Purpose of the Notch
There are many explanations for the Notch on the WWII / Korean
Conflict dog tags. The notch refers to the “V” cut
out on the short side of the dog tag across from the hole.
Battlefield
Use The most popular explanation for the notch
is to place the tag securely (in the teeth) on
a fallen
soldier’s body. This may have been done but that was
not the original purpose of the notch. (There’s a great
story told about a soldier who was kicking the tag into the
teeth
of a “dead” soldier and actually “woke” him
up!)
Dog
Tag Stamping Another popular belief
is that the notch was used in the old Graphotype dog tag
stamping machines
in order
to line up a blank dog tag for proper tag alignment during
tag stamping. We have used both electric and hand crank machines
from the WWII era, and have never figured out how a notch
would help in the alignment of the tag. If you have any
pictures or comments about this, please let us know.
Transfer
of information to Medical Records The best explanation
is the notch’s use by the Medical Corp submitted
by Alain Batens.
“The Model
70 "Addressograph" was a pistol-type imprinting
machine used by the Medical Department during WWII.
Its function was to transfer the wounded soldier’s
identification information directly from his dog tags to
his medical records (see above graphic). The notch
in the dog tag would align and hold the tag securely
in the "Addressograph".
First the dog tag was inserted into the imprinting
machine. After the medical document was aligned in the "Addressograph",
the trigger on the imprinting machine was pulled and
the information on the dog tag was transferred to the medical
document through
the ribbon of carbon paper located inside the "Addressograph".”
The red arrows in
the picture above, are showing the carbon marks from the
use of the Addressograph to transfer data from a soldier's
dog
tags
to the "Report of Burial".
Many thanks to Alain
S. Batens and David Steinert for providing the above explanation
and the following pictures. Be sure to check out their very
thorough
web site, The WWII Combat Medic at: http://home.att.net/~steinert/
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