Looking for Grandfathers TD Unit.

Hi,

This is my first post on here, but I've been a WW2 nerd basically my whole life but recently have gone down a rabbit hole trying to track down information to piece together my grandpa's journey through Europe in WW2. I've always known he was in a tank destroyer battalion but beyond that I didn't have much information until recently when I started to dig deeper into his service record. Below is the information I've been able to figure out so far.

• Name: Howard Neeley
• Pre-war he was in the Iowa National Guard with the 185th F.A. (HQ Battery).
• With the mobilization of 34th I.D. (Iowa National Guard) he was sent to Camp Claiborne in Louisiana.
• Found out with the help of tankdestroyer.net I found out that a lot of the guys from the 185th F.A. battalion were transferred into the 634th TD battalion. Which lead me to the 634th TD's dedicated website. However, digging through the company rosters, photos and other miscellaneous documents I wasn't able to find anything that listed his name.
• I also think he did some training at Fort Hood after being at Camp Claiborne, prior to his deployment to Europe.
• From a photo I have I know he was a staff sergeant by the end of his time in Europe.
• Not 100% sure but fairly positive he was a radio operator.

There's a possibility the unit roster on the 634th website aren't complete lists and that's why I'm not able to find his name on any of the unit rosters. I'm also thinking it's possible he randomly got assigned to a different TD battalion because based on a big unit picture I have of his HQ battery in the 185th F.A. of the Iowa National Guard I'm not able to find very many of the men in that picture listed on the 634th company rosters. This leads me to think that maybe 20-30 guys from that unit were transferred into the 634th and others were randomly assigned to help fill out other TD battalions. I also know he wasn't involved in the Africa Campaign or ever in Italy. That helped me to exclude the TD battalions that were in Africa and Italy.

I'm not sure if there's any other TD units that pulled a significant number of guys from the Iowa National Guard unit he was with, or guys were just randomly assigned to units as needed.

Any additional knowledge or insight would be greatly appreciated! Additionally even though I don't really have any more information on this if there's any questions I could possibly help to answer to piece this puzzle together don't hesitate to fire them my way.

 

The 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion provided a cadre of 5 Officers and 74 EM on or about 11 April 1942 for the activation and organization of the 611th Tank Destroyer Battalion. His name does not appear as part of that cadre, but they may have cadred another unit. I have no firm info for that.

Most of the TD battalions spent some of their time at Camp Hood, since it was the TD Training Center.

Hope that helps.

 

Haven't gone that route yet, but thanks for the idea will definitely look into this option! Thanks

 

Richard thanks for the info! This is definitely helpful insight.

 

Howard Leroy Neeley?

 

That's correct!

 

This article indicates he WAS with the 634th TD Battalion and says he was the Battalion’s “chief of radio communications”

 

More info

 

Very interesting. He was Company B, but does not appear in the roster. Either he just was missing from the roster or he received a battlefield promotion and so was not listed with the enlisted men. Probably the only way to find out would be to get the Morning Reports for Company B for the period of his service.

 

What’s the odds of Purdue having any information about a WWII Hvy FA Bn commanded by a Crawfordsville native? That’s one place I have not looked at yet.

 

A big thanks to everyone here....been trying to track this information down for over a month now ha. Wish I would have found this forum earlier! Now I can start digging through reports from company B of the 634th.

 

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I was shocked at the information they had on hand.

 

I visited the Lane House and Lew Wallace not too long ago, but nothing really came of it. The right person to talk to was not in that day. I have been in touch with the AHF as well. Thanks for the tips. Boiler Up!

 

So thanks to all the help on here I was able to piece this together. The photo on the left is one of the few photo's I have and my guess was that those were "dragons teeth" behind him in the picture and from that guessed maybe this was somewhere on the Siegfried Line. Without knowing what unit he was with trying to track down exactly where that photo was taken seemed highly unlikely. Now knowing that his company in the 634th was part of the assault on Acchen I was able to find this picture of the commanding general of the 1st infantry division in the same exact spot my grandfather took a picture haha.