I'm researching my grandfather's WW2 service, and after some dead ends I identified the unit he served in and did a records search at the national archives in Bethesda. I’m interested both in him and in the unit in general (since I don’t expect to find much specifically on him). I've already had them send me scans of the 1944 unit history which was very interesting. But there is not a 1945 unit history, instead the remaining files are:
553-0.3, A/A Rpt Oct 44-Jan-May 45 (450-500 pages)
553-0.7 Journal and File 31 Jul 44-Jul 45 (650-700 pages)
553-0.3 A/A Reports 1 Jun-31 Jul 45 (Don't have page count)
553-1.13 General Orders No. 1 1944 (Don't have page count)
(I already have 553-0.1, Hist Yr 44, which was about 100 pages)
Since scanning fees are 80 cents per page I have two questions:
Is there a more cost effective way to get these? I see you can hire a researcher but would that be much cheaper? I live a few hours away so I’m toying with the idea of going myself, but I’d need to take a day off of work and I’d probably just have time to skim the files and take pictures of some interesting pages, not actually scan all of them.
What are the ones I should prioritize? From what I’ve read online the Journal and file is mostly messages sent and received which could be interesting but I imagine is mostly bureaucracy. The after action reports I assume is more informative of what the unit did, where they were, who was in it etc, but I’m not certain.
If it matters the unit is the 553rd anti-aircraft automatics weapons battalion (mobile). They arrived in the European theater in October of 1944, were in Maastricht with the ninth army headquarters until at least the end of 1944. After that may have been attached to the 84th infantry division but I don't have reliable sources for any of 1945 yet.
The National Archives facility which holds the majority of such records, NARA II, is located in College Park, not Bethesda. Not that it's very far from one place to the other, mind you.
In any case, as long as you know which files and boxes you are looking for (and you seem to have a pretty good idea already), you can pre-order these so that they are ready for you when you arrive. Once you've gotten this far, most historians I know would actually prefer to photograph files, for no other reason than that it is much quicker than scanning. NARA II has photo stands (which, if memory serves, can be pre-booked), where you can mount a camera in a fixed position so that all you need to do is flip the pages of the folder you're looking at between taking pictures. It is efficient, and so long as you know what you are doing, it is also kinder on the documents themselves. I have copied thousands of pages in a day in this manner.
Of course, by doing this you're forgoing any kind of close reading (or any reading at all) while at the archives themselves. You'll have to sort and study your haul once you get back home or to your office. This is the part of archival work which can easily take months, depending on the size of your collection.
Good luck!
Also is there a place I can/should upload the files I've gotten from the national archives so other people can access?