey all! 

 

So today myself and a fellow librarian agreed to begin a small personal project which I think might be useful for the community. My university contains a free inter-library loan program which allows us to request almost anything from almost any instutiton across the country, includign many military and government libraries. We thought it might be a good idea to find what all books, unit histories, or reports might be available contain full or partial rosters for units involved in the war.

 

We were thinking like division level but I know some regiments published their own books which contained rosters as well. What we are hoping to do is request as many of these as we can in hopes of scanning and publishing the lists somewhere online so that researchers, collectors, and historians can get some decent access to ones that are available. I know there are a few sites out there but I know they are works in progress as well and some seem to fall off at times. 

 

My question for the folks on here, is what books you might know that contain lists like these? Sometimes they are full rosters, other times lists of medal recipients, occasionally it might be a list of organization members. Anything that might help us start putting together units lists is what we would hope for and any help or suggestions is appreciated!

 

Best,

Alex

 

 

[mars&thunder]

So the classic reference bibliography on US Army unit histories is "United States Army Unit Histories: A reference and Bibliography" by James T. Controvich. There is a an original volume published in the early 1980's, a Supplement volume in 1987, a Supplement B volume, and a Supplement C volume that I know of. The supplement volumes may have been combined later - not sure. There might even be later supplements - I've kind of lost the bubble. These books list every known unit history ordered by branch/unit. It doesn't tell you if the item has a roster, but at least you get a list that you can start with. Maybe you can get your library to buy a set or at least inter-library loan them in. Regarding your project, there are thousands of unit history titles - your idea is a massive undertaking.

[Powerhouse]

Hello,

The 67th Armored Regiment history contain a complete roster.

To my knowledge this the only unit of the 2nd armored division to have one.

[JasonT]

The 100th Division history has a complete roster of the entire division. This roster is posted online at the Marshall Foundation website. They also have some pdfs of a few of the unit histories, if not all for the division. You may have some luck doing a search online for unit histories starting with divisions. Like the 100th, there are quite possibly others posted online that are downloadable with rosters. Good luck!