DD Form 1412 occupies a particular place in Defense recordkeeping. Its title is DD Form 1412, Inventory of Articles Shipped in House Trailer, July 1974, and it exists to Inventory of Articles Shipped in House Trailer. What the DD prefix records is an administrative judgment made long before your copy was printed: this transaction was determined to be common to the whole Department rather than peculiar to one service, and so the documentation of it was standardized at Department level.
This is why the arrangement matters to you rather than only to the archivists. not stated governs the form throughout the Department, with not stated as the responsible office, so the record you create is legible outside your own component. Joint assignments, agency details and cross-service transactions all depend on that: the paperwork does not have to be reconstructed each time it crosses a boundary.
The edition in force is not stated, carried by the publisher as not stated, and edition discipline is stricter on a Department form than most people expect, precisely because supersession happens everywhere at once. There is no interval during which one service still works from the previous layout while another has moved on.
Work down the page in the printed order, and understand why the order exists. The identifying block establishes whose record this is and under what circumstances it arises. The body of the form then answers questions that are only meaningful once that context is fixed. The signature block comes last because a certification signed before the entries are complete certifies nothing.
Check the edition date before you type anything, against not stated. Old blanks accumulate in shared drives for years, and the cost of one is not obvious until a reviewer cannot find a field. Because DD forms are revised centrally and replaced across the Department in a single action, there is no component still tolerating the old layout as a local practice.
For an ambiguous field, read the form's own instruction, then not stated, which controls.
Download the form
What you can download: PDF. The form runs 1 pages and asks for approximately 200 entries. The plurality of formats is deliberate: Defense distribution has never been able to assume one operating environment across the whole force.
Two states of the same page circulate, and the reason is worth knowing. In the fillable pdf, the boxes are real fields holding real data; in the printable pdf, the boxes are drawings. Where a record will cross components — as Department records regularly do — the typed version is the safer artifact. Each scan, each forwarding, each reproduction costs handwriting a little legibility, and the office that finally files the record is rarely the office that received it first.
What the form asks for
- Item number, label 1. Enter sequentially
- Articles.
- Condition at origin. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Exceptions at destination, if any. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Item number, label 2. Enter sequentially
- Enter articles
- Condition at origin. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Exceptions at destination, if any. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Item number, label 3. Enter sequentially
- Enter articles
- Condition at origin. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Exceptions at destination, if any. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Item number, label 4. Enter sequentially
- Enter articles
- Condition at origin. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Exceptions at destination, if any. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Item number, label 5. Enter sequentially
- Enter articles
- Condition at origin. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Exceptions at destination, if any. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Item number, label 6. Enter sequentially
- Enter articles
- Condition at origin. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
- Exceptions at destination, if any. Enter alpha code for condition and numerical code for location. Leave blank if good
Route the executed form as not stated or local guidance directs, and retain a duplicate first. Cross-component routing is ordinary for DD forms, which is precisely why a personal copy earns its keep: the receiving office may belong to an organization you have no standing to query about a missing document.
Cross-referenced documents are found by series and number, with nothing further required. That the DD sequence is unified across the Department means a cited number identifies one form and no other, which is the practical payoff of centralizing the numbering in the first place.
Procedures that touch both Department and service processes will cite forms from both sequences, and the coincidence of numbers between them is exactly that — coincidence. An Army proponent maintains the DA series for the Army; not stated or another Department office maintains the DD series for the whole Department. Two independent registries, two independent numbering runs, no correspondence at any value.
Understanding why editions change explains why checking them is not optional. Revision follows directive reissue, changes in what data is required, and amendments to mandatory notice text — decisions made at Department level and communicated through publication rather than notification. The file you saved does not update itself, so the edition date at download is what you rely on.
A word on what this page is. It distributes a published Department of Defense document and describes what the document contains and how it is completed. It is not the issuing authority, does not speak for one, and offers no legal advice; nothing written here determines whether a particular submission will be accepted, because that determination belongs entirely to the office receiving it. Questions of applicability, eligibility or procedure go to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office identified in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 1412?
- DD Form 1412, Inventory of Articles Shipped in House Trailer, July 1974
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?