Points System or Advance Service Rating Score Here's a site that discusses it very well... a little overview...
The Advanced Service Rating Score was a scoring system that awarded points to a soldier and was used to determine who were sent home first.
At the end of the war in Europe you needed 85 points to go home. If you had less than that, you were probably going to be sent to another unit and shipped to the Pacific. After Japan surrendered, they dropped the point requirement to 75 - if you didn't have that many still, you were probably going to remain in occupation service.
Points were awarded for the following:
+1 Point for each month of service
(between 16 Sept 1940 - 12 May 1945)
+1 Point for each month overseas
(between 16 Sept 1940 - 12 May 1945)
+5 Points for first & each award received:
DSC, LM, SS, DFC, SM, BS, AM, PH
+5 Campaign stars worn on theater ribbons
+12 Points for each child (< 18 yrs)
up to a limit of 3 children.
What if you get the MA?
Apparently, a problem with the system was that it rewarded the guys in the rear with the gear who didn't see combat. You just survived longer as a supply soldier than on the front line - so you got more points. You figure if, like my grandfather, you were serving as an MP in Southern England at a aircorp base, you had it pretty easy - a few years into it - if you had enough kids to boot, you'd be coming home PDQ - without ever seeing action. Unfortunatley for Pappi - he met my GM in England and didn't have any kids - b/c he had too little points, his unit was reformed and sent to Germany to guard bases there until '46.
The younger men w/o any families got the shaft.
[ 24. October 2005, 10:52 AM: Message edited by: drache ]
