How can I find WWII info on what Company and Division my grandfather was in?

It was not unusual for soldiers in the Army at the start and during WWII to switch to the Army Air Corps (Air Force) Your grandfather enlisted in the Army Air Corps on November 14, 1945 according to the US Army enlistment records online at the NARA AAD site. They note he was already at the rank of TSGT (Tech Sergeant ) at the time of enlistment.

His BIRLS file below only notes his Air Force service from 1945-1955.

With Normandy as his first campaign medal that shows he entered combat in June 1944 and continues through the end of the war in Europe ( May 8, 1945)

A great resource on how to search for information is "Finding Your Father's War" by Johnathan Gawne 

Good luck with your search.

Lisa Sharik

Thank you so much! I pride myself as a "history slueth" since I work in a Trust Department and have to regularly research heirships / client family relationships. Yet, with my grandaddy, was hitting a brick wall. I submitted a record request to National Personnel Records Center in February and received a response in June 2019. The information was minimal and many lines redacted so all I've had was a list of rewards and codes with month & year on awarded medals and concluded Duty AFSC was zipcodes - Tinker AFB & Vance AFB. Maybe the book you suggested that I just orders may help decode other information.

What a blessing to happen upon this group. Thank you so much for the "hints". Every clue helps!

Angela

It is worth nothing that this is most likely Company K, 29th Infantry Regiment and Company B, 38th Infantry Regiment.  The regiment would be an intermediary level of organization between the company and the division.  A given infantry division would have several infantry regiments, each of which would have its own Company A, Company B, etc.  

Histories of these regiments can be found here:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/29th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States) 

However, to expand on what Lisa said, he likely served in multiple units during the course of his military career, especially given that he retired as a master sergeant.  

If you have a chance to visit the National Archives at St. Louis or hire a researcher in that area, they have unit rosters through 1943 and morning reports for the entire war that might be helpful in tracking his subsequent career.  Unfortunately these aren't online yet.

https://www.archives.gov/st-louis 

You might also want to email St. Louis directly and explain what you got on the NPRC request 4 years ago, and ask if it might be possible for a more complete response to be given now that an additional 4 years have passed since his separation from service.  Records become archival and therefore more open to the public 62 years after separation from service, to include any reserve time.

So I have a glorious update since my first entry. I have found "hints" in letters then explicit (some very disturbing) information in letters dated AFTER May 15th 1945. This quest has occupied my thoughts and life for a solid 6 weeks. I'm getting so close. I lost any connection of him in 1943. I was told he went to Iceland and now made "that" connection. I was confused about his accounts of Cherbourg (not Normandy) but now know he then joined Patton's 3rd Army after battle in Liege (which he later says was the worse place ever), St. Lo, mentioned "hedgerows & pillboxes" which, no clue until I drilled down weeks later, left Patton's 3rd Army and joined the 4267th Quartermaster Truck Company which there is absolutely NO records published "yet". I did find a report written by Brig. Gen McNamara outlining 1st Army through Europe. After leaving the 3rd Army, he joined the 9th Army- Quartermaster Truck Company and references "Red Ball Express" often. He even sends newspaper clips. I'm not certain of the (9th Army) but he says that's where he went after 3rd. But no doubt, he was mailing home 4267 Quartermaster Truck Co, APO 350 for almost a year. His letters his December 1944 are normal and they reference "hope we eat as good on Christmas as Thanksgiving", next letter dated the 16th December 1944, we are leaving so I can't write every day AND was transferred "yesterday" to 1st Army. So history is clear. He says he has "lots of points" since he received 4 stars from "Fortification of Europe & Germany" and I cannot figure that out. He's afraid to come home later because they said he'd go to Pacific after.

So I find out, the army plays a "shell game" with soldiers and points and tries to "reassign" him. He tells my grandma his "new APO" but next letter says they cancelled his transfer.

I forgot to mention that he writes my grandma after May 15th, that if she saw any newspaper of the "crossing of the Rhine", then she'd see his truck crossing the temp bridge, Couldn’t see him but that was his truck,  I downloaded that photo

So until August 1945, he is hauling German prisoners back to Berlin. He actually (typed for only the 2nd time) a V-Mail dated 4-17-45 what he witnessed the day before. What he witnessed I now know was the beginning of the nightmares he had written many times about and my grandma telling me when he got home she was afraid of him hurting her because of bad dreams. They were a 1/2 day behind the Gardelegen Massacre. The V-mail affected me greatly. He had already passed the Malmedy event so this is the second. 

After the war was over, they had his company transporting prisoner’s non-stop. He never sleeps, food isn't provided, Russians are stealing everything and his convoy has been held up 2 times, both 5-7 hours. Russians would take the female prisoners and rape them all, in plain sight he said. If they resisted, they killed them. He drove up until August 5, 1945. It was only then that they inspected his trucks and told them they were going home.

To end my long and rambling email, the things I am trying to piece together now is anything about 4267 Quartermaster Truck Company and their "activities" reports. To my knowledge and all of my never-ending searches, I have hit a dead end. It shows the Archives "have" files but not available yet. I also contacted the Quartermaster Museum and they have no info either.

