Did WWII service numbers change upon promotion from an Enlisted Soldier to Officer?

[nyxelestia]

I have a lot of information on what service numbers looked like if a solider enlisted or was drafted into the US Army in WWII, and what officer ASNs were like. But, what if a soldier enlisted (joining the army as a Private), and then was promoted to an officer later on

Comments

[ashen_key]

I was under the impression that the number Bucky's serial number starts with denotes a conscript rather than an enlisted soldier? No idea if that's what MCU meant (lets face it, their props department is terrible), but IIRC, starting with a 3 is perfectly realistic.

[lil_shepherd]

And, of course, the MCU is by no means identical to our universe.

[duckodeath]

I looked up Audie Murphy's service number since I knew he'd become an officer after a battlefield promotion. On the Audie Murphy memorial website, his enlisted service number for WWII is given as 08083707, but that can't be right.

The Smithsonian has his dog tags and you can see that his original number was 18083707 since he enlisted in Texas in 1942 where the geographic code was 18, but apparently when you accept a battlefield commission you are honorably discharged as an enlisted soldier (or in his case as a non-commissioned officer) and then basically instantly sworn in as an officer. As part of the transition from one life to another -- as it were -- a different number is issued. So I think he ended the war with the service number was 01692509.

[nyxelestia]

Thank you!

So Steve would most likely start out with an ASN that starts with a 12, and once he's promoted he would just get a completely new number starting with 0?

[duckodeath]

After a little more looking around, I found an actual contemporary record of the transition for a guy serving in the Pacific in 1945. One minute he's a T Sgt with a serial number 39330393, the next minute he's discharged from the Army to accept an appointment as a 2/Lt with a new serial number starting with a 0-2023512. There doesn't seem to be any relationship at all between the original number and the new number.

www.182ndinfantry.org/history/archive/fullsize/morning_commission_cd09f4fe01.jpg

[duckodeath]

(Apologies if this shows up twice, but my first response was marked as spam because I included a live link. I hope this works better.)

After a little more looking around, I found an actual contemporary record of the transition for a guy serving in the Pacific in 1945. One minute he's a T Sgt with a serial number 39330393, the next minute he's discharged from the Army to accept an appointment as a 2/Lt with a new serial number starting with a 0-2023512. There doesn't seem to be any relationship at all between the original number and the new number.

www.182ndinfantry.org/history/archive/fullsize/morning_commission_cd09f4fe01.jpg

[tamtrible]

Just wanted to chime in confirming that, at least in that time frame, an officer's service number is entirely different from the same person's service number as an enlisted person. My job deals with military plane crash records from that period (which was before the air force was separate from the army), and if there's a crash with someone as an ensign (who counted as enlisted), then another crash with the same person as an officer, they have a different service number.