Allen County, Indiana Area Servicemen & Servicewomen, 20th Century
The information included in this database was extracted from newspaper articles that were clipped and saved when the Indiana Collection vertical files of the Allen County Public Library were active. Articles primarily concerned Allen County men who served in World War II. However the files also included a few articles about women in the service; soldiers who were in the military during years other than 1941-1945; and men from the surrounding areas (Columbia City, Huntington, etc.) who were in the armed forces. In the latter case, these soldiers often had some Fort Wayne or Allen County connection. They may have had a relative in the area, or worked in Fort Wayne before enlisting.
During World War II, the number of men and women from the Fort Wayne area who served in the military reached a high of at least 12,000. The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel reported on 29 August 1944 that 11,649 citizens of Fort Wayne currently were in the armed services, and that 560 had been discharged to date.
This database includes the soldier's name, a code for the newspaper in which the article appeared, the date of the article, a code for the war in which the individual served, and codes for notes about the contents of the article. This database contains 7,536 entries.
Searching
This database may be searched in the following ways:
- Fuzzy: will search for that string of characters. Searching for Smith would find Smith, Smithson, Arrowsmith, etc.
- Exact: will search only for that exact text. Searching for Smith will find only Smith.
- Soundex: will search for the Soundex equivalent. Searching for Smith will find Smith, Smythe, Schmidt, etc.