BIRDSONGS IN WORLD WAR II

The following table lists persons named Birdsong who enlisted in the US Army during World War II.

Please see the important research note below.

BIRDSONG, ERNEST L
Race	White
Residence	Randolph County, Alabama
Place of birth	Alabama
Year of birth	1919
Date of enlistment	18 Aug 1942
Place of enlistment	Birmingham, Alabama
Branch	Air Corps
Rank	Private
Marital status	Married
Education	4 years high school
Army serial number	14135696

BIRDSONG, LEONARD W
Race	White
Residence	DEKALB COUNTY, GEORGIA
Place of birth	GEORGIA
Year of birth	1916
Date of enlistment	8 SEP 1942
Place of enlistment	FT MCPHERSON, GEORGIA
Branch	SIGNAL CORPS
Rank	Private
Marital status	Married
Education	2 years college
Army serial number	14138370

BIRDSONG, JOHN T
Race	White
Residence	SUSSEX COUNTY, VIRGINIA
Place of birth	VIRGINIA
Year of birth	1923
Date of enlistment	16 SEP 1942
Place of enlistment	RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
Branch	ORDNANCE DEPT
Rank	Private First Class
Marital status	Unknown
Education	4 years college
Army serial number	13117503

BIRDSONG, SAMUEL E JR
Race	White
Residence	HINDS COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI
Place of birth	MISSISSIPPI
Year of birth	1920
Date of enlistment	24 JUL 1942
Place of enlistment	JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI
Branch	AIR CORPS
Rank	Private
Marital status	SINGLE
Education	4 years college
Army serial number	14095570

RESEARCH NOTE

The information on this page was extracted from the ARMY SERIAL NUMBER ELECTRONIC FILE: MERGED PROCESSED FILE ENLISTMENT CARD RECORDS, Member of: Record Group 64: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration; Series: World War II Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 6/1/2002 - 9/30/2002. It is referred to as ASNEF. The entire searchable database, containing about 9 million records, is online at http://aad.archives.gov/. The site is the NARA Access to Archival Data (AAD) gateway.

Users of the material extracted here should be aware of several matters. First, the ASNEF contains a number of data fields not extracted here. Those fields are somewhat technical (such as, for example, distinguishing between National Guardsmen whose state enlistments expired while on federal active duty and other Guardsmen). This type of information is of limited genealogical value.

Second, about 35 percent of the ASNEF records in AAD have a scanning error. About 13 percent of the microfilmed punchcard records, or about 1.5 million cards, could not be scanned into the electronic file and so are not in the ASNEF in AAD. If 35 percent of the ASNEF records have errors, why has the NARA made the file available? According to the NARA:

"NARA staff compared a random sample of the records in the electronic ASNF with the microfilmed punch cards. Only 4.7 percent of the records had any character error in the name column and only 1.3 percent had character errors in the serial number column. While a large number of records had other errors, they were minor. . . . Other errors can be intuitively corrected by the users, such as understanding "POT" or "PVO" to mean PVT in the [RANK] column."

Obviously, some of those errors are repeated here. Where the errors were clearly apparent, they have been corrected. There are some gaps which may be due to the transcriber's error. Those will be corrected as the proper information is obtained. The final caveat is that these records only are for persons who enlisted in the Army, Army Reserves, and Women's Army Auxiliary Corps during the World War I1 period (1938-1946). The records do not contain information on commissioned or warrant officers or members of other services.

The ASNEF is heavily coded. In extracting the information here, the original codes were translated into plain English or were simplified for ease of use. Researchers may be assured that every effort has been made to maintain the integrity of the data. Again, researchers may check the NARA site for complete information.