Rifleman (745) assigned to Field Artillery

Looking for info or reason why my grandfather who finished Infantry Replacement Training at camp Hood specialy qualified for Rifleman (745) would be assigned to the 121st FA Bn. In the Philippines (Luzon) he finished 14 july 1945 , I do not have his seperation papers and according to Nara his records were lost in the 73 fire. My guess is he arrived in the Philippines late july or beginning August 1945.I can only make this assumption because of the philippine. Liberation medal he had in a cigar box, also on his uniform on his right shoulder he has the 32 I.D. SSI/FWTS but it seems to me he would have had to change his MOS which would require more traing any help in figureing why a infantryman would be assigned to field arty would be greatly apprecited thanks.

 

I think your time line for getting overseas kind of short. I would put it back to mid to late August 1945. The 32d ID did occupy Japan which mostly entailed guard duty for both infantry and artillery. For such duty I would guess the artillery was heavy on NCO's and light on privates so it may have made sense to beef-up the privates in those units.

He may have been initially assigned to an infantry outfit and switched once the mission changed to occupation.

He may have arrived in time to qualify for the PLM or he may have just obtained one later. I don't recall any accounts of a unit making a big deal of the presentation of the PLM. Many veterans might have learned of their PLM at the time of discharge when a clerk looked their record and determined they qualified.

 

It wouldn't be uncommon for some of the Division Infantry to be scattered among the Division Artillery or to have riflemen in an Artillery unit's TOE to provide security while in the defense. 32nd Infantry Division (United States) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

^I think the situation you are describing sounds more like an attachment of infantry to a field artillery battery. Something like attaching a platoon of infantry to clear out snipers that are keeping the guns crews from firing.

An individual assignment to a unit implies a function within that unit.

But, who knows, we are all just guessing here.

 

I think there could have been "riflemen" organic to artillery units especially when that artillery unit was attached to an Infantry division. It would also not be too far fetched for divisional infantry reserves to be tasked with supporting artillery units. You have to remember that a "Rifleman 745" was a basically trained soldier; so, it would not be a distant leap to assume that he was part of an artillery unit, for accountability and pay purposes, until the need arose for him to replace someone in the division.

 

Whatever the reason for his re-assignment to the field artillery, there wasn't a lot of shooting going on anymore by then. Most of their jobs were security oriented, which were MOS neutral. The US Army that garrisoned Japan after the surrender had it pretty easy compared to the road getting there.

 

That the field artillery converted an infantrymen is more plausible than an artillery battalion having an organic infantry "section".

Due to battle casualties and disease infantry units were screaming for replacements. Though many replacements seemed to have spent overly long periods at replacement depots, a fighting division had no need to hold infantrymen anywhere else than the infantry regiments. The AT companies were being used to carry supplies up the mountains of northern Luzon and casualties down.

Given that all units in the Philippines were constantly losing people to disease it's possible an artillery unit lost enough men that it was forced to take any replacements. I can recall one infantry officer in the 25th ID that suspected the "best" replacements were being taken by the rear echelon before the infantry regiments had a chance to claim them.

But given the late date of his arrival, I still favor the need for privates in the field artillery to pull guard for the occupation.

 

Have you tried to find a copy of your grandfather's discharge papers at his local courthouse?

 

There were no replacement depots in the Pacific like there were in Europe. Replacements were usually shipped to the Pacific and Joined their Division and assigned to a Regiment, any Regiment; from there they were assigned as needed to whatever "Branch" (i.e. Infantry, Artillery, Transport, ...whatever). In the Pacific, unlike Europe, Divisions could be thousands of miles apart. Divisions had to have a pool of ready replacements on hand that could be trained in any job as needed.

 

I have looked in every county he livef in dince hid doscharhe on 48. Is the last part of the sentence supposed to be this? ...he lived since his discharge in 48

 

Every county he lived in since his discharge in 1947, discharged at camp stoneman, reinlisted in june of 1946 at nara, honshu japan arrived united states july 9. 1946 camp beale ca.

 

That may have been true before the Philippines though I suspect the Base Sections at least "housed" soldiers moving up to the divisions if they were not known as repple depples. The Philippines had both the Eighth and Sixth Armies so the divisions were very concentrated.

I can say with certainty that there was a replacement depot on Leyte by January 1945 that serviced Luzon at least up to April 1945. It may have had four or more "battalions".

Just because I had to look this up, I'll give two time-lines, one for a private and the other for an officer.

Private left SF 9 Feb 1945, arrived Leyte via Hollandia about 10 Mar 1945. Arrived 6th ID (Luzon) 13 Apr 1945, issued a rifle and on the front-line 14 Apr 1945.

