USAF Engineering Division Finding Aid
Instructions
for Searching ALL Correspondence and Organizations
NOTES:
1) Only summary results are produced by searching across all correspondence and organizations. For more detail, perform further searches among the specific "Originating Organizations".
2) Conventions for the dates take several different forms, which are detailed
below.
a) yy -- a single year with the leading "19" omitted.
(50 = 1950)
b) yy yy yy yy -- a string of years separated by spaces.
(36 38 39 41 = 1936, 1938, 1939,
1941)
c) yymm -- year and month
(4803 = March of 1948)
d) yymm-yymm -- a range starting and ending with year and
month
(4803-4902 = March of 1948 thru
February of 1949)
e) yymmdd -- year, month and day
(480618 = June 18, 1948)
f) weyymmdd -- week ending year, month and day
(we480618 = week ending June 18,
1948)
g) yymmdd-yymmdd -- a range of dates
(390726-390915 = July 26, 1939 thru
September 15, 1939)
3) The results produced by searching the organizations may include abbreviations for the designers and manufacturers of aircraft, engines and propellers. Click here for a current list of abbreviations.
Instructions for Searching ALL Correspondence and Organizations
This search process involves a Search Form and a Results Form.
Below is a portion of an example Search Form:
Unlike the individual Correspondence and Organization searches, you must specify a search criteria for the ALL Correspondence and Organizations form. Here we have entered "p-66". Clicking the "Search" button produces a Results Form, an example portion of which appears below:
The Results Form
In order to specify useful search criteria, one must understand what appears on the Results Form, so we will cover it first and then return to the Search Form.
Please remember that the object of this finding aid is to tell one where the records are located at the National Archives II (hereafter Archives). One must still travel to the Archives in order to view the records. The finding aid makes a visit to the Archives much more productive. All fields contain information that can be searched and are further explained below.
RD #
Every record that is in this collection is part of Record Group 342. The
Record Group, in conjunction with the four-digit RD # displayed in the
Results Form, is required to actually get the physical document box containing
the desired record when one visits the Archives. Members of the Archives staff
can help to correctly fill out the paper forms required to retrieve records for
viewing. Note that multiple records may exist in the same box.
Date
This field specifies the date or date range during which a project was
active.
Title
A searchable Title field is the whole point of this
Finding Aid. For the first time, one can rapidly locate the records that are
applicable to a specific subject. The titles were assigned by the AEHS
volunteers who produced the box lists for Power Plant Lab projects. They are as
descriptive as practical and include key words that will make searching easier.
Remarks
This expands on the Title to provide additional information, such as
the type and quantity of data.
Doc #
The Doc # is analogous to the RD # described above, except
that the Doc # pertains only to the Microfilmed Memorandum Reports. The
Doc # is structured as follows: Orrffff where,
O = the Engineering Division Organization that originated the Memorandum Reports
(P is the Power Plant Laboratory)
rr = the Microfilm Roll Number within the organization's Microfilmed Memorandum
Reports
ffff = the Frame Number on the Roll.
Hence, P020641 means that the Power Plant Laboratory Memorandum Report begins on
Power Plant Laboratory Microfilm Roll 2, frame number 641.
File #
All Engineering Division records were once organized according to an arcane
scheme called the War Department Decimal Filing System (DFS). Most
of the Correspondence Records are still organized according to this DFS. The
table at the bottom of the Search Form lists some of the more common DFS
Classifications.
Subject: This is the title on the file folder containing the correspondence record of interest, and presumably the subject of the report or other documents contained therein.
Search Again
Clicking on Search Again returns to a CLEARED Search Form.
If you desire to return to the search form and preserve the search criteria, use
the browser's "BACK" button.
The Search Form
The search will return results matching ALL of the search criteria that are specified, limited by the Max Records pull-down menu located under DISPLAY OPTIONS.
The text of either the Title or Remarks fields can be searched
by selecting either the Title or Remarks radio button and entering
words or phrases into the next series of menus, which produce results as
outlined below:
all of the words: results containing ALL of the words in this field
(separated by spaces, in any order) are returned.
the
exact phrase: results containing the exact phrase specified in
this field are returned.
at least one of the words: results containing one of the list of
specified words.
none of the word(s): results that contain any of the words in this
field (separated by spaces), in any order, are returned.
The _ wild card character may be used within the Title or
Remarks
specification to match any single character.
DISPLAY OPTIONS
Sort by allows one to select which column on the Results Form will be used
to sort the results The
Sort by pull-down menu allows selection of either RD #, Date,
Title or
Remarks. Results will be sorted in ascending order within the selected
column. Note that if no sort criteria is entered, results are returned in the
RD # order.
Max Records allows one to limit the maximum number of results that will be returned. The default is 25.
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