Hello from Central MA.

Happy to have stumbled across this forum! I ended up here while conducting some research into how to read a WD AGO Form 53-55. I have some questions that I'll post in the right spot, but thought I'd say hello first.

My name's Richard and I was born in 1952. My grandfather served in the Balloon Corp in WWI, my father served in the navy (Africa) in WWII, so naturally I joined the military when I was of age. Not yet ready for college after high school, and with the possibility of being invited to vacation in Southeast Asia (Vietnam) hanging over my head, I opted to join the navy. I trained as an electrician and spent a good portion of my time servicing submarine electrical subsystems. It was one of the best time of my life! After four years, however, I was ready to move on. So I left after my enlistment and the rest is history.

Over the years I've developed a pretty healthy appreciation for history and, in particular, military history. I've read quite a number of books from the Revolution, WWI and WWII eras and am fascinated by the bravery that can be found in every endeavor--on both sides of the respective conflicts.

I also do quite a bit of family genealogy, which is what brought me here. I'm currently trying to reconstruct the military life of a deceased father-in-law who served in the Army during WWII. He was involved in the Sicilian, Northern France, and Normandy campaigns, but that's all we know. As many of you are aware, a fire in 1973 destroyed 80% of the Army's records, so I'm working on piecing his together. Hopefully, I can pick enough brains here to be able to give the family what certainly would be a great story of his endeavors.

 

That was quick! Thanks for the welcome. I have his WD AGO form and was in the process of looking for the right forum to post it too (I didn't want to start a thread in the wrong forum). But I'll include it here and ask if it can be moved behind the scenes to a forum that is better suited to such discussions. Further communications could/would then be held there.

Specifically, what I'm looking for is the "how to's." I imagine there are contacts here who could readily find the necessary information for me, but I'm a true believer in "give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." I've been googling what I believe are specific enough (yet open enough) terms, but there's a ton of material available--much of which doesn't help. I'm sure many here have gone through a similar exercise and I wouldn't want to re-invent the wheel.

All we have from my father-in-law is his dog tags and his WD-AGO 53-55. So anything we can glean from this document would be tremendously helpful. Specifically, I'm trying to find the GO (#30) that is referenced in his form.

Thanks, in advance, for any direction that can be provided.

 

Welcome to the forum. Rich A. in Pa.

 

Welcome to the forums!

 

The 'how to' is to go to St. Louis to look at morning reports and College Park to look at operational reports. Unfortunately, both of those places have been shut down for almost two years because of the WuFlu with no reopening date in prospect.

As was SOP, the unit listed is his unit at discharge. That unit was an outfit that operated stateside bases.

He came back in Dec 44, but remained in service for almost another year. No purple heart listed, so do you know if he got sick or was disabled in some way while in Europe?

 

Thanks firstf1bn and Jeff. Yeah, I'm aware of the offerings of College Park and St. Louis but, as you noted, that's not currently a viable option.

I'm fairly comfortable with navspeak, but am woefully weak on the Army's designations and structure. I was able to figure out that "Service Command 1114" was just an organization to which he was assigned at Camp Edwards MA while awaiting discharge. To the best of my knowledge, he had no illnesses or injuries related to his service. Box 34 (Wounds Received in Action) is NONE, and he never mentioned anything that would lead me to believe he had any resulting bumps and bruises.

What I'm specifically looking for at this point in time is to understand GO#30 HQ 1st Div 44. I know GO# is General Order, but have not been able to find any document or websites that list General Orders and what they include. I see lots of references to GO's, but finding them has been next to impossible.

And I need to know what HQ 1st Div 44 means; It certainly could be 1st Army, 44th Division, but that would just be a guess. I believe knowing that may help me figure out what unit he belonged to. With that I think I may be able to find a history of that unit to get an idea of where he was and what he may have seen/done. I know that he may have just been temporarily assigned to a particular unit when the medal was earned, but if I'm lucky he'll have earned it while with his own unit.

From the Dates of Departure, Destination, and Date of Arrival boxes, I have an idea of when he left and returned to the US. From those dates, I was able to find a few options for troop transport ships that sailed around those dates. Again, just another piece of the puzzle, but when I'm able to put them all together hopefully I'll have something.

Anyway, thanks again. If you can point me to the GO# question and what HQ 1st Div 44 actually mean, I'll be very much appreciative.

(And if this should move to a different forum, please let me know!)

 

Upon further review, could "44" be the year of the GO?

