Duty Assignments

My apologies in advance if I am posting this in the wrong section of the forum. I've recently found my grandfather's discharge papers and have been trying to piece together information about what he may have done in the war. According to his papers (www.imgur.com/a/hUyma), he was in the 789th AAA Battalion in the European Theatre and was later a "Physical Reconditioning Instructor." The two things I've been trying to figure out are:

1) I've seen some history books published by the various AAA battalions. Unfortunately, I've only seen one mention of the 789th's booklet and that was on an ebay auction from 2013. Does anyone know if there are collections of these books online? I'd love to read up on his battalion, but am worried that it may be impossible to do so.

2) It looks like he split his time between being an anti-aircraft gunner and a "physical reconditioning instructor." What would his duties as a physical reconditioning instructor entail? Also, would he have stayed with the 789th or would he have been moved to a medical unit once he received his new MOS? Our family has a story from him about having fallen from a jeep and been sent to a hospital that was then hit by a bomb. The closest I could find to match this was the 76th General Hospital in Liege, which was hit by a V-1 on Jan. 8, 1945. I believe the 789th was also in the area at this point, which is why I was wondering if he may have stayed with the 789th even after receiving his new MOS.

Thanks in advance for everyone's help!

 

Welcome to the forum, Hoojoo1121. I think you're on the right track with your thoughts of the 789th being in the Liege area.

Have you read this interview?: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/story/loc.natlib.afc2001001.07610/transcript?ID=sr0001

The guy mentions protecting Liege from "buzz bombs" with their 40mm guns. It's about half way down the page but the interview has some good info in it.

This booklet has some good info also: http://www.skylighters.org/buzzbombs/antwerpx2.html

I mentions some of the original AA units being pulled out and sent to the Liege area, the 789th disappears from the maps in the book.

Good luck with your research.

Steve

 

Thanks so much for your help trying to make sense of this. I was especially confused because according to his Separation Qualification Record, he would have started his physical reconditioning MOS in October 1944, however he received credit for three campaigns (Ardennes, Rhineland, and Central Europe) which would have occurred after his new MOS. I don't think it was a typo on his paperwork, because I have his ribbon bars and he has four campaign stars on the European Theater ribbon.

In case it can help anyone else looking for AAA battalion information, I found a website with great information and specific unit histories. It's not longer live, but the cached versions of the site are still accessible through the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20130520220737/http://www.antiaircraft.org/index.htm

 

Welcome to this forum Hoojoo1121. I see that you have gotten some help from some of this forum's great members

 

This may require a researcher to sort out, that is, unless you want to make the trip to St. Louis to go through the Morning Reports for the unit(s) he served in during the War.

From the links Lou provided, I noted that qualified people were hard to find for the reconditioning program. From your grandfather's discharge, I noticed his civilian occupation was a camp counselor. He was also about 5' 2" and 154 lbs -- probably all muscle. If he was involved in physical fitness as a camp counselor, he might have been invited to change his MOS. In the fall of 1944, there may not have been a big need for AAA units. Just a lot of guess work, but it would make some sense. The campaign ribbons are a bit of a puzzle. Like I said, it may require some research to figure that out.