I was wondering if anyone can help me find Military Records on my Husband's Grandfather? His name was Lester N. Alleruzzo. He was born 12 Apr 1922 in Massachusetts and he passed away 19 Oct 2004 in East Brunswick, NJ. My Husband said he was a Pilot in WWII with the Navy and he was an Officer when he left the Military. I have not been able to find a single Military Record on him. I do have one photo of him in his Military Uniform, but you can only see a bar on each of his collars. If anyone can help me find some records, if would be greatly appreciated since the only information we have about his Military Career is what I listed above.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me on this mystery!!!

The fact that he was in the Navy makes this tough as their records are not very accessible, not like Army records.

My dad was in the Navy and I had to pull his records from the Saint Louis Archives to find out about his service. In 25 years I have found one record online, just recently, and that was a ship manifest on which he was listed. His brother, on the other hand, was in the Army and there are a lot more records available.

Sometimes you learn more thru newspaper articles.

His father, Salvatore, has draft registrations on file for both wars, but nothing on Lester.

I don't see him listed as having a military stone - those also provide a clue as to his service.

This doesn't help much, just mimics what you have already said. Personally, I would have your husband submit a request for his records.

Thank you Christina!! I will have to try to see if I can find any Newspaper articles on him. I don't have any subscriptions to the newspaper archives, but maybe I can find something through some of the genealogy sites I have saved. Boy, this is amazing that it is so hard to find information on him when it deals with WWII.

I have done some preliminary searching on what I can as far as newspapers, but I will continue to look. If you're lucky, there may be mention of his leave or it might also be mentioned in an obit for someone in the family.

I know that in an article about my uncle's death, it mentioned my dad (along with his rank) being on furlough from the Pacific, obviously to attend his brother's funeral. I already knew everything mentioned, but had I not, this little bit of info would have been helpful.

The Navy is not very forthcoming with military records. However, the copies you receive from St. Louis will tell you just about anything you want to know. Coincidentally, I was just reading my dad's records again - I've had them for over 20 years - and had forgotten about some of the info included within them.

only thing I found is census data:

First Name: Lester Middle Name: N Last Name: Alleruzzo Name Suffix: Birth Date: 12 April 1922 Social Security Number: 700-18-9039 Place of Issuance: Railroad Board Last Residence: Middlesex, New Jersey Zip Code of Last Residence: 08816 Death Date: 19 October 2004 Estimated Age at Death: 82

Don't know if you added him here but just thought I would post it::

http://www.faqs.org/people-search/alleruzzo/

Lester N. Alleruzzo

Mr. Alleruzzo, 82, of East Brunswick, died Oct. 19 at home. Surviving are his wife, Margaret; two sons, Paul of Mason, Ohio, and Robert of Howell; three daughters, Margaret Bartel of Spotswood, Mary Nelson of East Brunswick and Marilyn Korba of Freehold Township; eight grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren. Services were held at Freeman Manalapan-Marlboro Funeral Home, Manalapan. Memorial contributions may be made to the Visiting Nurse Association, 141 Bodman Place, Red Bank, NJ 07701-9978.

Thank you. We have his full Obit, we are trying to find some of his Military Records to fill in this part of his life for my Husband and my Stepson. Seems that we can't even find a WWII Draft card, which seems very odd to me!!!

Not odd at all, the only WWII Draft cards available to the public are the 'Old Man Draft Cards'. The rest of the draft cards are withheld due to privacy laws.

The Army does have it WWII enlistment records public. The Navy does not.

Casualty records are available for all branches.

Unfortunately, you are looking for something you are not going to find. The only way to get his military info is to request his service records.

Do you have any idea why he doesn't have a military stone? If he did, the funeral home and/or cemetery would have a small amount of his military info.

No clue...I am actually surprised that one was not ordered for him. My husband doesn't know why one wasn't ordered either...since he was given a Military Funeral, I would have thought they would have also filled out the forms for the footstone. Only thing I can think of is that they didn't know where to order it from. I know I just had to get all for forms together to order my Grandfather's Military Footstone.

Due to privacy laws, only the Fourth Registration, or "old man's registration," of the WWII draft registration cards is available. This registration includes men in 1942, who were between the ages of 45 and 64, and not currently in the military. At some point in the future, the other WWII draft registration cards will become available. In addition, the records of some states' WWII draft registrations were incomplete, and the original draft cards for 8 other states were destroyed before they were microfilmed, so these will never be available.

The funeral parlor arranged for my dad's military stone. Maybe you could check with them?

Every funeral home knows the procedure for military funerals and burials. I would contact them and find out if there is a reason why one was not ordered. Maybe he did not want one, who knows? Or, maybe it is related to the cemetery. If nothing else, you could initiate the process if it was overlooked.

Or, maybe you will find out he does have one and he just isn't listed in the VA records.

Then I would submit a request to the archives for his service records.

Georgia

Try the courthouse where he lived when he got out of the service. They will have his Discharge Papers.

