Where did my grandfather fight during WWII?

I know that he was in the Army.  He was  a Technician Fifth Grade 38 215 662 for the Battery A 400th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion.  His Enlisted Record and Report of Separation - Honorable Discharge shows that he served in the Siciian; Rome-Arno; Naples-Foggia; Rhineland GO 33 WD 45.  He received a EAME Campaign  Medal with 4 Bronze Stars and I Bronze Arrowhead; Good conduct medal; Victory Ribbon; 4 Overseas Service Bars.

I want to know more detail about the battles he was involved in, etc.

Parents
  • Dale,

    Here is some information on the unit and overall operations of AAA-AW BN in ETO. Please follow the links. Attached a photo of men from Battery D.

    According to early records he was attached to the following in 1943. Which at that time was with the 5th Army

    45th AA Brigade:

    107th AAA Group, Headquarters and Headquarters Battery; attached:

    400th AAA Automatic Weapons Battalion [-Battery D]

    409th AAA Gun Battalion (Semi-Mobile)

    https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/documents/carl/eto/eto-038.pdf

    http://www.alternatewars.com/Nafziger/Pt_I_1943-1945/943uamd.pdf

    The 45th Air Defense Artillery Brigade Distinctive Unit Insignia, often called a unit crest or DUI for short, was approved on 23 September 1966 at the height of the Cold War that defined the trajectory of the unit’s destiny. In its center is a Florentine fleur-de-lis, symbolic of the organization's battle honors for service in Italy during World War II. The red cone has the appearance of a field of fire, with a sunburst inside it representing the power of artillery fire which denotes the air-defense mission of the unit. A pair of birdbolts (short blunt arrows for killing birds without piercing them) are an allusion to the accuracy and striking power of the Brigade's missiles and air-defense artillery weaponry. The unit motto, "Deter Or Destroy," simply listed the only two acceptable options for dealing with the possibility of an incoming enemy missile.

    Constituted as the 45th Coast Artillery Brigade (Anti-Aircraft) on 26 April 1942 and activated 1 June 1942, the 45th Air Defense Artillery Brigade is credited with participation in three campaigns in Italy during World War II (Naples-Foggia, Rome-Arno, North Apennines) and was inactivated on 13 February 1945. The unit’s exact lineage is almost impossible to discern after this point, but at some time in the 1950s it became the 45th Artillery Brigade (Air Defense) and was assigned to the Air Defense of the Chicago-Milwaukee area. Its original headquarters was at the Museum of Science and Industry from 1952 to 1957, at which point it moved to the Arlington Heights NIKE Site.

    The Brigade was probably redesignated as the 45th Air Defense Artillery Brigade in 1972, and likely inactivated at the latest with the termination of Army Air Defense Comand (ARADCOM) in 1975.

  • My Uncle was in the 400th in Battery D through out the war . Do you have any additional Information about the Battery. I have the Narrative written by the Battalion Commander. 

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