The National Archives Documents in this series are copies of original items held at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Starting in the 1990s, the 442nd Veterans Club in Honolulu and the Japanese American Veterans Association sponsored a project in which volunteers copy documents located in the National Archives that relate to the activities of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, the 100th Infantry Battalion, Military Intelligence Service (MIS), the 1399th Engineers, and other Japanese Americans serving in World War II. The 442nd Veterans Club in Honolulu has provided a copy of the documents for the 442nd Veterans Club Collection at the University of Hawaii Archives & Manuscripts Department, allowing researchers to access valuable historical materials about Japanese American veterans without having to travel to the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

When the project began, volunteers made paper-based photocopies of the documents, but they began digitizing the documents in 2003. The photocopies are arranged according to the Record Group, Box Number, and Folder Number assigned to the original documents by the National Archives. More detailed information about each Record Group is available on the National Archives Guide to Federal Records, available on the web at: http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/.