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Help Needed: WWII Dog Tag, No Tetanus Date?


AirMechanic
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This dog tag has me a bit stumped, although I’m not an expert on them. It appears to be a WWII dog tag, but it has no tetanus date. Does that mean something? Also, I wasn’t able to find anything about this soldier online. His name with that serial number didn’t come up in the NARA enlistment records either. I believe I read somewhere that enlisted records may not show anymore in the NARA database if they were later commissioned as an officer. Is that correct? Any help is appreciated!

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Simon Lerenfort

I’ve found several dog tags issued to negro second line troops, none of these had tetanus toxoid dates on their tags either. My guess is that there was an implication that as negoes they were not deemed to require such things. But it’s only a hypothesis and as yet I have not found any documentary evidence to support it.

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Well, typing the service number into the WWII Hospital records, it brings this interesting thing:

 

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Elizabeth, great job on finding his Hospital Admission Card! I just entered his name in Ancestry and nothing came up, which makes sense now that we have the record, as no name is listed. It seems that the hospital admission and discharge dates are wrong or backwards. A June 1944 admission date might prove very interesting if that is the case.

 

I also noticed that he was discharged from service because of his wounds. Perhaps that is why I can’t find his enlistment record.

 

As to the lack of a tetanus date, I seem to recall seeing this anomaly on another dog tag in my collection, so I don’t think it was a mistake or one time occurrence. As we now can see, this soldier also would not fit into the scenario of the hypothesis which Simon mentioned, which is very interesting in itself.

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I noticed the discharge, too. I couldn't find a Veterans BIRLS file record for the name with a matching discharge date. The only David E. Whaley born in 1922 that came up on Ancestry is one from Columbus. But he was discharged in 1946.

 

I wondered what the race was going to say, but this is obviously something different, as you said! Could be just whoever made the tag didn't include the Tetanus info? Or maybe they made the tag before he got it? Odd.

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Simon Lerenfort

I still think that his race might have had something to do with his not having a tetanus injection, as does his trade. Good to see his hospital card, he served well and did not escape unscathed.

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I've got one dog tag in a set of two, that is an early NOK one...It is lacking tetanus information, religion, and blood type....The vet went into the military in April 1941 and got his first tetanus shot in January 1942 (per service records)....Bodes

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  • 1 year later...

I know this is an old post but I might have an answer regarding the lack of shot date. 

 

Here in North Carolina, we have uncovered nearly 1100 dog tags over the years on the grounds of the former Camp Butner and are now stored in the archives of our museum. Many of these tags came from an old trash dump and I have personally spent hundreds of hours cleaning cataloging and recording the information on every single tag. There were three major divisions that trained here prior to going to Europe (35th, 78th, and 89th), and numerous smaller units.

 

I have only recently started recording the date (if any) on the tags but out of 121 I have done, 18 of them don't have a "T" date. Of those, I have ID'ed 11 to soldiers who were in the 35th Infantry Division (so the black soldier theory wouldn't apply). 

 

Everyone had to have their shot prior to going overseas which is why I assume these were dump. When the soldiers got their new shot they got a new tag and threw the old one away. It appears to me that newly enlisted soldiers were given dog tags prior to receiving their first shot hence no "T" date.  I was able to further confirm this a couple years ago when we returned a pair of tags to the living veteran himself who was in the 89th. The tags we sent back to him did not have a date.

 

Mike

 

 

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T-date was not required to be included on tags until AR 600-30 of November of 1941, so Mike if any of your 18 tags have NOK data on them - they pre-date that order.

 

The tag in the OP is an anomaly, as it dates to post 1943 and should have T info on it as that was a requirement.  Any number of reasons why it may have been omitted...  

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