Morning Reports and Unit Rosters
Morning reports and unit rosters are created by military organizations as part of their personnel and payroll functions. These records are used by the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to verify events or assignments which may not be documented in an individual's Official Military Personnel File (OMPF). This is especially important when trying to reconstruct service information when the OMPF has been damaged or destroyed in the 1973 fire. A brief explanation of both types of records and the date span of our collections is listed below.
MORNING REPORTS are created each morning, as the name implies. They are an "exception based" system, only containing information on those individuals who are not "Present and Accounted for". Among the reasons for being listed on a morning report are:
- Promotion or demotion
- Being killed, wounded or missing in action
- Being assigned to a unit, or leaving a unit
- Going to a hospital for treatment, or to another activity for training
In order to verify that a particular action occurred, we must be provided with the exact unit of assignment ("Company A, 1st Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment"), a description of the action ("I was wounded and sent to a hospital") and an approximate date ("June, 1944"). Without this type of information, we may be unable to perform a search.
Our collection of morning reports covers the following:
| ARMY | AIR FORCE |
|---|---|
| November 1, 1912 to 1974 | September 1947 to June 30, 1966 |
UNIT ROSTERS are created monthly, quarterly or semi-annually. During certain time periods, separate rosters were created for officers and enlisted personnel. At other times, consolidated rosters listed both officers and enlisted personnel. Some units created rosters only for enlisted personnel. The rosters typically list the members of a particular unit for the last day of the month in which the roster was created.
NPRC stores unit rosters for the Army only, for the same years as the morning reports, 1912 to 1974. (This includes rosters of units of the Army Air Forces prior to September 1947; however,
no Air Force unit rosters are available after that date.) Unfortunately, the rosters for the years 1944, 1945 and 1946 were destroyed in the 1970's; no other source for this type of information for these years exists at this center. You may wish to contact an "Alumni Organization" in order to obtain information concerning members of specific units. Please see our Other Helpful Sites page.
NOTE: Neither morning reports nor unit rosters contain historical information concerning battles or engagements. Records that contain this type of information may be available at one of the following:
U.S. Army Center of Military History
103 3rd Avenue
Fort Lesley J. McNair, DC 20319-5058U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency
600 Chenault Circle
Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6424National Archives and Records Administration
Modern Military Records - NWCTM
8601 Adelphi Road
College Park, MD 20740-6001
SUBMITTING REQUESTS FOR MORNING REPORTS OR ROSTERS
Requests must be in writing and sent to the following address:
National Personnel Records Center
Military Personnel Records
9700 Page Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63132-5100
You may use a Standard Form 180, Request Pertaining to Military Records, or, write a letter to the center.
Specify the information needed and the purpose of the request. In order to conduct a search of morning reports and unit rosters we need as much of the following information as possible: units or outfits; complete organizational designation (company or battery, battalion, and regiment; squadron, group, and wing, etc.); geographical location (camp, base, and country).
Searching morning reports and rosters can be quite time consuming. Please limit your request to a specific event or personnel action. We are not staffed or budgeted to perform searches of organizational records for research or reunion purposes as our main responsibility is to respond to requests from or on behalf of veterans who are seeking benefits due them under various veterans laws.
SEARCH FEES: Depending on the number of searches required there may be a fee assessed. If that is the case, payment is required before the searches are undertaken. Fees are assessed for our time spent locating the records (at the rate of $13.25 per hour) and for any copies that are made (first 6 pages, $3.50; each additional page, $0.10), with a minimum charge of $8.30. A deposit of $8.30 is required before we begin the search.You will be billed for any additional costs. All remittances should be made payable to the National Personnel Records Center.
REVIEW OF RECORDS BY YOURSELF OR A DESIGNATED REPRESENTATIVE: It is also possible for our staff to make the records available to you or your designated representative for review of the morning reports/rosters at our Center. If that is not possible, you may wish to contact the history department of one of the local universities for graduate students who may be available to conduct this research. Telephone numbers are listed below:
- Lindenwood University -- 314-916-7413
- Maryville University of St. Louis -- 314-529-9454
- St. Louis University -- 314-977-2910
- Southern Illinois University (Edwardsville) -- 618-650-2414
- University of MO - St. Louis -- 314-516-5681
If you or your designated representative decide to review the records, please notify us in advance of your visit so we can make the necessary arrangements. You will need to speak to the Customer Service Representative at 314-801-0800 to arrange for an appointment to visit our Research Room.
OBTAINING RELEASE AUTHORIZATION FROM SERVICE BRANCH: If you wish to review these records in person, you will first need to write to one of the following offices to obtain the required authorization for access to the records:
Department of the Army
Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts Office
7701 Telegraph Road
Alexandria, VA 22315-3860Department of the Air Force
Secretary of the Air Force (AAIA)
Washington, DC 20330-1000
"NARA ensures, for the Citizen and the Public Servant, for the President and the Congress and the Courts, ready access to essential evidence."
