How to Fill Out and Submit NA Form 13055: NPRC, VA Claims, SF 180

NA Form 13055, “Request for Information Needed to Reconstruct Medical Data,” is the National Archives form you use when your military medical records were destroyed and the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) needs treatment details to search backup sources on your behalf. Fill it out with the most specific dates, units, and facilities you can recall, attach any evidence you have, and mail or fax it to the NPRC in St. Louis. The form exists because roughly 16 to 18 million Official Military Personnel Files were destroyed in the 1973 NPRC fire, and no duplicates or microfilm backups had ever been made.¹ The details you provide let the NPRC hunt through unit morning reports, Surgeon General hospital admission cards, and similar secondary sources to piece together what it can.²

Who Can Sign and Submit the Form

The veteran is the primary person authorized to sign. If the veteran is deceased, the next of kin may sign, but must attach proof of death and evidence of the relationship. For this form, next of kin means only an unremarried widow or widower, son, daughter, father, mother, brother, or sister.³ A death certificate is the standard proof, though an obituary or a signed statement from a funeral director is also accepted.⁴

If the veteran is living but legally incompetent, a court-appointed guardian may sign and must attach a copy of the court order establishing the guardianship.³ Note the relationship next to the signature whenever someone other than the veteran signs.

Filling Out Each Field

The form is a two-page PDF available from the National Archives website. Every field is designed to narrow the NPRC’s search through secondary records, so the more precise you are, the better your chances.

Name of patient used at time of treatment. Use the name the veteran went by during service. If that was a maiden name or a different legal name, put that here rather than a current name.
Service number. This is the military service number assigned before Social Security numbers replaced them. For older records it is often more useful than an SSN.
Social Security number. Include if known. Veterans who served before the late 1960s may only have a service number on file.
Branch of service. Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, or Coast Guard.
Nature of illness, injury, or treatment. Describe what the veteran was treated for. “Shrapnel wound to left leg” is far more useful than “injury.”
Treatment dates. This is the single most important field on the form. The NPRC needs exact months and years, such as 03/1955 to 05/1955. A year alone is not enough to run a search. If you cannot recall the exact month, give the season and year at minimum.³
In-patient or out-patient. Hospital stays are in-patient; clinic visits are out-patient.
Organization assigned to. Your unit at the time of treatment: company, battalion, regiment, squadron, group, or wing. Include as much detail as you can.²
Name and location of hospital or medical facility. The specific hospital, dispensary, or clinic where treatment occurred, with the city or base name if you remember it.
Return address and contact information. Where the NPRC should reach you. Include an email address and daytime phone.
Request number. If you already have a request number from a prior submission or from the VA, enter it here so the NPRC can link this form to your existing case.
Signature and date. The veteran signs. Anyone signing on the veteran’s behalf notes the relationship here.

The form lets you list multiple treatment episodes. If you were treated for different conditions at different times, fill in a separate row for each. Every episode you document is another set of secondary sources the NPRC can check.

The VA’s own guidance is blunt on the dates point: providing only a year, without at least a month or season, will prevent the National Archives from locating medical records because of the sheer volume stored at the facility.⁵

Supporting Documents to Attach

The more corroborating evidence you can gather yourself, the more useful the reconstruction will be. The VA recommends submitting any of the following alongside the form:²

Statements from service medical personnel who treated you
“Buddy” statements or affidavits from fellow service members who witnessed the injury or illness
Military accident or police reports
Examination reports from employment physicals or insurance applications conducted around the time of service
Letters or photographs from your time in service that reference a medical condition or location
Prescription records
Copies of service treatment records or private medical reports from providers who treated you during service or shortly after discharge

Even a personal letter home mentioning a hospital stay can corroborate the dates and locations you list on the form. Dig through old paperwork before you submit. Anything that places you at a specific medical facility during a specific time period helps.

Where to Send the Completed Form

Mail the completed NA Form 13055 and any supporting documents to:

National Personnel Records Center (Military Personnel Records)
1 Archives Drive
St. Louis, MO 63138-1002³

You can also fax the submission to 314-801-9195.⁶ Keep copies of everything you send. If you originally submitted a Standard Form 180 and the NPRC determined that your records were affected by the fire, you may receive a blank NA Form 13055 in the mail with a letter explaining that additional information is needed.⁷

What the NPRC Can Actually Recover

Set realistic expectations. The secondary sources the NPRC searches — Surgeon General hospital admission cards, unit morning reports, and similar records — usually show only dates of treatment or hospitalization. They rarely include the diagnosis itself or details of the treatment received.³ A successful reconstruction might confirm that you were admitted to a particular hospital during a specific month. That can still be valuable evidence for a VA disability claim, but it probably will not produce the detailed clinical notes from the original file.

Using the Form With a VA Disability Claim

For many veterans, this is not a standalone request. When a VA representative determines that your service branch and discharge date fall within the fire-affected range, the VA sends you an NA Form 13055 with a letter explaining that your original records may have been destroyed, and asks you to complete and return the form within 30 days.⁵

Submit the completed form and any supplemental documents together with your disability claim. The VA will forward the form to the NPRC on your behalf and use whatever the NPRC finds, along with your own supporting evidence, to evaluate your claim.²

How Long Processing Takes

Plan for a wait. The NPRC receives roughly 4,000 to 5,000 requests per day across all types of military records, and reconstruction requests involving fire-affected files take longer than routine requests.⁸ The NPRC asks that you not send a follow-up inquiry until at least 90 days have passed; duplicate requests can actually slow things down. You can check status through the eVetRecs portal at archives.gov.⁶

If Your Request Is Denied

A denial on privacy grounds — for example, if you are requesting records as next of kin and the NPRC finds the proof of kinship insufficient — can be appealed under the Privacy Act. Your appeal letter must be postmarked within 35 calendar days of the denial letter. Mark both the envelope and the letter “Privacy Act Access Appeal” and send it to:⁹

NARA Privacy Act Appeal Official (ND)
National Archives and Records Administration
Room 4200
8601 Adelphi Road
College Park, MD 20740-6001

A response saying the NPRC simply could not find any secondary source records is a different situation. Nothing was withheld, so there is nothing to appeal. If the search came up empty, the productive next step is to gather additional supporting documents and resubmit with more specific dates or unit information.

How It Differs From Standard Form 180

The two forms serve different purposes and are often used together. Standard Form 180 is the general request form for military personnel records such as discharge documents and service history. NA Form 13055 is narrower: it collects the detailed medical treatment information the NPRC needs to search secondary sources when original medical records are missing.⁷ Many veterans start with an SF-180; if the NPRC finds that the records were likely destroyed in the fire, it sends back a blank NA Form 13055 asking for the treatment details it needs to attempt a reconstruction. If you already know your records fall in the fire-affected range, you can submit both forms at once.

1
National Archives. The 1973 Fire, National Personnel Records Center
2
Veterans Affairs. Reconstruct Military Records Destroyed In NPRC Fire
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National Archives and Records Administration. NA Form 13055 – Request for Information Needed to Reconstruct Medical Data
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National Archives. NPRC Funeral Home Director Information
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VA Office of Inspector General. VBA Generally Helped Veterans Obtain Damaged or Destroyed Records
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National Archives. Request Military Service Records
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National Archives. Other Methods to Obtain Military Service Records
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National Archives. Request Military Personnel Records Using Standard Form 180
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eCFR. 36 CFR 1202.56 – How Do I Appeal a Denial of My Privacy Act Request