Last year, when my mother had a couple of series of strokes, I began to help mom gather her father’s Army medals and such. He served from June 1940-September 1945 as a Armored Infantryman and combat from March 1945-September 1945 just after Bastogne. His two brothers also fought in the same area as Armored Infantry and one did not make it. He was killed near Luxembourg City and buried in the National Cemetery in Luxembourg. Grandpa (as I called him) served with B Co. 68th Armored Infantry Battalion throughout his combat service. My intent was to complete a shadow box with her father’s achievements. Sadly, she did not live long enough to see the medals the Army sent but I was able to share with her the fact that her father was awarded the Bronze Star. No one was aware of that. It does not appear on the DD214 he had (which I now have) and not one family member knew. Now I’ll put these together after I gather other items like his Combat Infantry Badge, Expert Qualification Medal and remaining tabs (Carbine, M1, TSMG), unit patch, etc. to pass down to my daughters along with my own shadow boxes from the Army and LE. I still hope to find a description of why he was awarded the Bronze Star. His normal records were involved in the fire.

I do have a question for the forum. Does anyone know in what order the medals and ribbons should be displayed? Any help with that would be appreciated.




Bronze Star, Victory WWII Medal, American Defense Service Medal, American Campaign with 2 Bronze Service Stars, European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, Good Conduct Army Medal, Honorable Discharge Lapel Pin, original Jump Wings WWII era, Dog Tag, 30 Calibre Qualification Tab, burial 30 cal shell.



Visiting his brothers grave in Luxembourg.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 10X-Shooter,

http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/display/usa.htm
Hopefully this will help.
Bronze Star
Good Conduct
American Defense
Americal Theater
European, African etc etc
WW2 Victory

Excellent memories of your Grandfather

I don't know but you should be commended for your efforts on his behalf. That is exceptionally cool.
He and his brother's are and always will be hero's.
God Bless them all.

Here is the order of precedence.

http://officialmilitaryribbons...s_in_precedence.html

Honor and pride! HOOAH!

I'm kind of surprised, as someone who retired in the navy, I thought being KIA earned the person a Purple Heart?

My fault, I probably didn’t make it clear. My grandfather lived through the war as did one brother but one of his brother died there. I hope to gather his decorations also since he did not have a wife/child.

Thanks for the replies and kind words to all.

quote:

Originally posted by 10X-Shooter:

...His normal records were involved in the fire...

They've been able to reconstruct some of these, send in a request anyhow:

https://www.archives.gov/veterans

My FIL's WWII records (he served in an arty bn in Italy) were in the group affected by the fire, but we asked and they sent us some of his pay records and other documents. We were thrilled!

The might lead you somewhere in finding out about the Bronze Star.

http://www.americanwarlibrary....personnel/bronze.htm

Are those his jump wings or, brothers?

Those are my grandfathers jump wings. I don’t yet have anything of the great uncle killed.

When someone was KIA in WWII, did the family ever receive any of their medals? I have a relative that was and no one knows whatever happened to them.

Bronze Stars where awarded as Campaign medals during WWII. I'm in class right now and can't elaborate further, but you can do a quick google search and find more details.

ETA:

Here is a site that talks about what I say above.

http://www.398th.org/Awards/Br...ronzeBattleStar.html

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Skull Leader,

quote:

B Co. 68th Armored Infantry Battalion

You might want to reach out to these guys, you might find out quite a bit about your grandfather:

http://www.usmilitariaforum.co...attalion-unit-photo/

http://papajoad14tharmor.webs.com/

Here's some B company specific stuff:
https://www.pinterest.com/source/68thaib.org/

http://14thad.org/68thaib/index.cfm

quote:

Originally posted by old rugged cross:
I don't know but you should be commended for your efforts on his behalf. That is exceptionally cool.
He and his brother's are and always will be hero's.
God Bless them all.

^^^THIS X 1000!

As far as finding out about your Grandfathers time in his unit many of the units have put together a history of the time they were in WW2. My FIL was with the 113th Calvary out of Iowa and members of the unit have written several books documenting their time in Europe. You might want to do a little research and see if you can find the group. Many of the children of the members who are no longer with us have taken up the cause to help preserve their history.
Good luck!

I'm on lunch break so can make a few more comments.

If you get the daily reports for his unit, normally at the Company level, they will have the day to day muster and list locations where the company HQ was set up. The location will be given in a military grid quadrant, but there is a website out there that you can enter the grid quardanent and it will plot it on a map and give you the GPS coords.

https://echodelta.net/mbs/eng-translator.php

quote:

Combat Command A, 14th Armored Division, failed in its mission to capture a bridge across the Isar, but this was soon overshadowed by the magnitude of the liberation of Stalag VIIA. It did not hold 27,000 prisoners of war, as was originally reported, but 110,000. Among them were 30,000 American soldiers, sailors, and airmen.

That whole story is awesome, in the literal sense, but the passage I quoted is truly unfathomable to me. 110,000 prisoners. Incredible. That’s a respectably sized city’s worth of men held captive. I can’t even imagine that.

A few years back, the Army awarded the Bronze Star to all living WWII veterans who held the Combat Infantry Badge or the Combat Medic Badge.
Small ceremonies where held all around the country in nursing homes, etc.
My father received his from a local VFW representative while in a nursing home.

Here is an excellent explanation of the Bronze Star: https://www.rallypoint.com/com...itary-misconceptions

quote:

Originally posted by Sigmund:

They've been able to reconstruct some of these, send in a request anyhow:

https://www.archives.gov/veterans

My FIL's WWII records (he served in an arty bn in Italy) were in the group affected by the fire, but we asked and they sent us some of his pay records and other documents. We were thrilled!

I would like to locate my Great-Uncle's military records. He served in the Army in WWII. I do not know the name of his unit, but he mentioned he was part of the Battle of the Bulge.

I have a transcript of his BIRLS death file, which gives his enlistment date and his separation date from the Army. I hope they are able to find some information for him.

I hired this company to research my great uncle's files. They were able to provide me with his unit's daily reports and some of his personnel files.

http://www.goldenarrowresearch.com/

Well today was a good day not only because I was able to spend it with my wife and daughter and expected daughter (due mid July) and with my father and brother, but also because I received some new info and copies of paperwork as verification. The new info tells us my grandfather was not with the 68th Armored Infantry Battalion until July 1945. What I learned was that he came into ETO (European Theater of Operations) March 4, 1945 and into the 9th Infantry Division 60th Infantry Regiment A Company and right into the Battle at Remagen-Ludendorff Bridge and awarded his CIB (Combat Infantry Badge) for exemplary service in combat against the enemy in a major operation dated March 26th by a Col. Van Houten. He was a T/Sgt at that time. His Combat would have been at or around the bridge and in the closing of the Ruhr pocket. It appears that he gave up his T/Sgt stripes to transfer to a unit heading home sooner and took a slot as a private. This was after hostilities ended with Germany.

All this time we had no real info narrowing down his Combat involvement. I found a Facebook web page dedicated to Division he’d been a part of and some very kind and research savvy folks found copies of a few documents I might have never found including his CIB order and transfer order. I still hope to find the citation for his Bronze Star award. If you’re researching a relative I encourage you to look everywhere, make inquiries, and send requests. There are more resources available than you might think.