My Uncle Alfred "Fritz" Bergman was a US Navy Officer (possibly a Lt. Commander) assigned to the Murmansk run. I know no more than that he was thrown across the deck of his ship under heavy bombing, and was grievously wounded. He had to wear a men's corset for the rest of hi life as a result of his wounds. I have been looking for a long time to see if I could find more about his service. The chapter on the Murmansk Run is a beautifully written account of this barely-known effort. I could feel the danger and admire the courage of those who took part in it. Thank you so much for this information; I shall deeply cherish it
Re: My Uncle "Fritz"
Posted by Ron Carlson on July 25, 2016, 9:11 am, in reply to "My Uncle "Fritz""
Susan,
Your best bet is to request a copy of your uncle's official service record, which would provide a substantial degree of detail about his wartime service, such as the ships to which he was assigned, applicable dates, training, illnesses or injuries, any decorations or medals earned, etc. But there are a number of caveats to consider, which I will outline below.
See this page within the Armed Guard website that I manage, http://armed-guard.com/searchmil.html. It is not clear from your message whether your uncle was in the U.S. Navy Armed Guard or whether he was a merchant mariner. Depending on that, the web page offers two different paths to obtaining his service record.
(My uncertainty from your message as to whether he was in the U.S. Navy or in the U.S. merchant marine may seem perplexing, since you state that your uncle was a Navy officer. However, many if not most merchant marine officers during World War II – and to a lesser degree today – held officer commissions in the U.S. Navy Reserve. Additionally, the rank of lieutenant commander was probably too senior a rank for him to have been assigned as the commander of an Armed Guard unit aboard a ship. Typically the Armed Guard commanding officer was a junior officer, such as an ensign, lieutenant junior grade or, at most, a full lieutenant. A lieutenant commander is one rank senior to a full lieutenant. Note that if he was in the merchant marine and was a lieutenant commander in the Naval Reserve, that would indicate that he was a fairly senior merchant marine officer, such as a first or second mate, or a first or second assistant engineer. An additional possibility and complication is that he might have been an Armed Guard commanding officer while at a junior rank, but only became a lieutenant commander late in the war, after being transferred out of the Armed Guard as frequently happened, or even after the war.)
If your uncle was in the merchant marine, see in particular on the above page section II.A.2. -- Records of Individuals – Merchant Marine, for instructions on requesting a copy of his records. You will have to contact the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Maritime Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The Coast Guard was and is responsible for issuing certain documents ("seaman's papers") and officers’ licenses to U.S. merchant mariners, so they should have information about your uncle if he was in the merchant marine. You will need to provide as much identifying information as possible about your uncle (name, date and place of birth, date and place of death, Social Security Number, etc.). There will likely be a fee for researching, photocopying and mailing the records but the Coast Guard will alert you to the cost before beginning work.
If he was in the Armed Guard, see on the same page section II.A.1 - Records of Individuals, Military. In this case you will have to contact the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO, and again provide as much identifying information as you have. The page has links to all of the information you will need to request his records, including a required form. And again there will be a fee involved. As noted above, if he was a merchant mariner, he was also likely an officer in the Naval Reserve, so the Navy probably had information on him as well, even if he was not in the Armed Guard.
Finally, this: someone such as yourself, who is not next of kin to your uncle, may not be able to obtain his full service record. (Next of kin = parent, spouse, sibling, child.) If there is someone still living in your family who is next of kin to your uncle, presumably a grandparent, mother/father or an aunt/uncle, it would be best if that person submitted the request for his service record. You can do the legwork of research, completing forms and otherwise preparing the request but the request should be signed by that person. If there is no longer a person who is next of kin still living, then make the request yourself and hope for the best.
Your uncle was a brave man; they all were.
Good luck.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website www.armed-guard.com