Dog Tag Notch: A Mechanical Myth

PHOTO CAPTION: Older U.S. military identification tags show the distinctive notch that later became the subject of a longstanding battlefield myth. Military historians say the notch was connected to equipment used to process the tags, not a feature designed to fit between a casualty’s teeth. (U.S. Department of Defense)

For decades, one particularly grim explanation has followed the notched military identification tags carried by American troops during World War II, Korea and into the Vietnam era.

The story goes that if a Soldier was killed, one of his two tags would be removed while the other was shoved into his mouth, with the notch positioned between his front teeth so the tag would remain with the body.

It is an unforgettable story.

According to the U.S. Army’s own mortuary-affairs history, it also isn’t why the notch existed.

The Army Quartermaster Museum calls the teeth explanation a longstanding battlefield rumor and says no official record has been found showing American Soldiers were instructed to use the notch that way. The notch had a mechanical purpose connected to the equipment used with identification tags.

An artifact description from the Air Mobility Command Museum identifies that equipment as the Model 70 Addressograph, a pistol-shaped medical imprinting device used during World War II. A Soldier’s dog tag could be inserted into the machine so the information already stamped into the metal could be transferred directly onto medical and personnel paperwork. The notch helped ensure the tag was inserted in the proper position.

In other words, the notch was closer to an alignment guide on an old piece of office equipment than a feature designed for a dead Soldier’s teeth.

That mundane explanation may be exactly why the other version survived.

The gruesome story sounds believable because dog tags really did play an important role in handling battlefield deaths.

The Army began officially requiring identification discs in 1906. In 1916, it added a second tag. One was intended to remain with the Soldier’s body while the other could be used for burial and casualty recordkeeping.

By World War II, the round identification discs of the earlier Army had evolved into the rounded rectangular shape most troops would recognize today. Tags carried information that could include a service member’s name, service number, blood type and religious preference, along with other information that changed throughout the war.

That made the tags critically important when casualties had to be identified under battlefield conditions.

But contemporary graves-registration procedures don't support the popular teeth story.

Army mortuary guidance emphasized keeping identification tags with the remains and carefully documenting them through burial and later disinterment. The Quartermaster Museum says tags found around the neck stayed with the remains; if only one was present, another could be created to match it.

A 1945 Army Graves Registration field manual likewise contains detailed instructions for handling identification tags during battlefield burials without establishing the notch-between-the-teeth practice described by the legend.

That doesn't prove that no individual Soldier or graves-registration worker ever did it.

Wars produce unofficial practices, battlefield improvisation and stories passed from one generation to another. Someone may have put a tag in a casualty’s mouth at some point.

What the historical record does show is something narrower — and more important:

That was not why the military designed the notch.

The myth became widespread enough that the Army was still addressing it decades later.

In a 1988 Quartermaster publication, Capt. Richard Wooley, then associated with the Army’s Graves Registration Department, specifically wrote that no official instructions supporting the teeth story had been found and identified the notch's purpose as mechanical.

The Marine Corps later published its own examination of the same legend, again explaining that the notch came from the machinery associated with producing and processing the old tags rather than from a requirement to wedge them into casualties’ mouths.

Eventually, the notch disappeared.

By the 1970s, the older machinery that required it had been replaced, and newly issued identification tags were smooth around their edges.

Other things changed too.

The Army transitioned from service numbers to Social Security numbers beginning around 1969. In 2015, after roughly 45 years of putting Social Security numbers on tags, the Army began replacing them with a service member’s 10-digit Defense Department identification number to reduce the risk of identity theft.

DNA and modern casualty-identification technology have also dramatically changed the military’s ability to identify remains.

Yet the basic dog tag survives.

And so does one of the military’s most persistent pieces of folklore.

The old notched tags absolutely helped identify American war dead.

The notch just wasn’t designed for their teeth.

Veterans: What were you told the notch was for when you served?

(Source: OAF Nation)