What’s in a number? Alex Hacker’s U.S. Army Dog Tags

Do you have a relative’s Dog Tags in your possession?

Can you read the story they tell?

Four U.S. Army Dog Tag types were issued during World War II. This set belonged to my father Alex Hacker. They were found in the house of his mother Maude Mayton Hacker in Harriman, TN after she died, by Cousin Sandra “Cookie” Giles Pride. Cookie gave them to me, Alex’s daughter Alexis.


Originally this second iteration of WWII U.S. Army tags carried this information:

1. The soldier’s name
2. Soldier’s service/serial number
3. Soldier’s emergency contact information, usually next of kin’s name
4. Street Address 
5. City and state

1941 Heralded New Medical Technology & a Dog Tag Update

In November of 1941, tags began including medical information. The set shown above is of this time frame. November 1941 revision tags added space after the service number to include (a) the year of the wearer’s tetanus shot plus (b) their blood type.

In 2021, it’s hard for us to appreciate how innovative the inclusion of medical data on dog tags was. But in 1941, tetanus shots were new and so was blood-typing. Knowing some of the tag wearer’s personal medical information could make all the difference in medical treatment on the battlefield or field hospital.


Hacker’s tags indicate blood type A and that he received his tetanus shot in 1941, the year he enlisted. No plus or minus was given for blood type then, as that technology did not yet exist.


Also added in 1941 to Line 4 or 5 was space for a letter after the state, indicating the wearer’s religious preference, if desired. Religion codes = P (Protestant), C (Catholic), H (Hebrew), or blank for none.

Change to Protect Soldiers' Families

In July of 1943, emergency contact information was removed from issued tags, and soldiers being sent overseas received new tags without next-of-kin data. This was so that if they were taken prisoner or the tags retrieved by the enemy, their family could not be threatened.

According his wife Evelyn(my mother), Alex did receive a different set of tags, for she said the pictured tag above was not what he wore in later life. So when did he get a new set of tags?

The Rest of the Story

The rest of the dog tag story is revealed in Hacker’s Army service record. When Alex enlisted in 1941, it was as an enlisted man. But in 1942 he entered and completed Officer’s Candidacy School. The U.S. Army then gave him a brand new service number and therefore a brand new set of tags. He would have received “leave” to go home after OCS, and I suspect he left the old set at home with his parents at that time.

D-Day

And of course Hacker did go overseas. He was sent to England in 1943. And on 6 June 1944, he was sitting off Omaha Beach on a troop transport awaiting the break of dawn. It was the invasion of Normandy, D-Day, the “longest day”. He would fight his way in a battalion of Army engineers across France, helping to liberate Normandy and the wine country, and into Belgium, where he saw the war finally halt. Then he was one of the fortunate ones – he came home to marry my mother and have three little red-headed girls. He made the Army his career, survived a missile strike in the Korean War, and retired to the south of Texas where he could garden 10 months out of the year and (mostly) avoid cold weather.

The “ball” chain in the photo was never worn by my father. The chain was missing when I was gifted the “tag”. But a quick web search informed me that Ball Chain Manufacturing Company made the original military tags for WWII, is still in business, and is still today the sole provider for the chains that go with all U.S. military dog tags. I ordered the replacement from them.

A Little More about Dog Tags

Each branch of the United States military service (Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Navy, Marines) has had and continues to have its own format for dog tags, including in common and as a minimum:

• Variant of how the name appears, maybe all on one line, maybe multiple lines
• Variant of identifying number
• Blood type
• Religion

In WWII, dog tags also were issued to the National Guard, Merchant Marines, and Women’s Army Corps.

Dog tag format continues to adapt and change with the times.

Dog tags are not an American invention. They have a long history in the military, and their use can be traced to Roman times and beyond. The Prussians and the Chinese also used a variant.

In the United States, our military began formalizing “dog tag” use in the early 1900s. But many Civil War soldiers had already adopted the concept by writing their name on a piece of paper and pinning it to their uniforms; some made their own "ID" (identification) tags out of pieces of wood, boring a hole in one end and wearing them on a string around the neck.

You can find a plethora of online information about this fascinating subject. Consult article sources below. A simple web search also will provide hours of reading.

Enjoy!

Sources:

Mydogtag.com: This site includes much documentation and reference material.

Wikipedia: Dog Tag

A Short History of Identification Tags

MilitaryBenefits.info (Note that this is a private website and is NOT affiliated with the U.S. government, U.S. Armed Forces or Department of Veteran Affairs)



Alexis Hacker Scholz

28 April 2021