Infantry Training & Embarkment Overseas

I am looking for information on where my grandfather, PVT Dupre A. Lejeune may have trained AFTER basic training at Camp Beauregard. He was inducted there on Oct. 1, 1943 but does not appear in any regiment morning reports until Aug. 25, 1944 where he is picked up from the 3rd Replacement Depot in France by the 80th Division. At this time, he is assigned to 80th Division 319th Company I 3rd Battalion. I have been able to follow his steps from there through battle and back home.

However, there has always been a hole in my research from Oct.1943 to Aug 25, 1944. I know he would have spent six weeks at Camp Beauregard, correct? Then he was sent to Infantry School. He is listed as MOS 745 (Rifleman) on discharge papers (which were reconstructed due to fire at archives in 1973. I do not have DD-214 and he passed away at an early age, so I have spent 20 years reconstructing his military life timeline. His discharge papers also state the date of departure as Aug. 7, 1944. However, I have not found any troopships leaving on that date.

I have narrowed it down to either Camp Livingston (which was used as an Infantry Replacement Center) and Fort Benning. I am just not sure how to go about the research from here. There seems to be a long gap from training to deployment overseas. Any suggestions would be very appreciated!

Also, my mom says there was a silver number 7 pin that my grandmother pinned to his casket flag along with all his other medals and pins after his death. We have never been able to find out what its meaning was. I thought maybe it had something to do with his previous unit before he was assigned from the replacement depot to the 80th but have not been able to track anything. Anyone know anything about a number 7 or seventh pin?

 

If he left New York on 7 August 1944, it was probably on the Aquitania. I don't see anything for Boston that would be a troopship. Replacement training was 17 weeks as of August 1943. Camp Beauregard was not a Replacement Training Center, but was used as an induction center for draftees, so he may have been there less than a week. Benning and Livingston were both training centers, but not Infantry Replacement Training Centers, Those were: Camps Croft, SC, Fannin, Texas, Robinson, Arkansas, Hood, Texas, Roberts, California, Wheeler, Georgia, Wolters, Georgia, and Fort McClellan, Georgia.

 

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your reply. I am even more confused LOL. I was always told he did Basic Training at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana. I am not 100% sure he was just an infantry replacement. I have been trying to find out if he was attached to a previous regiment/unit and pulled from it as a replacement for the 80th. I was also told by the historian at Camp Beauregard that Camp Livingston was also used as an Infantry Replacement Center. Historians said that during World War II, Camp Livingston served as an infantry replacement training center, as well as a garrison for infantry divisions. (From search engine: Camp Livingston was ultimately home to the 28th, 32nd, 38th and 86th Infantry Divisions) - However, I have not found his name in any reports of any of these divisions thus far - only in the 80th morning reports beginning Aug. 25, 1944. I was also told that he may have gone to Fort Benning for Infantry School. This seemed feasible with the long gap in time between induction and deployment overseas. I thought maybe the "number 7" pin may have been from a previous unit he trained with and the 7th armored Infantry did train at Benning but that may be a long shot.

He was drafted/enlisted Sept 29, 1943 at the local draft board in Lafayette, Louisiana. Then, inducted Oct. 1, 1943 at Camp Beauregard. From there, I have not been able to pick up his trail again until he appears in an 80th Division Morning Report as having been picked up from the 3rd Replacement Depot Aug 25, 1944. Where was he from Oct. 1943 - August 7, 1944 when discharge papers say he departed? That is the mystery I am trying so hard to solve. There is a 9 month gap there - is it feasible to think he was only trained as an infantry replacement? Would that type of training have lasted that long?

Your information here in your response has me questioning everything I was told. How do I go about researching those camps you mentioned? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated at this point. this has been a 20 year journey to get this far! I have all of his military journey from August 25, 1944 to home but nothing before....

Kind Regards!

 

Okay, this is gonna get complicated.

Camp Livingston was a Training Station, not an Infantry Replacement Center. As such, divisions moved in and out of it, especially those doing maneuvers in Louisiana.

32d Division went there 21 October 1940 after it was inducted into Federal service, moved to the Louisiana Maneuver area 10 August 1941-29 September 1941, returned to Livingston and left for good 2 March 1942.
28th Division went there 19 January 1942, was redesignated the 28th Infantry Division there, moved to the Louisiana Maneuver area 18 September-10 November 1942, returned to Livingston and left for good 27 January 1943.
38th Division went there 28 January 1943 and left for good December 1943.
86th Division went there 24 January 1944 and left for good 5 September 1944.

