Every entry in the Defense records system exists because some decision needed a documented basis, and DD Form 456 is one of those instruments: DD Form 456, Interrogatories and Deposition, May 2000, created to Interrogatories and Dispositions. The reason it carries a DD number rather than a service designation is structural — the Department maintains a single body of forms for matters that arise identically in every service, so that a record created in one component remains intelligible in another.
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.
The sequence printed on the form is the sequence in which a reviewer will read it, and the two should agree. Header data frames every entry below it; the substantive fields depend on that frame; the certification stands at the end because its whole function is to vouch for what came before. Entries made out of sequence commonly contradict entries made earlier.
Before the first entry, compare the date printed on the form face with not stated. This is not bureaucratic fussiness. Editions change field numbering, and a receiving office working from the current layout may look for information where your copy does not put it. On a Department form the exposure is wider than usual: your record may be reviewed by an office in another service entirely, one with no reason to remember what the previous edition looked like.
Unclear entries are resolved from the printed instructions first and from not stated where the two texts diverge.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 4 pages and about 65 fields.
If you find an xfdl file here, its presence is historical. The format belongs to IBM Lotus Forms, which the Department adopted Department-wide for electronic forms and fielded on a scale that makes wholesale removal slow. You need the matching viewer to open it; ordinary pdf software cannot read the format and will say so unhelpfully.
Every format is free, as published government documents are. A note on tools, though — the interactive field layer that makes a fillable pdf useful is precisely the part browser viewers handle least reliably. Save the file, open it in a full pdf reader, and the fields behave as the form's designer intended.
What the form asks for
- Deposition of: enter name.
- stationed or residing at: enter location
- By: enter convening authority, line 1.
- Dated: enter day and month.
- You will take or cause to be taken the deposition of the above-named witness on the following interrogatories, cross-interrogatories, and additional interrogatories, if any. If it is desired to give special instructions, add: special instructions attached. By:
- of:
- United States versus: enter name.
- In the matter of: enter case.
- to be read in evidence before a: enter general, special or summary court-martial, military commission, court of inquiry or military board.
- Year.
- Enter day and month.
- Enter year.
- Press this Reset button to clear the data from all fields.
- of the United States, convened to meet at: enter locationConvened to meet at (location).
- Convening authority, line 2.
- To: insert name or title of person who is requested to authorize the taking of the deposition. A separate letter complying with R C M 702 c 2 should be enclosed. It is requested that you authorize the deposition of the above named witness to be taken on the following interrogatories.
- Trial counsel or other person requesting deposition. a. Typed name: last, first, middle initial.Trial counsel or other person requesting deposition. a. Typed name (last, first, middle initial).
- b. Official title.
- c. Unit or command name.
- d. Legal qualifications, such as certified in accordance with article 27 b, member of the bar of the Supreme court of, et cetera. If none, so state.
- e. Signature of person requesting deposition.
- f. Rank.
- g. Date signed.
- Address or title.
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.
Forms referenced inside this one are located by number alone, and that simplicity is a direct product of Department-level numbering. Because the DD sequence is maintained centrally and not duplicated by service, a number is a complete address: one number, one document, throughout the Defense establishment.
It helps to see the DA and DD sequences as what they are: separate registries with separate custodians. One serves a single service under a service proponent, the other serves the Department under not stated or an equivalent office, and neither was ever indexed against the other. A number that appears in both systems points to two unrelated documents, which is why reading the prefix comes before reading the digits.
A form is downstream of the policy that requires it, and revision usually starts there: a directive is reissued, a collection requirement is altered, notice language is updated by statute. The form is republished as a consequence. Since none of that reaches individual users, an archived copy quietly becomes wrong, and verifying not stated each time you download is the whole remedy.
The role of this page is narrow and worth stating plainly. It makes a published Defense form available and explains its structure. It does not advise, does not interpret policy for your circumstances, and cannot indicate how any office will treat a completed copy — those judgments rest with the authorities that own the process. Direct such questions to not stated, to the administrative office that services you, or to the authority named in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 456?
- DD Form 456, Interrogatories and Deposition, May 2000
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?