 

GO numbers restarted every year, so, yes, '44' is 1944.

Northern France, the latest campaign listed on discharge, went from 25 Jul 44 through 14 Sep 44. IIRC, campaign credit excludes rear areas (Com Z), but somebody better check this before accepting it as correct. Assuming I'm right, this could mean he was assigned to a rear area sometime during the Northern France campaign, 3-5 months before getting on the boat for the return trip.

16th Infantry was organic to 1st Infantry Division, so his CIB could have come from that service. CIB required service in an infantry regiment, though it seems like there are instances of other individuals seeing combat while temporarily attached to infantry regiments qualifying.

He arrived in ETO seven weeks before 1st ID assaulted Sicily. He shipped out 5 months after induction (and I had always thought manpower shortages came later). If I had to guess, I'd say he was a replacement shipped over as part of a pre-invasion pool. The 1st ID loaded in North Africa, which by this time had been reorganized as North Africa Theater, so, guessing again, looks like he was sent to UK, then to the Med prior to 17 Aug 43, the end of the Sicily Campaign.

Seems like there is a 1st ID unit history (there's also a WWI history, so be careful). Would be surprised if answers to above questions would be included, but an overview often helps. Don't know if there's a 16th Infantry history, but worth a look on the used book market. Good luck.

 

Awesome! That's very helpful. Until/unless I find information to the contrary, I'll assume your "guesses" are correct. But don't worry....I won't hold it against you if they're not; they're a great starting point at the very least.

I have a group photo of him taken at Fort McClellan in AL in Feb 1943. The unit flag is RTC (Replacement Training Center) 19C. In the navy, the boot camp/training center organizational structure is not at all connected to subsequent duty stations. After boot or training, each individual goes off in different directions. Is that the same for the Army? Would the men in the photograph have gone separate ways? Or would they have travelled as a unit? And could there be any connection with their Company and Battalion designations (in the photo) with subsequent organizations? Either way, I at least have a point in time with an associated place as part of the puzzle.

Thanks again for the info. I'm starting to feel better about the possibility of piecing together his military life for the family.

 

My pleasure. You did all the heavy lifting. The discharge is, of course, the most important single doc to have.

Try this link. Obviously, go to the 1944 G.O.s. Look at bottom of p. 117 (p.5 on the printed doc). There's your G.O #30. The plot thickens.

Fort Benning | Maneuver Center of Excellence Libraries | MCoE HQ Donovan Research Library

 

I'm absolutely stunned! This is exactly what I was hoping someone could point me to. But not only did you do that, you actually found the ONE SINGLE GO that will set the proverbial snowball in motion.

I continued my research using your guesses as a guide, and the history of the 1st Batallion/16th Infantry tie nicely with the awards he earned. It shows involvement at the three campaigns he was reported to be in, and they match the timeline of when he was in the ETO. So I'm feeling quite confident that you were correct in your deductions.

I don't know how to thank you, but hopefully you'll take satisfaction in knowing you'll have helped tremendously in answering the questions his family has had for these past many decades. He didn't talk much about his involvement--only a funny story or two--so no one really had a sense for what he must have experienced as a young man. Now we'll know. As with many/most other participants in that horrible time, it was probably a painful memory.

As an aside, the only story I personally ever heard was related to a landing. He didn't say when or where--and I was too naive at the time to ask--but it goes like this. He was only 5' 3" tall and weighed 150 pounds when he enlisted. He was carrying a radio set (probably weighed as much as he did) off the amphibious boat and immediately sunk below the waterline when he stepped off. He laughed as he told us how his CO had to grab him by the straps of his backpack to pull him up out from under the water. I doubt he was laughing at the time, but he thought it was funny when he told me.

Anyway, thanks so much for your time and assistance. Hopefully I'll be able to pay it forward some day.

 

No, the 16th Infantry did not make it across the beaches in decent order. EASY RED and FOX GREEN were a shambles too. The troops landed with benefit of cover from the burning underbrush were the 5th Ranger Battalion and the reserve battalion of the 116th Infantry and then later the 115th Infantry.

 

The MCOE Donovan Libray General Orders are the War Department General Orders, not the 1st Infantry Division (for the DUB) or 16th Infantry (for the GCM) General Orders referenced.

His Bronze Arrowhead device was for an assault landing, so either HUSKY or NEPTUNE, with the 16th Infantry. His return to the Z/I on December 1944, but lack of wounds, makes illness or injury the most likely reason he rotated home.