You all have been a Godsend from day one and those "hints" have helped fill in a lot. He reinlisted in the Air Force and I am in touch with Vance AFB Historian and making a trip on September 25th to visit on base about his "after Army" carreer with was full of adventure itself 

Blessings to all! I'm just a proud grandaughter to an amazing grandpa, war hero and Master Sergeant, Glenn Morse Hardgrave!

Angela Hardgrave Hudson

PS: Now I have an outline, I have a friend who is a published author (history mostly) whi is helping me write a report to present to the WWII museum for the archives at my appointment with "their" historian in November! :-)

I was typing too fast.

He references his truck the first ti cross the RHINE temp bridge

The 4267 Quartermaster Truck Company would be a Corps level asset. There will likely be little published information. They should still have Morning Reports, those are available from the National Archives St. Louis MO location. You will need to go and make copies yourself or pay a researcher to do it for you. Someone with the NA will probably reply with more information. Unit Journals, if they had one would be at the College Park Maryland, National Archives location, same as above you will need to visit to obtain copies.

Good luck with your search, it seems like you have done a great job already.

Lisa Sharik

 AngelaHudson 

Thank you for posting your question to History Hub!

Thanks for the information but the question was posed by Angela Hudson, I just posted a reply to her questions.

Some information from the Army interwar order of battle, published by the Army University Press.

K Company would have been in the 3d Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment. Although the Regiment was stationed at Fort Benning, the 3d Battalion was stationed at Fort Sill. It was a separate infantry regiment (not assigned to a division) and served as the demonstration regiment for the Infantry School at Fort Benning (now Fort Moore).

The 38th Infantry Regiment (less 1st Battalion) was stationed at Fort Douglas Utah, with only a 2d and 3d Battalion. The 1st Battalion was activated at Fort Sill, Oklahoma on 1 May 1939 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Company B would have been part of the 1st Battalion, and typically when they activate a new battalion, they will assign personnel from other units on the installation to serve as cadre for the new unit. I suspect that both battalions were understrength until the peacetime draft started in September 1940. Oh, and the 38th Infantry Regiment was part of the 3d Infantry Division. On 12 October 1939 The Regiment was reassigned form the 3d Infantry Division to the 2d Infantry Division, which was headquartered at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

On 9 November 1939 the Regiment was transferred to Camp Bullis, Texas, which was a sub-installation of Fort Sam Houston. At the time it was "in the boonies;" it's now surrounded by expensive housing on three sides. Living conditions were probably miserable there--they are now. I've spend my fair share of time there. It's hot and dusty in the summer and cold and dusty in the winter.

On 24 February 1941 the Regiment moved from Camp Bullis to Fort Sam Houston.

As for the change between armies:

In World War II, the field armies provided logistical support to the divisions (not, as was stated, the corps--that change came in the 1970s--in World War II the corps were tactical headquarters only).

When the Normandy landings were made, the two US Corps that landed--the V and VII Corps--fell under the Control of Omar Bradley's First Army. Once the beachhead expanded, more divisions were landed, then more corps headquarters, and then the Third Army under Patton. He was in charge of the breakout from the beachhead. The British also had the Eighth Army under Montgomery, and once we got a large enough force, Courtney Hodges took command of the First Army and Bradley stood up the Twelfth Army Group. The Ninth Army landed after the Third Army did, and was generally on Patton's flank.

So an army-level support unit, like the one your grandfather was in, could easily have been under the control of the First Army early on in the landing, then been moved under Third Army, then under the Ninth Army. And if they were in support of a specific division or corps, and that division or corps was moved from one army back to another, his company could have moved back and forth as well.

So why did he go from infantryman to truck driver to air force person?

Two thoughts:

First, he might not have. Every company has people assigned to it who aren't infantry. Company clerks, the company supply clerk, etc. So he could have been one of those, and then just been reassigned. And then when he joined the Army Air Forces, he could have still been in the same specialty, just with better living conditions. Although he could have reenlisted and been retrained for something else.

Or maybe he was just so bad a shot they figured it best for all that they let him drive a truck . . . :-)

If you want to understand what his campaigns were, go to Wikipedia and look up the "European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal" and it will explain all of them. But basically:

"Normandy" was the initial landings and the fighting in the hedgerow country. That's where Cherbourg comes in. It was critical to the overall plan and took much longer to capture than they expected. And when they did capture it, the Germans had destroyed the port, which was NOT part of the plan.

"Northern France" was the Breakout and Pursuit.

"Rhineland" was the approach to the German border

"Ardennes" was the Battle of the Bulge

"Central Europe" was the fight for Germany

Eash of these campaigns covered large areas. So, for example, if your dad was in the Ninth Army during the Battle of the Bulge, he may have been holding the shoulder of the Bulge and the rest of the front line while Patton wheeled the Third Army 90 degrees to launch a counterattack.

Oh, and I should have mentioned--his Quartermaster Truck Company would have been assigned to a Quartermaster Battalion, which would have been assigned to a Quartermaster Group. Of course, the company could move between battalions and the battalions could move between groups. The idea is that they were "building blocks" and could be task organized based on mission requirements (work load).