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Behind every name on this website sits a stack of original paperwork, and behind every one of those documents sits a volunteer who spent hours transcribing it into something a researcher, a family member, or a fellow historian can actually search. The Army Air Corps Library and Museum currently runs several ongoing projects built entirely on that kind of quiet, patient work.
The centerpiece of our effort is the digital Honor Roll. We hold a substantial collection of General Orders, the official documents through which awards and decorations were granted to the men of the Air Corps, Army Air Forces, and early US Air Force. Each General Order can name dozens, sometimes hundreds, of individual servicemen in a single document. Our volunteers work through these orders one at a time, transcribing names, units, and award details into a spreadsheet, which is then imported directly into the Honor Roll database on this website. Thousands of servicemen have already been transcribed and linked to the group in which they served, and that number grows every month as more General Orders are processed.
Awards are only part of the picture. We also hold unit histories, individual diaries, and combat and encounter reports that remain untranscribed, waiting for volunteers with the time and interest to bring them into the digital record. Each of these document types adds context that a bare award listing cannot: a diary entry might describe a mission in a serviceman's own words; a unit history might explain what a group was doing on a particular date; a combat report might place an individual's actions within a larger engagement.
This same transcription work has an unexpected benefit for genealogists. Because so many of these original documents list a serviceman's city and state of enlistment, our Honor Roll project has effectively built a geographic index of WWII servicemen, organized by hometown. For a family historian trying to confirm or expand on family stories, this can be an efficient way to start narrowing down where an ancestor may have served.
Alongside transcription, we run an ongoing archiving project. Every document, photograph, and paper record donated to the museum is scanned and preserved digitally, with the long-term goal of making the entire collection accessible online to researchers, genealogists, and history enthusiasts everywhere, not just those able to visit in person.
We are also especially interested in receiving existing databases related to aircraft tail numbers and nose art, as well as unit rosters that include service numbers, since this kind of structured data can be integrated efficiently into our broader research tools.
If any of this work interests you, whether transcribing a stack of General Orders, scanning family documents, or contributing a dataset you have already compiled, we would welcome your help. Contact us to learn how you can volunteer for one of these ongoing projects.
Q1: What is the Honor Roll transcription project?
A1: Volunteers transcribe awards from General Orders into a spreadsheet that is imported to the website, and thousands of servicemen and their assigned groups have already been listed.
Q2: What other records are being transcribed besides awards?
A2: The museum also transcribes unit histories, individual diaries, and combat reports as volunteers become available for these projects.
Q3: How does the Honor Roll project help genealogists?
A3: The Honor Roll generates an index of servicemen grouped by the city and state of their enlistment, giving genealogists a geographic starting point for research.
Q4: What is the museum's archiving project?
A4: The museum scans all donated paper materials, including documents and photographs, with the goal of making this history available online to researchers and enthusiasts.
Q5: What specific data is the museum seeking from the public?
A5: The museum welcomes databases of airplane tail numbers and nose art, as well as unit rosters that include service numbers.
Do you have WWII memorabilia that you are not sure what to do with it? The children don't want it? Then let us help you preserve this history by donating these items to the Army Air Corps Library and Museum. We are accepting donations in the form of uniforms, medals, ribbons, patches, photos, memorabilia, papers, gear and equipment. We also accept monetary donations to support our operations and long term plans. This website is part of the Army Air Corps Library and Museum, and as a 501(c)(3) Non-profit, your qualifying donations are tax deductible.
Read about how we need your support and use donations.
Historical Artifacts: We are looking for photos, documents and other types of artifacts including uniforms, medals, insignia, gear, manuals, and training material. We accept electronic/scans or originals of pictures and paper records. A General Order could be an award document that contains information on many servicemen. Special Orders may contain transfers or other information. Flight records, accident reports, maintenance logs, after action reports, pilot encounter reports, diaries and biorgraphies; all of these types of documents help us support or mission: preserving your history! Contact us today for instructions on sending us this material. Contact Today
Are you an AAC, AAF or USAF Veteran, family member, historian or WW2 enthusiast? We Need YOU! Contact us today to see how you can help the Army Air Corps Library and Museum, a Texas Not-For-Profit Corporation. We need your help! We are looking for volunteers that can help us with the following tasks. Typing and Transcriptionists: One of our big projects is extracting data from the thousands of documents we have and putting this data into a database where we can display the information on a website such as this one. We also need assistance with retyping unit history documents.