Treasure Chest Thursday - Military Record Pt. 2

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This post would have been online yesterday, but Blogger was unavailable for some sort of "maintenance" work.  Thanks, Blogger.  This is one reason why cloud-based applications aren't always the great solution that their proponents would have you believe they are.


This page from the service record is somewhat unusual in that it documents several different things all on the same page.  In my experience, the military prefers to use more paper and document one incident or one type of thing on a page.

In this page, we see first the service member's full name, service number (serial number), rate (or MOS), when the person reported to the current command, what that command is, and where the service member was stationed prior to the current command.  My grandfather, Estel Elmer Dillman, was a MM2c (Machinist's Mate 2nd class) on board the U.S.S. Brooklyn, and was previously stationed on the U.S.S. Chaumont.

While on the USS Brooklyn, he did cross the equator on 7 Mar 1941, and participated in a Shellback ceremony, which I talked about in an earlier post about his Navy Log.  This page confirms what was in the log, and we love to have confirming evidence about our ancestors, even if it doesn't directly further our family lines.

The next bit shows that a week after crossing the equator, he crossed the International Date Line.  There's no corresponding ceremony for this particular event, but apparently it was worthy of mention in a service record.

Next we see that the USS Brooklyn was in the first expedition to Iceland on 22 Jul 1941 as part of Task Force 19.  She escorted convoys carrying Marines to Iceland.

Lastly, this page shows that he was promoted to MM1c (Machinist's Mate 1st class) on 1 Nov 1941.  This is the only time I've seen an advancement included on a page of other documentation.   It's usually important enough to warrant a page of its own.

You can see that even on a single page, we're starting to develop a timeline of events for this person's service.  A full service record can do a good job of recreating the whole timeline of events for that person's time in the military.  This can help fit other life events together, including marriage and descendant births. 

Treasure Chest Thursday – create a post with the main focus being a family treasure, an heirloom or even an every-day item important to your family. A special thanks to Leslie Ann Ballou of Lost Family Treasures for suggesting Treasure Chest Thursday as a daily blogging theme!  (Blurb shamelessly stolen from Thomas McEntee at Geneabloggers!)