Dog tag history

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

In December 1906, the Army put out a general order requiring aluminum disc-shaped ID tags to be worn by soldiers. The half-dollar size tags were stamped with a soldier's name, rank, company, and regiment or corps, and they were attached to a cord or chain that went around the neck. The tags were worn under the field uniform. The order was modified in July 1916, when a second disc was required to be suspended from the first by a short string or chain. The first tag was to remain with the body, while the second was for burial service record keeping. The tags were given to enlisted men, but officers had to buy them.
 

religion and blood type added later, regiment removed, as I recall.

 

[Rooster Ron Wayne]

Dog Tag  ! 

This is my dog Tom 

He would love for you to come play hide and seek with him 

[Trailrider #896]

Don't know about the Navy & Marines, but the Army tags, at least in WWII and Korea had a notch in them so that one could be jammed into the teeth of the body. Air Force did not.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

1 hour ago, Trailrider #896 said:

Don't know about the Navy & Marines, but the Army tags, at least in WWII and Korea had a notch in them so that one could be jammed into the teeth of the body. Air Force did not.

 

A long-told belief, but actually an "Old Wives Soldier's Tale..."  

 

 

Quote

 

     

     The notched dog tags used until 1970 were part of a casualty identification process that included a tag that was created using a machine that allowed the tag-making apparatus to hold the blank tag while it was stamped with the soldier’s personal information. In other words, the notch was there to help the machine hold the dog tag in place as it was stamped. Current dog tags are manufactured by machines that do not need the notch to hold the tags in place.

 

     

     But there is more to answer the question, why were dog tags notched? If a soldier was a casualty, the dog tag was removed from his body and it was placed into a handheld, gun-like tool called the Addressograph Model 70. This device would transfer the soldier’s information from his dog tags to his medical records. The importance of the notch, again, was to hold the dog tag in place in the Addressograph which was a medical imprinter.

 

     Known as the “locating notch” in military manuals, the notch helped medical personnel properly seat the dog tag into the imprinter. The Model 70 allowed medical or mortuary affairs personnel to transfer a soldier’s personal information on the dog tag and imprint it directly onto medical documents. They would squeeze the handle of the unit and it would imprint dog tag information onto a document like an old typewriter ribbon.

 

 

 

College job in a bank mailroom - we used one of the old Addressograph machines to stamp address plates for printing mailing labels.  I seem to recall that the metal blanks had that locating notch.