Who can help me ?.

I'm looking for informations on captain Paul A MEYER sn# O-906503.
He don't appear on the NARA list (no surprise he's an officer). I think I found him on the WW2 honoree listing but the text describing his feats is not clear enough to id the unit he was in.

"HE LANDED IN NORTH AFRICA ON NOVEMBER 8, 1942 AND PARTICIPATED IN THE INVASION OF CASABLANCA. AFTER THE NORTH AFRICAN
CAMPAIGN, HIS UNIT PARTICIPATED IN THE INVASION OF SICILY. HE THEN WAS A MEMBER OF THE 5TH ARMY UNDER GENERAL MARK CLARK,
WHERE HE WAS A GUN COMMANDER OF AN ARTILLERY UNIT WHICH WAS A MEMBER OF THE INVASION FORCE WHICH INVADED ANZIO, ITALY. HE
WAS AWARDED A BRONZE STAR FOR 'HEROIC ACHIEVEMENT' IN AN ENGAGEMENT NEAR MILANO, ITALY ON DECEMBER 26, 1943."

Some of the infos I can be sure of:

Casablanca landing in november 42: 3rd infantry division, attached unit of the 2nd armored division and some AAW platoons. (He's not on the 3rd ID roster)

 

Sicily campaign: 3rd ID and 2nd armored.

Anzio: 3rd ID.

The month and year for the award of a medal near Milano is not correct. If Milano is the italian city of Milan as it falled in allied hands in the end of 44 (if my memory is correct). Of course it may be a small village called Milano but i can't find it with google earth. However the 3rd ID was then in France.

So who can help me find in what unit was that captain or simply give me some infos on his background ?.

I own that soldier's helmet.

thanks and cordially.

 

Sure sounds like the 3rd Infantry Division. The 2nd Armored was sent to Europe after the Sicily Campaign. The 3rd remained in the mediterranian and was involved in the invasion of Anzio under General Clark, and later invaded Southern France. I'll do some digging-got to be a record on this soldier.

 

If he was with the 3rd ID, he only could have been with the 9th, 10th, 39th or 41st field artillery battalions. His name does not appear on the roster of those units found at the end of the 1947 edition of the 3rd infantry division history. There are no division insignia painted on his helmet, just a captain bars (no ETO officer bar) and his name and serial numbers on the liner and helmet chinstraps. (of course not all members of the division had insignia painted).
Is there a way to get his military history with his ASN ?.

Cordially to all.

 

I would contact the Field Artillery Museum at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Since that's the home of the Field Artillery, they will have a lot of records. A lot of people don't realize that the different branches in the U.S. Army that have their own post, keep extensive records, not just for the sake of having records, but for research purposes.

Example. I contacted to find out my grandfathers medical unit on Okinawa and was told by the AMEDD School Museum that there is these things call Green Books, that list the unit and a bunch of information.

 

I own a lot of green books and you can get most of them for free on PDF format. They are for sure very interesting and you can get on each volume a list of all units that participated in a particular campaign, but there are no units rosters inside.

 

Yeah, I know they don't have unit rosters. But it's quite possible to find that stuff via the branch Museum. I would recommend the National Archives, but since the fire destroyed a large portion of the files, I don't really recommend it for someone wanting to research a relative.

In any division you will have the HHD, HHB units. From the sound of it, I'm thinking he was in a non-divisional artillery unit. They usually were sent to any division needing help. Then you had the artillery group, which would often combine all the elements from all the divisions, groups, army to concentrate fire on a specific mission. All in all, its really hard to tell what unit he was in until there is more information via records or someone who new him.

 

Of course he could have been in a non divisional artillery unit, but it seems that no independant or corps attached artillery unit took part of the 8th november 42 landings at Fedala (near Casablanca).
That day, only platoon of detached AAW unit were part of that landing.

Is it possible to get some informations about him with his officer serial number ?

 

You could ask these guys.

[SIZE=+1]US Army Field Artillery & Fort Sill Museum
Fort Sill, Oklahoma

[/SIZE]
Street Address

437 Quanah Road
Fort Sill, OK 73503

Web: sill-www.army.mil/Museum/home%20page.htm

Museum Hours

Tuesday - Saturday 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Admissions

Donations gratefully accepted

Staff

Towana Spivey, Director/Curator
Phone: 580-442-5123
Fax: 580-442-8120

 

Just found that the army serial number of that officer was part of the series of numbers given to "special duty officer".
What is a special duty officer and when was his ASN given?.

 

You might want to try this site.

Army Heritage Collection Online. If you search for the "special duty officer" I'm sure you will find the FM/DA Pam from 1939-1945 covers this. Great resource for finding old copies.

 

Thanks but I found nothing about "special duty officers" but I discovered a great site for Field and technical manuals, also for After action reports.

I hope someone could tell me what a special duty officer was during WW2. It seems it was not Regular army, neither OCS as the ASN ranges are different. Somekind of field commission maybe ?...