It is quite possible after induction he was assigned to the 38th Division as a filler, but then did not have enough service for it because when it left it was headed for Hawaii. He would likely have only had maybe 8 weeks of training. Personnel like that were detached from the unit and replaced by experienced personnel drawn from other units...sort of like musical chairs. I suspect then he was probably assigned as an Infantry Replacement and sent to an IRTC to complete his training, but it could have been any one of the seven - Camp Roberts California primarily trained replacements for the Pacific. After he completed his training he may have been assigned to another division, but no division or its elements I am aware of departed New York 7 August, the dates just don't work. So sometime after completing training he was assigned to a replacement draft and went to England, where he was assigned to the 3d Repple Depple. Sadly, the life of a replacement in WW2 involved a lot of sitting around and being shuffled from place to place. It is quite possible he finished training in early spring 1944, but then basically sat and waited until he was sent to Europe.

 

You don't say whether you requested his service record from NARA. If it was lost in the '73 fire, the only way to answer these questions definitively is to hire a researcher to go to St. Louis and go day by day through the morning reports (assuming they all exist for his service). Every transfer to another unit will be recorded, so by going backwards in time from the earliest date where unit is known, you can establish every reassignment and the arrival dates. The morning report on the day he showed up at his new unit will say what unit he came from.

It might not be cheap, but you have to start with a known to get at the next unknown. Guessing about what was going on at a particular camp or on a troop transport is sorta like looking through the wrong end of a telescope; yeah, you're using an optical instrument, but it's unlikely you're going to see much.

After being shut down for two years, those St. Louis researchers might be hungry.

Your curiosity and eye for detail will reward you if applied properly. Good luck.

 

Richard,

Yes, what you say makes sense and is what I am thinking happened. I am just trying to be sure I am on the right track. So, we can pretty much rule out him staying at Camp Livingston? I am not sure how / where to go hunting next. I also agree that the dates don't make sense as I could not find any troopships leaving Aug. 7, 1944 nor arriving back in US December 30, 1944. There are other mistakes on his discharge papers as well such as his birthdate which leaves me pondering if the dates are in fact correct at all. Since NARA replied that his records were burned and that I had more info than they did to reconstruct his records, they have not been very helpful - I have since conducted more than 20 years of research to construct the details I do have from Aug. 25 onward.

I get discouraged and put the search away then come back to it after a whil and try a new approach. The problem now is that I have authored a book about his life and have a publisher interested. Being a 30-year history teacher and historian, it is important that all the facts be historically accurate. Hence, my desperate need to fill in the gap in his training, etc.

My gut feeling is that he trained in Louisiana and either sat around waiting there or was shipped to Infantry School at Fort Benning and then after more sitting around waiting for general orders, he was sent as replacement. I just wasn't convinced he had not been with a different unit because of the long wait to deploy overseas. Thanks for your helpful insight!

 

Hi there,

Yes, I have contacted NARA and it turns out that I have more information than they had in his record since his were destroyed in 1973 by fire. I have conducted research on his life for more than 20 years and have found all the morning reports, action reports, unit reports, etc. from Aug. 25, 1944 onward. I also have his enlistment and induction dates and places. Just trying to fill in the gap of where he may have been between Oct. 21, 1943 - Aug. 25, 1944. That has been like a needle in the haystack. I was told that he trained at Camp Beauregard for Basic (not 100% that is accurate, but he was inducted there). If he did, then I still need to figure out where he went for Infantry training and where he shipped out of in August. Since there are no troop ships listed leaving on Aug. 7 (date of departure on discharge papers) I am not sure of the exact date of departure. The discharge papers do not list anything prior to his service with the 80th Infantry Division. They only say he was a rifleman (745) sent to FAME Theater and list date of arrival overseas as unknown. His total time in service is listed as 11 months 10 days with his overseas service being 4 months 24 days. Certificate of disability for discharge was Feb. 24, 1945. He was drafted / enlisted Sept. 29, 1943 in Lafayette, LA.

 

Richard,

Just realized there was a typo in my original post: He was drafted/enlisted Sept. 29, 1943 in Lafayette, Louisiana and inducted at Camp Beauregard on Oct.21, 1943.Just realized that was a 4-week gap. It was my understanding that draftees appeared at the local draft board on date listed on the "Order to Report for Induction" letter and then they were processed through a battery of assessments to determine their fitness for military duty. I thought this was a 3-day process, but could it have been longer? He wouldn't have undergone basic BEFORE induction, correct?

 

I tried to tell you how to succeed. You repeated how you failed. Contact one of the private researchers in St. Louis to explain it.

 

Slow down. No, he could easily have been at Livingston. Please understand one important thing, what we now call "basic training" was primarily done by the division in World War II, rather than in "basic training camps". It is very possible he was inducted and sent to the 38th Infantry Division at Camp Livingston for "basic training". However, he obviously did not go with them to the Pacific. Instead, he probably completed training at an Infantry Basic Training Camp.

