Trying to find my great-grandfather's unit

If I can find his unit then I can get a pretty good idea of where he served and what they did. I have his dog tag. (serial # 13105990, John H. Ingalls) If someone can give me a reliable source I can use to find more detailed information other than his enlistment date,etc. that'd be super. Being in Germany makes document requests slightly more complicated.

No one in the family can tell me much about him other than he was a great grandpa to hang out with, but they only got in contact with him shortly before he passed away. He had divorced (alcohol issues, although he wasn't violent) and my great-grandmother married a US Navy rear admiral who raised my grandfather.

 

With such little info to go on, it's difficult to offer much help. The obvious suggestion would be to try requesting his service records since you do have his name and ASN.

According to his enlistment record, he was born in New York state in 1903. Since he enlisted in Washington DC, he was probably living in or near DC in 1942. Of course, that doesn't help you to figure out with which unit he served.

Other than that, you're pretty much left with family sources.

 

Yeah that's what I was guessing, but thanks anyway!

One last question, though...why does the ASN look so plain on his dogtag compared to all the other versions I've seen from '42 and up? Doesn't look like there's as much info included.

 

Well I didn't mean the address, I meant the ASN. Others showed more than just 8 numbers, like tetanus vaccine records and so on. Just haven't seen many with the simple 8-number sequence.

 

You're quite right, even the tags made before they eliminated the next of kin information in 1942 usually had blood type, religion, and when the last tetanus shot was given. Blood type was especially important if he needed blood. Guess the answer is a less than thorough induction center where the tags were made.