Fifty years in the past, hundreds of thousands of veterans’ official information have been destroyed in an enormous fireplace on the Military Personnel Records Center in suburban St. Louis.

The July 12, 1973, fireplace consumed an estimated 16 to 18 million personnel information, the overwhelming majority protecting the interval simply earlier than World War I by 1963. It is believed to be the biggest lack of information in U.S. historical past associated to a single catastrophic occasion.

The lack of information has compelled veterans and their households to battle for advantages, medals and recognition they’d earned.

Here are the important thing takeaways from the AP’s reporting, together with interviews with a number of custodians who have been there the day of the blaze:

What occurred on the day of the fireplace?

Shortly after midnight, a motorcyclist passing by observed smoke coming from an higher story and alerted guards. The fireplace rapidly unfold by the sixth flooring, with water and smoke damaging information on the flooring under. It took firefighters from greater than 40 departments about 4 days to extinguish the blaze.

What was the affect on veterans?

The Official Military Personnel File (OMPF) paperwork housed on the heart chronicle practically each side of an individual’s service, together with dates, rank, stations, medals and accidents. Veterans can use this data to acquire medical care, insurance coverage, loans, job coaching and different useful authorities advantages.

What have been the theories investigators thought of in looking for the trigger?

There have been a couple of dozen fires on the heart within the earlier two and a half years, a number of suspected as arson. FBI brokers ran down quite a few suggestions, together with that an worker of Asian “extraction” or “left-wing” radicals had set the fireplace. Agents additionally questioned staff on their emotions towards the continued Vietnam War.

What was the ultimate willpower on the trigger? Does everybody imagine it?

A janitor admitted to brokers that he had smoked a cigarette on the sixth flooring about an hour earlier than the fireplace was found, and that he may need by chance prompted the blaze. A federal grand jury declined to return an indictment, and the federal government concluded that a precise trigger couldn't be decided. But there are these, together with former sixth-floor janitor Bill Elmore, who suspect the fireplace was set deliberately.

What is the federal government doing to assist veterans and households looking for information?

About 6.5 million closely broken information have been salvaged and listed; they're saved in climate-controlled situations to keep away from additional deterioration. If a veteran, member of the family or researcher requests ones of those “B” or “burned” information, heart workers have varied instruments with which to extract data. If somebody requests a file that's misplaced, workers seek the advice of different sources - resembling unit rosters and payroll information - to partially reconstruct the veteran’s file. Center Director Scott Levins says roughly 5.5 million misplaced information have been reconstructed to this point.

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