1<sup>st</sup> Armored Division

This is the forty-ninth in a series of indexes of all the divisions, corps, armies and commands of the US Army during WWII. Others will be published as they are completed.

This work includes all decorations cited in the general orders of the 1^st Armored Division.* Please note that many decorations presented to members of the 1^st Armored Division were cited in general orders of other commands. Most awards of the Purple Heart Medal were cited in the general orders of the hospitals that the men were evacuated to and, therefore, are not included in the work. This index does not attempt to list all of the awards of the Bronze Star Medal that were retroactively awarded under Change 13 to Army Regulation 600-45, Department of the Army, 4 November 1947. Most awards of the CIB and CMB were made in general orders of the respective infantry regiments. I have made no attempt to list the unit awards, awards of specific Battle Stars, and Good Conduct Medals.

Some of the 1^st Armored Division’s general orders do not contain the recipient’s unit assignment. The recipient’s branch of service is listed in its place. Some of these general orders had the recipient command’s numerical designation penciled into the margin; when this information was present, it was included in this work. Please note that some members of tank destroyer battalions were actually members of the field artillery branch; likewise, members of tank battalions are commonly assigned to the infantry or cavalry branch. So the branch of service is only a lead in determining what unit an individual served in.

The 1^st Armored Division was the only US armored division to be converted from a heavy armored division to a light armored division after it was already committed to combat. This conversion reduced the armor assets of the division from two armor regiments to three tank battalions. The infantry component of the division was converted from one armored infantry regiment to three armored infantry battalions. The armored reconnaissance battalion was converted into an armored cavalry reconnaissance squadron and the support assets of the division were completely reorganized. This change makes working with this division difficult as, even though on paper X company in the old organization became Y in the new organization, not every solider was transferred with their organization and the table of organization and equipment changed as well. Therefore the researcher will find that some soldiers, for example, served first with an armored regiment but were assigned to the cavalry reconnaissance squadron after the reorganization.

Unit assignments for many early general orders were extracted from the text of the citation. Sometimes the unit mentioned in the text of the citation was the unit to which the soldier was attached rather than their actual unit of assignment. This is due to the fact that elements of armored divisions often fought as task forces. However this only became obvious when the solider was cited in another general order. Therefore those not cited in more than one general order could not be identified.

Some of the listings which are identified as members of unspecified armored field artillery battalion during the North African and Sicilian campaigns may have been assigned to the 69^th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, and thus not assigned to the 1^st Armored Division.

This index also includes the names from the Adjutant General’s Battle Death Report for the 1^st Armored Division. This lists the names of men from the 1^st Armored Division who lost their lives in combat. The Adjutant General’s Battle Death Report for this command does not list a number of commands. They are as follows:

Headquarters, Combat Command A
            Headquarters, Combat Command B
            Headquarters, Reserve Command
            Headquarters, Division Trains
            6^th Armored Infantry Battalion
            13^th Tank Battalion
            68^th Field Artillery Battalion
            Maintenance Battalion
            Supply Battalion
            Support Battalion
            501^st Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment

I was able to determine that, even though the units listed above were not listed in the report, their losses are still accounted for in the report; however, they are listed under other commands. I have consulted the Battle Monument Commission’s website to locate as many of these molested causalities as possible. It is important to remember that the Battle Monument Commission’s website only lists US service members buried overseas and, as such, it is not a complete list. Because of the shortcomings of the Adjutant General’s Report and the Battle Monument Commission, some of the soldiers who lost their lives are listed under the wrong organizations in this work. I have done my best to identify as many as possible, but undoubtedly there are more that I was not able to identify. Here are some general rules that I was able to determine from working with the above sources: members of the 69^th Armored Field Artillery Battalion are listed among the 91^st Armored Field Artillery Battalion, members of the 13^th Tank Battalion are listed among the 1^st Armored Regiment, members of the 6^th Armored Infantry Battalion are listed among the 6^th Armored Infantry and many members of support organizations and members of headquarters elements are listed under Headquarters, 1^st Armored Division. The Adjutant General’s Report does not differentiate between members of the 81^st Armored Reconnaissance Battalion and members of the 81^st Armored Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron. As noted above, I made attempts to determine the actual assignments at the time of death of as many of the members in the report as possible.

Many of the general orders issued during 1943 and some of those issued in 1944 contain the medal numbers awarded to each living recipient. When the medal number was included in the general order, it also appears in this work after the decoration abbreviation and prefixed by the “#” sign. A few of the medal numbers awarded were rescinded in later general orders when the specific medals could not be presented to the recipients, due to the recipients being hospitalized, wounded or captured. To eliminate confusion, the rescinded medals numbers are not included in this work.

Prior to the creation of the Bronze Star Medal, commanders issued Letters of Commendation for deeds of service that did not meet the criteria for an existing decoration. Some Letters of Commendation were announced in general orders but had no corresponding awards. After the creation of the Bronze Star Medal some of these Letters of Commendation were revoked and Bronze Star Medals issued in their place. It is my understanding that those Letters of Commendation for combat service, issued prior to the creation of the Bronze Star Medal, that were not revoked could qualify for a Bronze Star Medal under Change 13 to Army Regulation 600-45, Department of the Army, 4 November 1947. If the action was not combat related, then the citation would qualify for the Army Commendation Ribbon, as a Major General issued the citation. Prior to the creation of the Bronze Star Medal, I have listed each recipient of a Letter of Commendation as receiving an Army Commendation Ribbon since there is no concrete answer as to what decoration they would be entitled to under later changes to the regulation.

*The following general orders were missing from the files at the National Archives:

(GO#52,1943,1ARMDIV)	(GO#54,1943,1ARMDIV)	(GO#55,1943,1ARMDIV)
(GO#57,1943,1ARMDIV)	(GO#58,1943,1ARMDIV)	(GO#59,1943,1ARMDIV)
(GO#60,1943,1ARMDIV)	(GO#66,1943,1ARMDIV)	(GO#74,1943,1ARMDIV)
(GO#79,1943,1ARMDIV)	(GO#62,1944,1ARMDIV)	(GO#66,1944,1ARMDIV)
(GO#78,1944,1ARMDIV)	(GO#95,1944,1ARMDIV)	(GO#17,1945,1ARMDIV)
(GO#29,1945,1ARMDIV)	(GO#33,1945,1ARMDIV)	(GO#37,1945,1ARMDIV)
(GO#44,1945,1ARMDIV)	(GO#73,1945,1ARMDIV)	(GO#76,1945,1ARMDIV)
(GO#79,1945,1ARMDIV)	(GO#90,1945,1ARMDIV)	(GO#6,1946,1ARMDIV)

Paragraphs 1 through 4 of General Order #94, of the 1944 series were published in extract form. These extracts are missing from the files as well.

Paragraph 1 of General Order 77 of the 1944 Series revoked Paragraph 1, 2 and 5 of the 6^th Armored Infantry’s General Order #3 of the 1944 Series. The division revoked this order as the 6^th Armored Infantry ceased to exist when the division was reorganized in 1944.

How to read the sources: (GO#46,1945,1ARMDIV) is broken down as “GO” (General Order), “#” (Number 46, 1945), “1ARMDIV” (1^st Armored Division). Information cited as (1ARMDIVAGOBD) is from the Adjutant General’s 1947 Battle Death Report for the 1^st Armored Division. Information cited as (BMC) is from the Battle Monument Commission’s website. Entries that are in italics are men who were either killed in action or died of wounds.

Every effort has been made to minimize errors and misspelled names. An error may be attributable to the source document, or may have occurred while transcribing the names/units. Some of the original documents are of very poor print quality, making them difficult to decipher.