(XPosted) Found A Postcard From My Grandpa With Information

A while back my family got interested in looking into my grandpas World War 2 service. Not much was known about it as he talked very little about it, by my grandmother said that she was sure that he was in New Guinea and the Philippines too.

We found some old patches and other insignia a while back, but after a flood we're not sure were they are currently located. The other day however while looking through some pictures we came across a post card he sent to his brother with some information on it. The problem is that the information on this postcard doesn't turn up much in a Google search.

If someone knows anything about this information or where to get information about this information I will include the information below.

The postcard is addressed from

Private Ezra Gibson 35689369
Company F(we think it's an F?) 301 Infantry
APO 94 Division US Army
Camp Phillips Kansas

Anyone have any idea where we can get some information on what he might have done in the war?

Thank You!

 

Thanks for the help with this, the information you provided should get me started off well. I think since we have his ID
number now that we will try to get some information from the military archives if they have any. There's so much contradictory information, like this unit was mainly involved in European theatre from what I can see, but my family has only heard my grandpa talk about the Pacific theatre. Hopefully we will be able to find out what exactly he did and where he went.

 

I believe I found something that will explain the apparent contradiction. On this website dedicated to a veteran of the 301st Infantry, I found the following in a section regarding Camp Phillips:

It would make sense that he was one of the 1,500 that were sent as replacements. It may require hiring a researcher to figure out where he went from the 94th. It was likely a unit that had seen fighting in the PTO as of September 1943, and later spent time in New Guinea and the Philippines.

 

BTW, if I am reading the postmark correctly, it seems to be Aug 1943.

 

Wow, that is some very interesting information and would go a long way in explaining the apparent discrepency. Thank You so much for this. My grandfather didn't talk about the war too much according to my grandmother and dad\aunts, so it's been hard to piece together exactly what he did and where at. This is the most promising lead that I have got so far in figuring all of this out. I'm glad you stumbles across my post.

 

I pulled the postcard back out and looked at it again and you are right, it's August of 1943. I didn't even notice that in all the times that I've looked at it.

 

Also, I've actually reached out to a researcher and will hopefully be able to share this information with him soon to get this started. I don't know why I waited so long to do this, I guess part of me just thought it was hopeless with very limited information to start and his records being destroyed in the fire. Again, thank you.

 

I understand what you mean. It is easy to get discouraged, especially with the obstacle of the 1973 fire. However, there are still ways of getting information. Sometimes its not easy or cheap, but it can be very rewarding. I look forward to your follow up after you hear back from the researcher.

 

His enlistment record:

http://aad.archives.gov/aad/record-detail.jsp?dt=893&mtch=1&cat=all&tf=F&sc=24994,24995,24996,24998,24997,24993,24981,24983&bc=sl,fd&txt_24995=Ezra+Gibson&op_24995=0&nfo_24995=V,24,1900&rpp=10&pg=1&rid=5950271

Shows he entered the Army on 2 Dec 1942 at Louisville, Kentucky. It seems to coincide with when the 94th ID was activated and received its "fillers" of mostly draftees.


It could be difficult to track him down as an infantry replacement and many divisions went through New Guinea and the Philippines. Any other clues might be helpful.

Veterans were advised to have a copy of their discharge document registered at their local Court House/County Clerk. The States have different rules for accessing these copies but you might be fortunate.

Good Luck!

 

I know that my dad had talked to some people involved with the VFW locally and they too suggested he try the courthouse, so that sounds like a good place to at least try. As far as other information, I know that he was and engineer and helped build landing strips on some of the Pacific islands in anticipation of the invasion of Japan (this was one thing my dad remembered he talked about) and also that he was sent home with malaria but that probably wouldn't narrow it down much either as I'm sure a lot of soldiers in the Pacific Theater were as well.

My Grandma also pulled out some patches one day that were my grandpas. Being sent home with malaria not much of his stuff made it home with him, but some patches did. She put them up somewhere after we looked at them and doesn't remember where (she's dealing with dementia). We are going to go through some stuff hopefully this weekend and see if we can locate them again as they are there somewhere. I do remember however what one of them looked like because I saved it to my computer way back when I was trying to track down some information about them. The one I remember is this one from the Eighth US Army.

I will dig for these and post the rest of them as soon as I find them. Also I emailed a researcher but they never got back with me so I'll be trying another one.

 

Well that's interesting...

It is a little unusual for an infantrymen to be assigned to an engineering outfit but not impossible. And the Eight Army patch would make sense for an assignment to an independent Engineer battalion or regiment. The only problem is you go from a dozen or so infantry divisions to 50 or more engineer outfits.

There are Engineer Aviation Battalions and Regiments that specialized in work around the airfields. That would significantly reduce the search for units with campaign credits for New Guinea and the Philippines (Leyte, Luzon and/or Southern Philippines).

With some effort I (or someone here) could provide a preliminary list of EAB's that fit the criteria above using Stanton's US Army Order of Battle.

Also many Engineer units do all types of construction work and may have assisted the EAB's. So if the EAB's don't yield results you may have to expand the search to the ubiquitous Engineer Combat Bn or the rare Engineer Construction Bn or Regt. Last of all to search might be the Engineer Light Equipment Companies because they are so hard to track down.

Let us know if we can help...