Seeking a ww2 veterans division and unit from his name, date of enlistment, serial number

Hello,

If you have not already, you should request his military records at:

https://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records

Hopefully, they can provide some of the information you are seeking.

Also, you can enter his service number to review morning reports from 1941 to early 1944 at the link below that show some relevant dates, units and locations. The morning reports currently available on-line only go up to early 1944.

https://catalog.archives.gov/search-within/85713825

Here is what I have found, that I hope will be helpful, though it is very incomplete:

After enlisting in the US Army on 10 Mar 41, during Mar-Sep(?) 41, he was training with Battery A, 28th Training Battalion (Coast Artillery), possibly at Camp Wallace, TX.

Mar 42: Hospital Admissions card for minor medical issue has him at Fort Dix, NJ. He is returned to duty. 

Feb 43: Sgt Johnson is at Fort Bliss, TX with the 432rd Coast Artillery Bn (Comp) AA. He then joins the 111th AAA Bn (semi-mobile), which is initially a Separate Coast Artillery Bn AA-Gun. It is re-designated from Coast Artillery in Jun 43. 

Sometime after this, the 111th AAA Bn, 108th AAA Group, moves to Camp Davis, NC.

Sep 43: Sgt Johnson attends training at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), MD with the Fourth Prov. Ord. Training Co, at The Ordnance School.

Oct 43: Sgt Johnson is promoted to S/Sgt.

Nov 43: S/Sgt Johnson is released from training at APG, MD. 

Dec 43: S/Sgt Johnson returns to Battery C, 111th AAA Bn at Camp Davis after furlough (leave).

I have no additional information after this, except that the 111th AAA Bn was disbanded on 1 Dec 44 at Camp Livingston, LA. 

So, it is likely that he left that unit prior to or at disbanding and was assigned elsewhere. I see in his obituary that he has a European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with one bronze campaign star, which indicates that he served for a period of time in the ETO. VA BIRLS indicates that he was discharged from the US Army on 1 Nov 45.

In order to find out additional information, you may have to wait for the morning reports from the rest of 1944 and all of 1945 to be digitized and made available on-line (though they are currently available by personally visiting the NPRC in St Louis), or another option is to use the services of a professional researcher. 

What little information I could find on the 111th AAA Bn came from Shelby Stanton's "WWII Order of Battle (Various Editions)

i hope this helps.

Dan

The Morning Reports are only available through 1943 right now. You can find them here I just did a search using his service number. 

!941 or 1942 with Battery A 28th Training Bn, this is is Basic training

1942/43 assigned to Battery C 423rd Coastal Artillery

September 1943 sent to Ordnance school, at this point his unit is listed as Battery C, 111th Anti Aircraft Battery . Rank is Sgt.

October 1943 at Camp Davis NC promoted to S/Sgt

November 1943

Still at Ordnance School

December 1943

Returns to Camp Davis, North Carolina after a 10 day furlough. Still part of Battery C, 111th AAA

Lisa

Sorry for the duplicated information but Dan's reply had not been posted when I submitted my reply. 

Lisa

Thank you,  

Do you know when they will have the rest of the 1944-1945 records digitized?  I'm not really wanting to spend money on finding this information if they are going to release it for free within a year.

thanks, 

Luke

Thank you, I appreciate it

Hello 

BattleOfTheBulgeCool,

Thank you for posting your question on History Hub!

You can search the Morning Reports, ca. 1912–1946 by typing his service number into the lower search bar.  Results will contain about 1000 pages, but the ones in which he is mentioned will appear in the pop out box to the right of the image.  Also, the thumbnails will have a green border around them.  This series is only digitized from 1940 to about May 1944, with more being digitized every day.

With the information you can locate from the Morning Reports, you can check the Unit Histories, 1943 - 1967 in the Records of U.S. Army Operational, Tactical, and Support Organizations (World War II and Thereafter) (Record Group 338) that includes the file unit titled. For more information about these non-digitized records, please contact the National Archives at College Park - Textual Reference (RR2R) via email at archives2reference@nara.gov.

 We also recommend that you request his Official Military Personnel File (OMPF). In general, OMPFs for military personnel who were separated from the service between 1912 and 1999 are serviced by NARA's National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis. For the location of all service records organized by branch and year, please see Locations of Service Records.  In many cases where personnel records were destroyed in the 1973 fire, proof of service can be provided from other records such as morning reports, payrolls, and military orders. 

You may use eVetRecs to submit your records request online. See eVetRecs Help for instructions. Alternatively, you may complete a GSA Standard Form 180 and mail it to NARA's National Personnel Records Center, (Military Personnel Records), 1 Archives Drive, St. Louis, MO 63138-1002. If there is any information requested by the forms that you do not know, you may omit it or provide estimates (such as for dates), but the more information you provide, the easier it will be to locate the correct file. For more information see Request Military Service Records. 

If fewer than 62 years have passed since the veteran’s discharge date (to include any reserve time), certain information in the records is not available to the general public without the written consent of the veteran or the next of kin the deceased veteran. Please note that next of kin of a deceased veteran must provide proof of death of the veteran such as a copy of death certificate, letter from funeral home, or published obituary. For more information, see  Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF), Non-Archival Holdings.

Response times from NPRC vary depending on the complexity of your request, the availability of the records, and their workload.  The NPRC staff works actively to respond to each request in a timely fashion, but keep in mind they receive approximately 4,000 - 5,000 requests per day. If your request is urgent, please see Emergency Requests and Deadlines.

Military personnel records are opened to the public 62 years after the veteran leaves the service. For more information, see Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF), Archival Records Requests.

Archival OMPFs may also be requested by visiting the Archival Research Room at the National Archives at St. Louis. Please email stlarr.archives@nara.gov for further assistance prior to making an appointment.

We hope this information has been helpful!

Keep in mind that, since he was trained in Antiaircraft artillery, he very well may not have been assigned to a division. He could have been a theater army asset that was operating in a division or corps area, or even further to the rear, as there were lots of troops that weren't assigned to divisions.

Are you sure he served in North Africa, Italy, and Europe? If he only had one campaign star, that would further lead me to think he was operating someplace in the rear, keeping supply lines fine from enemy air attack. The campaign starts had geographic areas as well as dates that applied to the areas they were awarded for; I recently helped someone research her father, and he spend nearly a year in England but earned no campaign stars.

Just something to think about. I do a lot of research on medical units, most of which were assigned to the numbered armies. So I've seen many people go down the divisional rabbit hole when there was no division to be found.