Requests for copies of records relating to military service come into the National Archives every day. Some people are trying to fill in family history; others are looking for documentation of their own service. Those who need records of service from World War I and later are directed to our National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri.
Unless they’re talking about a dog. Specifically, a World War II Marine Corps dog. At the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, are 11 small boxes containing the individual Dog Record Books of each canine who enrolled in the Marine Corps from December 15, 1942, to August 15, 1945. Two more boxes hold the record books of another 132 dogs that were transferred from the Army into the corps.
