Frequently Asked Questions
Information Resources

Questions visitors often ask.

How can I join the Octofoil Association?
How can I help with improving the 9th Infantry Division Web Pages?
How can I locate someone who served in the 9th Infantry Division?
How can I locate historical information about the 9th Infantry Division and its units?
How can I locate personnel and unit information?
How can I get my photos and slides scanned?

If you have additional sources for information, please send email.

Question: How can I join the Octofoil Association?

Answer:   I understand that the Octofoil Association was 'deactivated' in 1992 when the 9th Infantry Division was deactivated.

There is the 9th Infantry Division Association that is comprised mainly of WWII era veterans. Their address is :

Ninth Infantry Division Association
Daniel Quinn, Secretary
412 Gregory Ave.
Weehawken, N. J. 07087

(it is also the address of the newsletter, The Octofoil) 

Question:  How can I locate someone who served in the 9th Infantry Division?

Answer:     There are a number of avenues you might try.

1. Post your query on-line

Vietnam Veteran Location Service

9th Infantry Division Guestbook

2.  Use the techniques documented in this book.

How To Locate Anyone Who Is or Has Been in the Military (2nd Ed)

by Lt. Col. Richard S. Johnson (Ret)

Also available from
Amazon.com

Case studies of how  people have been located can be found at
http://www.allmilitary.com/case.htm

3.  These two commercial sites offer locater and research services for a fee. Visit the websites for details.

Military USA

PIKE Military Research

4.  The following technique was sent in by Robert Sage .

My name is Robert Sage and I was with 9th from 68-70 in 15th Combat Engineer Bn. I have located 63 guys in my company by using old orders that have SSAN on them. I send the SSAN to John Sperry and he looks up where they paid Social Security taxes last. He only charges 2.75 per name [cheap].  Also you can find out where they enlisted from their army # or SSan #. Please feel free to give out my email address to any one needing help.
Robert Sage  A/15 Combat Engrs.

Question:  How can I locate historical information about the 9th Infantry Division and its units?

Answers:

• Visit AltaVista and click on Reference and Education. A wealth of public and university libraries have on-line catalogs.  Inter-library loans make enormous amounts of information available. One example is The Los Angeles Public Library.

• On-line book sellers have a large inventory of military history titles.
  
  

Turner  Publishing is working on a 9th Infantry Division history book. Check their website for any announcement.

• The US Army Military History Institute has bibliographies for many 9th Infantry units in Microsoft Word format. Photo copies of noncopyrighted material can be made. Prices are on the website. Bibliographies are available for the 31st, 39th, 47th, and 60th Infantry Regiments, 5th Cavalry, and the 9th Infantry Division. These bibliographies have been published here for your convenience.

• 9th Infantry Division Bibliographies

• The Center for Military History has publications that are available from the Government  Printing Office and other sources.  Catalogs and ordering instructions are available at their website.

• National Archives and Records Administration has a limited amount of information on-line. Access to most of the material requires a personal visit. See Ray Smith's experience at the National Archives: Visiting The National Archives

• These two commercial sites offer research services for a fee. Visit the websites for details.

• Military USA

  PIKE Military Research

Question:  How can I locate personnel and unit information?

Answers:

• Dad's War     First Steps to Finding Your Dad's Story

• Master Index of Army Records. Start here for locations of the various types of military, and personnel records.

• PIKE Military Research offers  research for a fee.

• National Personnel Records Center contains certain types of personnel information available to veterans, their families, and the general  public.

Question:   How can I get my photos and slides scanned?

Answers:

•  Prints can be scanned by your local photo service and put on Kodak Photo CD for about $1.00 each (your price may vary) plus about $10 for the CD. If you specify multi-session CD, more images can be added to the CD at a later time.
  
•  If you have lots of prints, your own personal scanner may be the most cost effective. Decent scanners and now available for $50 to $100.
  
•  I can scan and return prints to be posted on this website
  
•  35mm slides and color negative films require special scanning equipment. Since these film scanners cost $500 and up, it is probably not practical to purchase your own.
  

  Good News!  There is now a low cost slide and film scanner available from Tamarack Technologies. The product is the Artiscan 2400 FS film scanner. This will scan 35mm slides and color negatives. I saw it at Fry's Electronics (California) for $169.99. If you have more than 300 slides to scan, this is a very cost effective product. There is a review of this scanner at this Australian website: http://www.ausmedia.com.au/tamarack.htm At another website that was focused on professional photo processing, this scanner was noted as being very slow. For personal use, this should not be a big issue. The Tamarack website has a page of dealers in North America. One had the scanner priced at $209.99. That is $40.00 more than Fry's, so shop around. If you can't find one, email me. Perhaps I can assist in procuring one in California.

You can check your local photo dealer to see if slide scanning is available and the prices. The following are Internet sources for slide scanning. Scanned images can be stored on floppy diskettes which cost about $1.00 extra. They can also be stored on CD for about $10 extra.

I would suggest selecting one of these scanning services and send them a small batch of slides (perhaps your less valued ones). If that experience is satisfactory, send more for scanning. Please give us feedback on your experience.

 

Copyright 2000   Leon Baldwin