I’m writing a story set during WWII on a tiny island in the South Pacific being used as a base (rather than front-line fighting). I want to be able to report the death of the village chief via some sort of official military form. He dies by hammering a bullet with an ax. Is there anything like a Civilian Casualty report or Improper Ordnance Use type of report that could have been filed? Perhaps a complaint against the soldier that gave him the ammo? I need it to look like a real military form so an official one would be best. Thanks!
It’s not exactly a “Form”, but a Daily Report to higher headquarters was pretty routine. It would include a tally of personnel broken down by Officer and Enlisted and how many were fit for duty, under some sort of medical restriction, and maybe even under discipline. I don’t know what kind of behind the front lines base you’re talking about.
I guess the death of an important to the base village chief might be worthy of mention in a report going upstairs, but since he basically killed himself, there’s no Improper Ordnance report (not that there is such a thing), and it wasn’t “friendly fire”.
In an After Action report, there will be a break down of friendly casualties; KIA, WIA, and MIA for Officer, Warrant, and Enlisted. For enemy in the Pacific, probably just the number KIA and WIA and no breakdown by rank.
I was a 57F/92M in the Army, which is Mortuary Affairs. If we took custody of the body there would definitely be paperwork - pretty much every detail you could imagine. We were tasked with remains retrieval, at times even if it wasn’t a soldier or American, since we had the training and the stomach for it. I could see in that situation someone say “get the body-bagger” if it happened on post or nearby and had to be dealt with by the military for some reason.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure that would be historically accurate. In WW2 it was called Graves Registration (and was up to shortly before I reclassified) and I don’t believe they had the same documentation requirements. Additionally, they were probably more focused on the war effort. For us, a lot of the documentation of wounds/cause of death was a result of more modern sensibilities - wanting to know exactly what happened, either for the tactical information or to (dis)prove crimes happened.
You may be able to find the actual forms via your favorite search engine. I did find this:
http://www.bentprop.org/grs/GRS_in_WW-II.pdf
On page 32 of the book (no idea what specific page in the PDF) there is a talk about AR 30-1810 which specifies the paperwork. Maybe it will help.
Interesting. My senior Drill Sergeant (I went through BCT at Fort Knox in early 1979) had that MOS.
I couldn’t get your link to load so I did a search and found the Army Mortuary Affairs Page. Browsing that site, I found the name of a form: Report of Interment. I also discovered that it’s a very interesting site.
Yeah, that was the only decent reference I could find regarding detailed information from the time. The page was painfully slow, but did eventually load for me.
There is a copy of a Report of Internment here:
http://www.med-dept.com/articles/quartermaster-graves-registration-service/
Maybe a quote that will help the OP:
I’ve looked at about 20 different forms and realize I’m gonna have to make one myself in word. I want it to look somewhat official so am using a Navy Seal in upper left, etc… What I’m wondering is, if some Private gave ammunition in trade to an islander (because the islander thought they were cool looking) and ended up killing himself with it, would that warrant disciplinary action? I’d prefer the report be about the enlisted man’s behavior rather than the death of the Chief even though the Chief’s death would be listed as a consequence. Let’s assume this is a support base so there isn’t a lot of bedlam going on and that the Chief was a civilian VIP of sorts. How high up the chain of command would this report go? Any other info appreciated.
Also, what kind of typical disciplinary actions might be taken in a case like this?