For service records, I suggest the following link:

http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/

For information and forms to order military marker, I suggest the following link (additionally, you local county VA representative can prepare and coordinate such an order for you):

http://www.cem.va.gov/hm_hm.asp

This shold help you in your quest.

Ernest Rucker, USN, Retired

P.S. DD-214 (discharge papers) will only be at a couthouse IF the service member themself placed the papers there. It is not a thing that happens automatically.

Ernest

Agreed. In the late 1970's, I don't know how long before that, most military members being discharged were advised NOT to file their DD-214 at their home courthouse. Once filed at a courthouse it becomes public record, meaning anyone who asks to see it may. I think it came about when the military started using SSN's as service numbers. Service numbers (SSN) is on the DD-214 and any DD-215.

DD-214s didn't exist before 1950. If he was discharged after the war, he would have been given other papers. If he was in a navy uniform, a single bar on his collar would a lieutenant junior grade (LT JG), the lowest officer rank. That would be consistant with someone who would go through pilot training. Can you make any other details out on the photo?

I am looking for my great uncle...Charles Molinari. He was in WWII. I have his serial number, 32-926-557. He was ranked Tech 4th. It looks like he served 2 yrs..6/7/43 to 10/4/45 He was in Ft. Dix, NJ. He was born in Cleveand, Ohio 6/13/1909 and died 5/12/1979 in Hackensack, NJ.

Would this be his brother? I will keep looking.

George Joseph Molinari
Home: North Plainfield, NJ
Date of Death: September 27, 2010
Age: 85Birthdate: January 28, 1925
Place of Birth: Plainfield, NJ
Service Information: Friday, October 01, 2010 10:00 AM St. Joseph's R.C. Church, North Plainfield, NJ
Visitation: Thursday, September 30, 2010 2-4 and 7-9 p.m. at Higgins Home for Funerals, Watchung, NJ
Interment: Holy Cross Cemetery, Basking Ridge, NJ
George Joseph Molinari, age 85, died on Monday, September 27, 2010 at his daughter and son-in-law's home in Gladstone. He was born in Plainfield and was a life-long resident of North Plainfield.

Mr. Molinari served in the U.S. Army during World War II.
Prior to his retirement in 1987, he was a salesman for Sears and Roebuck in Watchung. He was also a machinist for many years for Mack Motors in Plainfield.
He was a lifelong Communicant of St. Joseph's Church in North Plainfield.
Mr. Molinari loved the opera especially Pavarotti. He also enjoyed his many trips to Italy.

He is predeceased by his brother, Charles Molinari.

Mr. Molinari is survived by his wife of 59 years, Rosalie Presuto Molinari; his daughter, Teresa Geisler and her husband, Ed of Gladstone; his brothers, Frank Molinari of PA and Esterino Molinari of Asbury, NJ.

Funeral services will begin on Friday at 9:00 a.m. at Higgins Home for Funerals, 752 Mountain Blvd., Watchung followed by a 10:00 a.m. Funeral Mass at St. Joseph's Church in North Plainfield. Entombment will be at Holy Cross Cemetery, Basking Ridge. Visitation will be on Thursday from 2-4 & 7-9 p.m. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the North Plainfield Rescue Squad,334 Somerset Street, North Plainfield, NJ 07060-4730.

Any chance the information regarding Ed's post can be moved to a new topic? I have this topic flagged to send me alerts in case I was able to get help regarding my Grandfather and I am now getting alerts regarding someone else's family.

Thank you!

in regards to Lester Alleruzzo, my father, he was a navy air pilot with a grade of Lieutenant Junior Grade. His training was in Pensacola, Florida where the primary plane he flew was a PBY. These had water pontoons instead of landing gears(wheels).His squardron flew across the Atlantic ocean searching for mainly German submarines. At one point they stopped in the Gallopolis islands. This I know because I have a photo of him and his squad with my Dad holding iguannas by their tails.While in training he played baseball with Boston Red sox superstar Ted Williams, who left baseball to join in the war. Williams was also trainig to be a naval pilot. Lester Nicola Alleruzzo was not buried with a military headstone, but rather with a joint headstone with my mother Margaret; however he was given a military 21 gun salute at his funeral. He is buried in Holy Cross cemetery on Cranberry Rd.Feel free to contact me ay my Email address for more info. Paul Alleruzzo

Paul, sent you a private message....look at the top of this screen and you will see a blinking envelope next to "My Stuff". Your email address isn't coming up on your profile, and I didn't find a profile for you on the main site. My husband looked in his phone, he thought he had your number but he doesn't have it. Sent you his number. Hopefully we can talk tomorrow!!

If you want to get anything from St Louis archives you must have one other thing other than what you already mentioned. That would be his service number, sometimes called a serial number. It would be on his discharge or seperation papers if you can get them from family.
THM

The funeral home should have told you that you could have gotten a military plaque for him and along with your mother's plaque both could have been placed on a common granite slab. I know because I've seen bunches of them including my uncle and aunt. The plaques are bronze.
THM