1973 Mass Fire Destroyed Millions of Military Service Records; Families Still Seek Answers More Info

- 'A fire destroyed millions of veterans’ records. 50 years later, families are still seeking answers,' AP News, July 11, 2023. Ed. -- In Depth Article.

The apocalyptic scene is still burned into Mike Buttery’s memory 50 years later: Black smoke billowing from the top floor of the Military Personnel Records Center; bits of paper wafting through the air as dozens of firefighters tried desperately to stem the inferno. “They’d hit it (the paper) with the water, & the water would knock it back up in the air, and then it would float around some more out there,” Buttery, then a janitor at the center, recalls of the wind-whipped paper swirling around the massive 6-story building outside Saint Louis.

As he watched from a safe remove, Buttery could only think of the millions of veterans — like himself — whose records were being consumed and “how in the world would they get their benefits.”

It immediately went through my mind that those people were losing whatever history there was of their service,” Buttery, who served with the Army in northern Vietnam, said during a recent interview from his home in a rural area southwest of the city. The July 12, 1973, fire in Overland, Missouri, consumed an estimated 16 to 18 million personnel files, the vast majority covering the period just before World War I through 1963. It’s believed to be the largest loss of records in one catastrophe in U.S. history.

It is an event that dogged untold veterans, forcing them to fight once more — this time for benefits, medals and recognition they’d earned.

It echoes to this day — in the struggles of families seeking to document the achievements & sacrifices of loved ones, or to bury them with full military honors; & in the efforts of conspiracy theorists, still searching for proof of a nefarious plot behind what government investigators long ago wrote off as most likely the careless act of a single man. More than anything, it highlights the monumental, ongoing effort to reclaim the history that, at the time, seemed irretrievably lost. If the center was meant to inspire awe, mission accomplished. Its size is difficult to comprehend, even when one is inside,” Walter W. Stender & Evans Walker, who were with the Federal Records Centers, wrote in a 1974 article in The American Archivist titled, “The National Personnel Records Center: A Study in Disaster.”

“The sheer bulk alone makes a strong impression on the viewer, & the vast scale tends to overwhelm the quiet St. Louis suburban community of Overland where the building rises on a 70-acre site,” they wrote.

“The building, 728 feet long, 282 feet wide, 6 stories high, presents an impassive façade to the world with its rather bland curtain wall of glass & aluminum.” Built for the Dept. of Defense in 1956, the facility was later turned over to the National Archives & Records Service, then part of the General Services Administration. By the time of the fire, the military records center & a nearby one for civilian records had been merged into the National Personnel Records Center. Walker & Stender, then asst. archivist for the records centers, said the 1.6 mill-square-foot building “reflected careful planning.” But “in actual function,” they concluded, “it was not a successful records center.” There were some sprinklers on the 1st & 2nd floors, but none in the stacks, & no firewalls between records storage areas.

A rash of fires in the previous year prompted the government to conduct a study of the facility, which was released in the fall of 1972...- More, https://apnews.com/article/military-records-fire-veterans-2f8337c58bc87c10179a2cf6ee54136a