Did Harry Truman hand sign soldier's death certificates?

Dublo7

Hi guys,

My grandmother has in her possession her father's death certificate. He was a navy-man and he was a crew member on the USS Trout. In short, the USS trout was attacked by the Japanese and all contact was lost.

The death certificate is an official Presidential document, and it appears to have been hand signed by Harry Truman. It sure looks like pen ink, but my grandmother would like some sort of confirmation.

Does anyone here have any idea as to whether Harry Truman actually did sign these death certificates?

This is greatly important to my grandmother, and I figured somebody here might know where I can look for further information.

Cheers.

Wezoin

Dublo7 wrote: »

Hi guys,

My grandmother has in her possession her father's death certificate. He was a navy-man and he was a crew member on the USS Trout. In short, the USS trout was attacked by the Japanese and all contact was lost.

The death certificate is an official Presidential document, and it appears to have been hand signed by Harry Truman. It sure looks like pen ink, but my grandmother would like some sort of confirmation.

Does anyone here have any idea as to whether Harry Truman actually did sign these death certificates?

This is greatly important to my grandmother, and I figured somebody here might know where I can look for further information.

Cheers.

I'm not absolutely sure - but it does seem plausible.

We're just used to signatures being fake/photocopies because of the scale most things are done on now-a-days for mass market. But presumably actually signing death certificates 1) would be considered a more 'respectable' thing to do, 2) wouldn't require nearly the same amount of time dedication as signing the kind of government documents that everybody gets

Varian

From the perspective of how important this is to your grandmother, there's only one right answer to this question. Of course he signed them.

StormCrow420

agree with Varian. My grandmother had my grandfather's death cert. framed and hanging in her house, signed by Reagan (grandpa died in the 80s). Obviously Reagan didn't sign it himself, but she made sure to point out to every guest that it was signed by the President.

A harmless exageration for grandma.

Casual

It seems unlikely he would have, if the president had been personally signing death certificates in WW2 he wouldn't have had time for anything else. But I'll agree with the other two that you should just tell your grandmother otherwise if it brings her some comfort.

RUNN1NGMAN

Most likely it was signed by autopen, and according to Wiki, Truman was the first president to make use of it. And if it is an autopen signature, it's certainly not a lie to say that the signature is Truman's as an autopen signature carries the same weight as an in-person one.

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

Signature machines have been around a long time.

I have no actual knowledge of the subject, but it seems highly dubious that the president would personally sign every serviceman's death certificate by hand. If only because of the time involved.

Darkewolfe

It was undoubtedly an autopen if Truman had one at that point. Tell your grandmother that it definitely looks exactly the same as Truman's signature, so it must be his. All she wants out of this is the feeling that her father's sacrifice was honored in a meaningful way by the President (and by extension the country he gave his life and service to).

Unless the economy is REALLY getting bad and she's hoping to hock it on ebay. In which case I refer you to this link:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/i-will-not-sign-this-letter.html

Ruckus

I also would suggest it's an Autopen, but that doesn't mean it isn't valuable.

Personally, though, that's the sort of thing I'd keep in a private collection. I've always thought that if I ever win the lottery, at least one room (if not a wing) of the house I build is going to be a family library/museum, filled with literary classics, family records, and keepsakes (such as the telegram my grandfather's family got that his aircraft was shot down and he was MIA during WWII, or the original land purchase papers of the first generation of my family that settled in southern Manitoba at the turn of the 20th century).

SammyF

What's the date on the certificate? I ask because...well, USS Trout was sunk in February of 1944, and when she didn't return as scheduled from her war patrol she was reported as overdue during the following month. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the President of the United States at that time, and was until his death a year later, in April of 1945.