Start here

Start here is the short path into this wiki — whether you are learning the Ritchie Boys story for the first time, looking for a relative, or ready to help improve a page.

Learn the story

At Camp Ritchie, Maryland, the Army’s Military Intelligence Training Center trained soldiers — many of them immigrants and refugees who spoke the enemy’s languages — for interrogation, document work, photo interpretation, and related intelligence duties in World War II.

• Secret Heroes: Camp Ritchie and the Making of The Ritchie Boys — the overview
• Camp Ritchie — the camp, curriculum, and who trained there
• By The Numbers — class sizes, specialties, and awards at a glance
• The Stories — curated biographies (try Guy Stern, Karl Goldsmith, or Patricia Crane)
• Ritchie Boy Interviews · Documentaries/Movies — hear and see the history

Looking for a relative

Three steps: find the page, understand what you are seeing, then add a photo or obituary if you have one.

You do not need an account to search or to edit biography text. An account is only required to upload a photograph.

Find the name

1. On the Main Page, use Find a soldier — type a surname or Army serial number (ASN), for example Lubran or 33668332.
2. Or open Special:Search and search the same way.
3. Article titles look like Surname, First (ASN) so people with the same name stay distinct.
4. You can also browse by class or letter on Contents, or by birth country.

Open the soldier page when you find a match.

If the name is not found

Try these before assuming the person is absent from Camp Ritchie:

• Alternate spellings, anglicized names, or maiden vs married surnames
• ASN with or without leading zeros (for example 306244 and 0306244)
• Browse Contents, Soldiers A–Z, or By birth country

The person may still be missing from the Classes 1–31 roster import, listed under a different spelling, or not yet matched. Use Contact Us to ask, or add what you know via Contribute.

Understand the roster fields

The right-hand infobox holds structured facts. The left column holds the opening summary and Biography. Treat the biography as a draft until you check sources.

What you see	What it usually means
ASN	Army serial number — the ID in the page title
Class	Camp Ritchie training class (Classes 1–31 from the museum-digitized roster)
Team / IPW	Interrogation or related team assignment when known (for example IPW 141)
Nativity / religion / occupation	Roster or enlistment fields; may be incomplete or coded oddly
Research notes	Working leads — not a verified biography. May be wrong or out of date
Yellow Record status: unconfirmed	The class-roster match is not high confidence — check before treating class fields as settled

Two different source streams feed many pages: the Classes 1–31 roster (digitized by Camp Ritchie Museum, Inc. / The Ritchie History Museum from NARA records) and research compiled by Dan Gross and others. Full explanation: About the data.

Add a photo or obituary

Photograph: Create an account or log in, open the soldier’s page → Gallery → Contribute files (or Special:Upload). More detail: Contribute#Photographs_and_documents.

Obituary, clipping, or family recollection: you can edit without an account — open the soldier page → Edit (or Edit biography). Add a short third-person paragraph under Biography, with the source under Sources. Prefer facts about the soldier over event announcements or first-person Facebook framing.

Full editor guide: Contribute. Questions: Contact Us · FAQ.

Help the record

• Contribute — edit text without an account; upload photos when logged in
• Contribute documents — OCR a roster scan for review
• About the data — what is verified vs still a lead
• Themes · By specialty · Classes — other ways into the roster