976th Engineer Maintance Company-info

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As far as privacy issues, I would say that's a judgment call. The NARA considers almost all WWII era personnel records "archival", which means they are available to the general public.

 

Here are the NARA docs:

 

The RG info:

 

So it was just these kind of weekly reports from Germany. Not too interesting.

 

And the discharge record. Please let me know if you can find any other interesting clues! Thanks TD-Tommy776!

 

Look under no.30.

 

I believe I would ask USAMHI to look for a unit summary and honors. I've never asked for a service unit, so not sure if they have anything. Maybe Rome-Arno is in error - or MTO and dates of service there would also be shown. Tommy, tell me if I'm wrong, but don't campaign credits require service in the combat zone? If a service unit served only in COM Z in ETO, would that unit show any campaigns? Isn't that what the EAME ribbon is for?

I suppose it's possible to serve in the combat zone in the MTO, go with your unit to the south of France in Seventh Army serving the entire time in COM Z, then get transferred to a unit of convenience for the trip home and discharge. As is often the case, the MRs hold the key.

 

Thanks for the response firstflabn! I'm new to this stuff so please help me with acronyms - COM Z , MTO, USAMHI, etc? I have no photographic evidence he was in Italy, but I do remember this as a story (not exactly airtight). We do have have photos though of him throughout France (all locations listed above).

 

Sorry about the alphabet soup. It's an "occupational" hazard.

MTO - Mediterranean Theater of Operations - essentially North Africa and Italy. A separate command from ETO. The units that invaded southern France came from MTO and were soon absorbed into ETO.

COM Z - Communications Zone - "the rear" in the ETO. Once forces were established in depth on the continent, areas in the combat zone were commanded by army commanders; COM Z was operated by service forces.

USAMHI - Army Heritage and Education Center at the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle PA (now do you see why I cheated and abbreviated it?)

USAMHI is the army's historical command. You can find their website and send an email asking them if they have any record of the 976th. Who knows, they might have personal accounts as they collect those too. Nice folks and a good bibliography. If it turned out they had a pile of material, that's not far from you.

But...it's looking more and more certain he transferred into the 976th after V-E Day for the trip home - which would make the 976th of limited interest to you. That leaves you with a need to look at the 976th's Morning Reports in St. Louis to find the day he arrived at the 976th. That day's report showing his arrival would state what unit he was transferring from. There's no guarantee this earlier unit is the only one he served in, but it's a good guess he only served in one other unit in Europe. Only by looking at every day's MR could you be 100% sure. If you get that previous unit from the MRs, you're off and running chasing that unit's travels. That's probably the one involved in Rome-Arno.

We know he got to the 976th after V-E Day or he would have gotten campaign credit for Central Europe, so that gives a starting point for MR examination. Others here who have actually researched MRs in St. Louis can give you tips, but it essentially comes down to hiring a private researcher to go through the microfilm, starting at V-E Day and going backwards.

I really enjoy logistics and, thus, am attracted to the neglected service units. Wish there was a complete listing of arrival/departure dates similar to the unit citations list. CGSC has such a work for divisions, but, to my knowledge, nothing similar for combat support and service units.

Wonder how many rolls of microfilm the MRs comprise? Maybe time for fold3/Ancestry.com to crank up the automatic microfilm scanner like they used on the ETO collection!

 

First off - thanks LRusso216 and firstflabnn for the info and help! The acronym explanation is quite useful! I'll shoot an email to St. Louis and see what they have. I probably won't be able to pay anyone for this work for some time, but it's certainly on the check list of things to do in the future. We also found a photo of him in Rome in 1944 so this timeline now is starting to make a lot of sense.

I'm going to attach the three pages of material I got from St Louis on him. Please let me know if you notice anything else. Thanks again!

 

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I've never played matchmaker before, but another new member is on a quest similar to yours. That would be als3438, on this thread:

http://www.ww2f.com/topic/58538-looking-to-id-a-specific-unit-within-the-28th-infantry-division/page-2

He's in St. Louis and has done some work recently in the MRs there. Maybe you two could work up a labor swap - MRs in St. Louis for operational reports In College Park. Couldn't hurt to ask. (We'll discuss my finders fee later).

 

Thanks for the idea firstflabn - unfortunately, I literally just moved from DC yesterday, so my nara trips are done for the time being.

LRusso - turns out the Rome photos are just postcards or landmark shots - they're not actually in any of them.

In other news, let me upload a few other photos - maybe there are some clues on his uniform.

 

no idea on dates on these

 

my grandfather on our left