2d Lt left SF 19 Jan 1945, arrived Hollandia 19 Feb 1945. Arrived 6th ID (Luzon) via Leyte by the end of February 1945.


I do know of a small group of Armor officers that left the US on a group of sub-chasers(?) to expedite their trip to Leyte where XXIV Corps staged for Okinawa..

IIRC all the US Army divisions before the Okinawa operation (ICEBERG) were slightly short of infantrymen, though nominally over-strength due to attachments of AAA and tanks.


FWIW, for the Siapan operation, the USMC had a pool of infantry replacements in each division. This pool would perform labor in the beach head with the Pioneer Battalions until called forward by the line regiments.


I've enjoyed this exchange, glad it did not turn personal though both of us are pretty terse. I tend to get snarky so I hope I have edited that out before posting.

I'll admit to shooting from the hip on the extra privates in the field artillery for occupation duty. I'll try to find some support for that speculation....

I did not find what I was looking for but I was reminded that high point soldiers that wanted to go home were discharged. So all units needed replacements before occupation duty and the field artillery had many more high pointers since they had less turnover in personnel due to fewer battle casualties.

Just so we are clear, the early divisions arriving in Japan were fully combat capable since they did not know what to expect. Once the occupation became routine the Division Artillery seemed to act like a fourth infantry regiment albeit with few personal but more vehicles.

 

Im not sure he got there that late I do know he left in july of 1945 he may have not finished his full 17 weeks of basic training because my mom was born in june same year per my grandmother he was alowed to vidit thrm for a very brief time before he wad shipped out.

 

I think we're painting different sides of the same barn; meaning, we're trying to make the same point to eachother.

Moral of the story is that the majority of the troops trained in 1945 were trained as basic riflemen and shipped over seas as such to be trained as something else should the need arise. The assumption was that they could be trained "down range" instead of wasting time in specialized training stateside when in all likeliehood they would become "riflemen" when they got overseas for the invasion of Japan. The reasoning was that it was most cost efficient to train a soldier to be a rifleman in the states and let him get "On The Job Training" as something else instead of wasting time, money and resources training a guy to do something when once he got overseas he was forced to being a "rifleman".

 

Would it have been possible he was cross trained in artillery while in basic training at camp hood texas?

 

Maybe....but not likely. If anything not much more than a day or two of being around the guns, enough to get a basic understanding of artillery. More of a familiarization than anything. Once a soldier was trained as a rifleman they were expected to be a "Jack of All trades" and could be easily adapted to whatever assignment that needed to be filled, regardless of their primary MOS.

 

I would like to thank you guys for you insight on this su ject I got to interview my grandfather before he had his stroke and eventualy passed he only said one thing about the time he spent in the Philillpines and he said I seen alot of dead japs"

 

To my knowledge basic/individual training for Infantry was reduced to 13 weeks in 1944. Situation permitting, soldiers going overseas were allowed leave before shipping out.

Do you know what date he entered the Army? Was it in 1945, or was it earlier?

His enlistment record might be found here:
NARA - AAD - Fielded Search - Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, ca. 1938 - 1946 (Enlistment Records)

Though most draftees in 1945 went straight to the Infantry, in 1944 many men from the Air Corps, AA artillery and other Army services were converted to Infantry. This conversion may have stretched into 1945 but it seems rare.

If he entered in 1944 or earlier he may have been trained in another arm or service before being converted to Infantry at Fort Hood. If he had previous skills in fields like mechanics, motor vehicles or communications that may have allowed him to be selected for a field artillery unit rather than infantry once he got overseas and they had a local need.


My bottom line, late in the war, getting out of the Infantry usually involved some luck, such as the sudden decision to discharge the high point soldiers before the end of the war. There was a vast pool of low point soldiers of all arms and services in Europe that were being expedited to the Pacific. Add the sudden end to the war(the A-Bomb), which would relax the standard of combat readiness and permit time to train on-the-job, and almost anything becomes possible ... or, maybe, somebody just liked him.

 

He enlisted in jan. 11 1945, at san francico was drafted according to my grandma in nov. Of 44, my timeline for him arriving in the philippines is realy based on the fact he had the PLM and according to criteria he would have had to been there 30 days consecutive up till sept. 3 or engaged in the enemy in combat now the 32nd was still conducting combat operations up to the original japanese capitulation

 

I know the 32nd division arty was pulled off the lines in june for training and rehab and back in action at the end of june, in july and august the 121st FA Bn. Was at Anabat, Luzon Philippines