Need help with Abbreviations on Casualty Card

Hello all,

I am researching a Private First Class John Medrano who died in Italy in WWII. I have a copy of his military service card, but can't make out what some abbreviations mean. If I understand some of the references in the card, his father wrote a letter in 1947 to try to discover what happened to John. I know John had been buried in Italy and was eventually returned to the United States and interred there in 1948. I have the interment card and a newspaper clipping about that.

I'm trying to understand what happened to John during his final days. Specifically, does anyone know what W.R., D.N., and W.D. stand for and what the dates next to them might be referring to?

Thanks,

Noel

 

The first one reads (lower half):

With 351st Infantry Regiment, Company I. (This is the 3rd battalion of that regiment, in the 88th Infantry Division)
Trained: Fanning Texas, Fort George Meade Maryland, with Company D, 54th Training Battalion, Camp Fanning Texas

The second has to do with paperwork
W.R. = Wound Report
D.N. = Death Notice
Let = Letter (sent)
W.D. = War Department (now the Department of Defense)

 

The way this soldier's wounding / death would have been reported is the company commander would have put it in his daily report or in an after-action report to battalion. That would be compiled and continue up to the division level. It's not clear if he was wounded, evacuated, then died, or if he died outright in combat. Either way a paperwork trail would have followed him to the division level. From there it would go to corps or army level then back to the US for action to notify next of kin. That's what all the various dates are about. They document when these actions were taken.

Being wartime and lots of casualties, he should have been posthumously awarded a Purple Heart at a minimum, but sometimes that award slips through the cracks in the bureaucracy. It can still be awarded if it wasn't by petitioning the Army to correct their records.

 

Not exactly. While it would be under the company commander's authority, it would have been the company clerk recording the event in the Morning Report that would start the ball rolling. That would have reported him as WIA and evacuated to the field hospital attached to the division. Morning Reports were collected and then went to a Machine Records Unit that would enter the data on punch cards to generate personnel loss and requirements data for the division, corps, and army G-1. Since he was probably not KIA - otherwise no wound report - the field hospital would have recorded his entry, condition, and eventual death on its medical reports, which would also eventually go to an MRU for data input and the output reports would tell the division, corps, and army surgeon what the medical support requirements were. Those two data streams then theoretically were collated to eliminate errors but in fact errors were replete in them - it took an MRU clerk mistyping just one digit in a punch card to start an error...or a single hanging chad to screw up a collation.

The MRU data would then go to the War Department G-1 in Washington, which composed the telegram notices that went to families. In this case he was recorded as being wounded and died on the same day and the family was notified 10 October. The later reference to "still missing" probably meant they were having difficulty identifying his grave, which was also common because temporary cemeteries were consolidated at different times into more permanent ones that were then later consolidated into the National Cemeteries.

The company commander would also have reported his losses to the Battalion S-3, which simple numerical report would have gone to regiment and then division and would have appeared in the daily journal. Those were usually collated to produce casualty figures for the monthly Unit History or Report, After Action, most commonly known as the AAR. Names were typically not associated with that, since it was an assessment that helped the unit commander know what condition his unit was in. Complicating that, frequently in heavy combat all units were unable to report because they were out of contact, so the S-1/G-1 would estimate casualties based upon other units. Sometimes nominal lists are appended to an AAR but it was not SOP in all units.

There should be a complete IDPF on him and you are no longer required to be next of kin to order it. Individual Deceased Personnel Files ⋆ Golden Arrow Research

 

It looks from the dates on the card she has above that he was reported wounded and dead on the same day. Likely the company reported him wounded, but he died in route to or shortly after arriving at the field hospital.

 

That's possible too, with the Wound Report coming from the Morning Report and the Death Notice from the Field Hospital Medical Report. There simply is no way to know exactly without the IDPF.