🏆 HONORABLE MENTION Need informations for a USA WWII dog tag

[Matteo La Boccia]

Dear friends,
someone can give me informations about soldier owner of this dog tag? Was found by a friend in south Italy and he will be happy to contact relatives of soldier.
Many thanks for your help!

 

[Mackaydon]

Matteo,
Good to see you are still hunting for WWII artifacts.
The first two number (16) means he enlisted and came from either Illinois, Michigan or Wisconsin.
The "T-44" means he had a tetanus shot in 1944.
I'll keep looking
Don....

 

[SlateBeltDigger]

Buongiorno Matteo-

Looks like he was from Grand Rapids Michigan and passed away in 2003. Schuler is a common name in the states, but this Mr. Schuler was a WWII vet. Good thing you're doing here.

 

[Matteo La Boccia]

Thanks for your always speedy and kind availablity!!!!
Any chance to contact relatives?

Matteo,
Good to see you are still hunting for WWII artifacts.
The first two number (16) means he enlisted and came from either Illinois, Michigan or Wisconsin.
The "T-44" means he had a tetanus shot in 1944.
I'll keep looking
Don....

 

[Matteo La Boccia]

Thanks!

Buongiorno Matteo-

Looks like he was from Grand Rapids Michigan and passed away in 2003. Schuler is a common name in the states, but this Mr. Schuler was a WWII vet. Good thing you're doing here.

 

[ScoTTT2]

https://classroom.synonym.com/how-to-locate-someone-using-a-military-issued-dog-tag-12082360.html

hope this helps.

 

[Mackaydon]

Matteo,
In what town was this tag found?
Don......

 

[Red-Coat]

Hi Matteo

There is an enlistment record for a Donald H. Schuler of Wisconsin but with the service number 10096043 not 16096043. I’m sure it will be your guy. Modern digitised records are often derived from OCR scans of paper documents and frequently contain scanning errors.

BRANCH: Army
ARMY BRANCH: Air Corps
ARMY SERIAL NUMBER: 10096043
SOURCE OF ARMY PERSONNEL: Civil Life
CONFLICT PERIOD: World War II
SERVED FOR: United States of America
ENLISTMENT - 14 Sep 1942 - Age: 20 years
Milwaukee Wisconsin
Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency, plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law

RESIDENCE: Milwaukee County, Wisconsin
OCCUPATION: Machinists
RACE OR ETHNICITY: White
LEVEL OF EDUCATION: 4 years of high school
MARITAL STATUS: Single, without dependents

That should be enough for someone to trace him further. Because I have a European IP address, I get blocked from several US websites with useful information, and some of the equiry services for military records are currently not operataing anyway due to Covid-related staffing issues.

 

[Mackaydon]

SBD, were you able to match the name with the service number?
If so, can you cite the source?
Don.....

 

[SlateBeltDigger]

i may be on to something here. I may have found one of his sons. I'll let you know if he calls me back. Stand by.

 

[SlateBeltDigger]

SBD, were you able to match the name with the service number?
If so, can you cite the source?
Don.....

No I was not, but looking at Red Coats post I felt comfortable digging deeper in the Grand Rapids area.

 

[Red-Coat]

The US WWII vet who died in 2003 would seem to tie in with the military service number. Using a birth year of 1922 +/- 1 turns up this:

Name: Donald H. Schuler
Birth Date: 9 Dec 1923
Death Date: 14 Dec 2003
Cemetery: Holy Cross Cemetery
Burial or Cremation Place: Grand Rapids, Kent County, Michigan, United States of America
Has Bio?: N
Father: Henry Schuler
Mother: Henrietta Schuler
Spouse: Mary J. DelForge and Marjes M. Schuler [both deceased: 1976 and 2010 respectively]

 

[SlateBeltDigger]

The US WWII vet who died in 2003 would seem to tie in with the military service number. Using a birth year of 1922 +/- 1 turns up this:

Name: Donald H. Schuler
Birth Date: 9 Dec 1923
Death Date: 14 Dec 2003
Cemetery: Holy Cross Cemetery
Burial or Cremation Place: Grand Rapids, Kent County, Michigan, United States of America
Has Bio?: N
Father: Henry Schuler
Mother: Henrietta Schuler
Spouse: Mary J. DelForge and Marjes M. Schuler [both deceased: 1976 and 2010 respectively]

This all agrees with my findings as well, I truly believe we are on to something here. I had to leave a voice message, so unless the person I contacted ignores it, I hope to have some information to forward to Matteo. Nice team work here, all for a good cause.

 

[SlateBeltDigger]

TEAM....WE HAVE LOCATED A FAMILY MEMBER WHO WOULD BE GRATEFUL TO HAVE THIS DOG TAG OF HIS FATHERS.

OUTSTANDING WORK....Matteo I will direct message you with the info....thank you!!!!!!!!!

 

[invent4hir]

Honorable Mention-worthy if ever I heard of one. Hats off to Matteo and the team!!!

 

[Mackaydon]

One source shows his middle name as Henry.
His son may be Donald C.
Don..

 

[SlateBeltDigger]

One source shows his middle name as Henry.
His son may be Donald C.
Don..

The son I talked to was named Terry, living in Grand Haven MI. He was blown away how much I knew about his dad lol. I knew we weren't on a wild goose chase, time well spent even though I should have been working lol.

 

[invent4hir]

All, 2 different Donald H. Schuler's served in WWII (see attached). Both born in 1923. The one from Wisconsin has the correct serial #. The one from Michigan was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Grand Rapids. Info found on FamilySearch. Live links in the pdf file...

 

[invent4hir]

Pair of obits for the one from Wisconsin...gives names of spouse & children.

 

[SlateBeltDigger]

Pair of obits for the one from Wisconsin...gives names of spouse & children.

Damn nice catch, I gotta make this right. I'll let Matteo know we are on hold. Thanks for letting me know-