Hubbard, James E. and the Night the Records Burned
"His records burned in the fire" ends a lot of family war stories, and the 1973 St. Louis fire was real, but it had limits, and the paperwork it left behind is often less empty than families were told.
FactUnion VerifiedEvery fact on the episode's fact sheet was checked against its sources. Wrong facts were corrected. What this meansFacts checked 20 Oct 2026
Chapters (9)
About this episode
Just after midnight on 12 July 1973, a fire broke out at the National Personnel Records Center outside St. Louis. It burned out of control for 22 hours and destroyed an estimated 16 to 18 million military personnel files. Ever since, "his records burned" has been the line that ends family war stories nobody can check. Ruth and Danny work the case: the night itself, what the loss actually covered (including a cutoff at one man's name in the alphabet), and the paperwork that survived around it, from charred files read with infrared light to morning reports that staff carried out of the burning building.
The verdict is honest about both sides. These records can often place a man in a unit on a given day. They can't tell you about his courage, and the fire's own cause has never been settled. This week's question to ask your parent: Do you have Dad's discharge papers, and do you remember his unit and the year he got out?
Hosted by Ruth and Danny, performed by synthetic voices. Supported by SagaSeal.
Facts and sources
Every fact used in this episode, with the sources it was checked against. Download as data
197 of 197 recorded lines matched the checked script.
NARA says the 12 July 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Boulevard, St. Louis area, destroyed approximately 16 to 18 million Official Military Personnel Files.
NARA estimates an 80% loss for Army personnel discharged 1 November 1912 to 1 January 1960.
NARA estimates a 75% loss for Air Force personnel discharged 25 September 1947 to 1 January 1964, but only for names alphabetically after ‘Hubbard, James E.’
Because no duplicates, microfilm or pre-fire indexes existed and millions of documents were on loan to the VA, NARA says ‘a complete listing of the records that were lost is not available.’
VA says the fire did not involve the records of retirees and Reservists who were alive on 12 July 1973.
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NARA says firefighters arrived 4 minutes 20 seconds after the first alarm, were forced out by heat and smoke at 3:15 a.m., and the fire burned out of control for 22 hours.
NARA says 42 fire districts took part, water pressure was insufficient, one pumper broke down after 40 hours of continuous operation, and the fire was declared out on 16 July.
Wikipedia’s timeline says the Olivette Fire Department reported the fire at 12:16:15 a.m., and at 12:16:35 a security guard relayed a passing motorcyclist’s report.
NARA says vital records removed from the burning building ‘included NPRC’s operating records, a computer index for a major portion of NPRC’s holdings, and more than 100,000 reels of morning reports for the Army (1912-1959) and Air Force (1947-1959).’
A July 2023 NARA Prologue blog post by Jen Hivick says staff prioritized retrieving the morning-report microfilm and that the building could be entered briefly because the fire was concentrated on the south side.
Some records were vacuum-dried at McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis in a chamber that had ‘previously been utilized to simulate temperature and pressure conditions for the Mercury and Gemini space missions,’ holding about 2,000 plastic milk cartons of records per load; other records were dried on racks elsewhere.
NPRC created a ‘B’ (Burned) registry to index the recovered records and, in April 1974, an ‘R’ (Reconstructed) registry for newly rebuilt records.
Sources used for reconstructing service records, as listed by the US National Archives, include Veterans Administration claims files, individual state records, Multiple Name Pay Vouchers from the Adjutant General’s Office, Selective Service System registration records, and pay records from the Government Accounting Office.
In 2015 NARA put in place a multispectral imaging workflow to digitize, as they are requested, the most heavily damaged burned records that requesters had previously been unable to access, using infrared imaging to recover content from charred pages.
In AP’s 50th-anniversary coverage, NPRC Director Scott Levins said many pages look like a ‘black smudge’ and that research technicians ‘comb morning reports, unit rosters, payroll lists and other source documents.’
- A fire destroyed millions of veterans' records. 50 later, families are still seeking answersindependent.co.uk
- A fire destroyed millions of veterans' records. 50 years later, families are still seeking answerslasvegassun.com
- Photos: Families are still seeking answers after a fire in 1973 destroyed millions of veterans' recordsspectrumlocalnews.com
VA says NPRC may reconstruct service treatment records by reviewing unit records, morning reports and hospital admission records from the Surgeon General’s Office.
An independent guide warns: ‘A fire-era date range is a warning, not proof that this one veteran’s entire file is gone.’
The same guide says ‘The fact that a division fought somewhere is unit context,’ which becomes part of a veteran’s story only once the person-to-unit-to-date link is supported.
The guide advises ‘Label memory as memory and documents as documents,’ and notes that ‘A source can prove one part of the timeline without proving every later family story.’
NARA says ‘Due to the extensive damages, investigators were never able to determine the source of the fire.’
Wikipedia (flagged as needing more citations) reports that a custodian admitted in October 1973 to stubbing out a cigarette on a shelf in the file room, that the case went to a grand jury, and that he was not arrested.
Wikipedia reports that in 1974 GSA investigators said an electrical short was most likely the cause, though near-total destruction of the sixth floor made a specific investigation of the electrical systems impossible.
Military.com reports VA is urging veterans denied benefits because their records burned to refile or reopen claims, with officials Paul Lawrence and Margarita Devlin describing a burden that fell on veterans ‘through no fault of their own.’
VA lists acceptable substitute evidence for fire-affected veterans including buddy statements, letters, photographs, pharmacy records and private medical records.
Navy veteran and genealogical researcher Darrin E. Knowles, author of ‘The Erased Generation,’ says he began reconstructing a relative’s service when the family member’s record was returned as destroyed, working from draft cards, morning reports, hospital admission records and unit histories.
Removed during checking (1)
NARA says the salvage effort 'led to the recovery of approximately 6.5 million burned and water damaged records.'
