Military Vehicles, May 1997,: Re: [MV] Research ?'s

Re: [MV] Research ?'s

DOConnor@zoomit.sikorsky.com
1 MAY 97 17:22:19 EDT

Gordon,
The National Archives and Record Administration can be found at
http://www.nara.gov/ and they seem to be the place. When you log in you find
many different avenues and should start with searching various "record
groups". These are the way NARA keeps track of everything they have and the
only idea I can give of the quantity of their holdings is at the end of the
movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" when the crate is put in an endless
warehouse... that's NARA. Each record group is the papers, maps, photos, etc.
etc. that is generated or was generated by any US Govt agency, board, office,
etc.. Considering the size of the US Govt. it's tremendous. I spoke today
with the US Army Center for Military History and very nice folks there said
that NARA was the place to go and also suggested others who may have
knowledge to help the quest. He highly recommended searching the RG's online
to narrow the field of the search for the trip to D.C. as it is difficult to
get access to the proper stuff if you annoy the archivists. The factory
archives also were said to be a good source and I'll be looking at them soon.
The general plan for research is start with the contract for the vehicle and
follow it to the factory, delivery to base, movement within the war and
surplus sale to the public etc.. This works on our Dodge as we know a lot of
the basic info but the GPW will have to start in the middle at the factory as
we only know the serial number so far. I'll keep you posted on this
intriguing project.

Regards,
Dennis O'Connor

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