Dead Ends

Early on in my research into my father's military history and the events in my novel I discovered discrepancies. For years I tried to locate information on a troop ship that was sunk in the North Atlantic with much loss of life. My father was witness to that tragedy.


Eventually, I discovered why it was so hard to validate his story:

The records of ships used to carry troops to their theaters of operations were destroyed intentionally in 1951. "According to our [U. S. National Archives] records, in 1951 the Department of the Army destroyed all passenger lists, manifests, logs of vessels, and troop movement files of United States Army Transports for World War II." (Sorry, but there was no word on why the records were destroyed.) Thus there is no longer an official record of who sailed on what ship, though there are still valuable sources that can be found.....Wesley Johnston


Source and additional information: WW2troopships.com and WWIItroopships.com