Old man's draft

The fourth registration of World War II, held April 27, 1942, covered men born from April 28, 1877, to February 16, 1897. It was not meant to send them into the army. It was an inventory of manpower and skills available for war work.

Many of these men had also registered in 1917 or 1918, so the same ancestor can have both a World War I and a World War II card, two snapshots about 25 years apart. The National Archives at St. Louis keeps the fourth registration as a separate group.