Sunday, September 30, 2007

The Virtual Vietnam Archive

The Vietnam Center and Archive is a fantastic site for looking up a whole host of documents relating to the Vietnam War. I can't even begin to adequately describe everything that is in there, but for starters, it has a huge amount of operational reports, unit histories, and various other primary sources to peruse. The one drawback is that is so huge it can sometimes be overwhelming. But if you can learn to tailor what you are looking for, you will often be rewarded with valuable information.

Navy Ship Histories

Here's a couple of good links for ship histories for the US Navy.

The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANF)

Unofficial US Navy Site: A nice site. It probably does not have as many ships histories as DANF, but many of the histories provided come with some good extras, like a chronological record of accidents and fires aboard certain ships.

OEF/OIF Casualty Resources (Iraq/Afghanistan)

Department of Defense: If you know the name of the person, you can simply type it in the search box on the main page, and it should bring up a news release. If you're not sure of the name, then you have to look through the press releases, which can be accessed by clicking into "Press Resources" then clicking "News Releases." This site provides a lot of other useful military information as well. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to get into that more later.

Iraq Coalition Casualties: Extensive database relating to casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan. Provides numerous methods for finding information about casualties. An excellent site.

Korean War Casualty Sites

The Korean War Project: Find casualties by name or unit. A very comprehensive site and simple to use. Also provides for the option to leave personal rememberances. The site offers a lot of other useful information about the Korean War as well.

Department of Defense Missing in Action Database: Haven't used this for the Korean War, but it has come in very handy for the Vietnam war.

Technorati Profile

Vietnam Casualty Sites

No Quarter: This site is a very simple-to-use site. Search by name, home town, state, and other advanced search methods (e.g., date range, province where casualty occurred, branch of service, type of casualty, etc.)

The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wall Page: Good basic search engine. The nice thing is that allows for personal comments of pictures to be added to an individuals memorial page.

The Virtual Wall: A nice site for people to provide personal information, narratives, and pictures for a veteran's individual memorial. Does not appear to include all Vietnam casualties; it appears these have to be added or submitted.

From my perspective, the most thorough sites are those from the National Archives and No Quarter. But all of these sites have their own unique benefits.

National Archives Casualty Research

The National Archives has a great resource for researching casualties for the Korean War and Vietnam war eras. You can search by name, date range, country of casualty, service record, and other options.