I told you which troopship left the United States on 7 August 1944. It was HMT Aquitania. She sailed from the New York Port of Embarkation on 7 August 1944. No units that I can find traveled on her, so it was probably all replacements. Why did he return to the US on 30 December 1944? Was he wounded? Is that when he arrived in the US? He was discharged 24 February 1945? Is there a hospital of record? That many be another avenue to follow/

I understand. I'm working on a book on my Dad;s experience with the 90th Infantry Division.

The Infantry School at Fort Benning was not a school to train enlisted infantrymen, it was a school to train Infantry officers. He would not have gone there. To repeat, infantrymen were trained by either: a infantry division, basically by being assigned to one of its infantry regiments, or by an Infantry Replacement Training Center. There are a few other remote possibilities, but those are the most likely ones.

About your only recourse to confirm what happened would be to trace him through the Morning Reports of the 3d Replacement Depot. He would have arrived in England c. 112-13 August and shortly after would have appeared in the MR of the 3d RD. When he appears there should be a note of where from, which then could lead you to the next set of MRs to check. The problem will be if his arrival in England is noted as from a Casual Detachment, which is possible. The 3d RD consisted of the 69th and 90th Replacement Battalions and the 233d, 234th, 235th, 351st, 476th, 477th, 478th, and 480th Replacement Company and landed in France on 27 August.

 

Never mind, I see his Hospital Admission Card is on file at Fold3. So in November he entered hospital with an unspecified illness and was sent home in December for further treatment, then discharged in February. I also see why he probably did not ship out with the 38th ID. His birth year is given as 1925, what month? General policy was no overseas deployments until they achieved the age of 18 years and 6 months, which held through early 1944 IIRC .

 

Not unusual depending on personnel processing. There were no computers tracking personnel requirements and availability other than IBM punch cards. It is also possible the dates could be in error, which was also common. No, he did not got through basic training before induction. Yet again, there were no "basic training" camps, basic training was done by the unit or at a replacement training camp.

 

I am so sorry if I offended you in any way. I thought I was answering your question about whether I had contacted NARA. Again, I am very sorry if my response was offensive. It was not meant to be in any way!

 

Richard,

THANK YOU!!!! This is all making much more sense now! Please forgive my repeats in trying to explain myself. You have given me some very valuable information here and I know where to go from here in my research! Your responses were just what I needed.

Yes, he was injured and stayed a month in the hospital in Paris before being shipped home to the hospital in New Orleans where he stayed another month. I do not know what ship he came back on or where it landed. Not sure if he would have arrived by ship or train in New Orleans.

I never realized that the 3rd Replacement Depot would actually have morning reports! Not sure why that thought never crossed my mind LOL

Can you tell me where you found the info on HMT Aquitania? I'd like to have the correct reference for the book if possible.

I truly appreciate all of your assistance!

 

No problem, but it is a very complex subject and the Army of WW2 in many ways was not like the Army of today.

Convoy Web is an extensive collection of data on Allied shipping in World War II. It is not very user friendly and frequently times out, but port sailing data is very accessible, ConvoyWeb Go to Port Arrivals/Departures, then Search Ports, then enter port name and date. It will pull up the record of arrivals and departures for that port and date.The data are drawn from the "Merchant Shipping Movement Card" collection held by the British National Archives (TNA), Kew, London, England. Merchant Navy ships' records: movement cards 1939-1945 - The National Archives

Yes, the 3d RD will have morning reports, but just for the Headquarters & Headquarters Detachment. You will need to find which Replacement Company he was in and my list is drawn from the organization of the Replacement Command on or about 1 June 1944...it may have changed when it moved to the Continent, but I haven't gone through the Command history to check. It is on Fold3 if you have an account.

His hospital admission card says he was admitted for disease, not an injury, but the full diagnosis is redacted for privacy so that may be just a filing error.

 

Does anybody know where I can get Morning Reports for Company "A" 116th Infantry Regiment from around the 27th of August to 30th August 1944? My uncle was killed in this time frame in Brest, France.

 

Morning Reports are held at the National Archives Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO on microfilm. You can go there yourself or hire a researcher like Golden Arrow to make copies. The National Archives will not.

 

There is frequently a short period between enlistment / induction and reporting for duty. This is done by the military so that a batch of recruits all report within a given time frame--say a week or so--to begin basic training together. There is a cycle time for basic training. That is, a new cycle would start every 8 weeks, or however long basic training is, as there are only so many barracks, instructors, etc., available.

So, there's no real mystery why there would be a 4-week delay.