USS BUSH Sinking - Disposition of Personnel
Medical Report

Under the columns for "Branch" the acronym NR means Naval Reserve and USN means they are "regulars". As you'll note, most men in the Navy at this time were part of the Naval Reserve.

The Chief Petty Officers have the designations AA or PA, meaning "Acting Appointment" or "Permanent Appointment". The Commanding Officer had the discretion to appoint these men to "Chief" on an acting basis as vacancies aboard ship arose. The Commanding Officer could also reduce them to their previous rating if they fouled up before becoming "Permanent". Typically, these men would serve in an "Acting" capacity for a year or so before being made Permanent or perhaps promoted to a Warrant Officer.

For the officers, the classification acronyms follow their ranks. For surviving officers these acronyms are listed in a briefer fashion and include D -Deck, General Service; C - for Communications; E - Engineering; MC - Medical Corp; and A - Aviation Non-flying. An officer could be classified to perform more than one task. The suffix X indicates special qualifications in electronics. For one of the Air Support officers, the K indicates qualification for communications duties aboard an aircraft carrier. Longer classification acronyms were used for those listed as killed, missing or wounded in action. These classifications included S(E)3T - Special Service/Engineering Duties, Electronic Qualifications Radar, Radio &/or Sonar; SC-V(G) - Supply Officer; D-V(G) - Deck, General Service; D-V(S) - Deck, General Service and qualified for specialist duties; and EM - Engineering Merchant Marine.

In most cases the names are placed and written as noted in the report. In a very few cases, the some names have been moved to be in alphabetical order for those trying to find their BUSH sailor's name. For some individuals, the report lists an "(n)" for their middle initial. While many of these men did indeed have middle names, it wasn't part of the ship's official record, and thus the "(n)", for none or not known.