Index to the General Order of the 1^st Cavalry Division, in World War II

Statistics:

Silver Star Medals 604
Soldier’s Medal 31
Bronze Star Medals 2,874
Air Medals 82
Purple Heart Medals 4,501
Army Commendation Ribbons 1
Combat Infantryman Badges 280
Battle Losses 1,161

Total Awards 8,373

This book has 141 pages

ISBN 978-1-932891-83-6

Library of Congress Control Number Pending

1^st Cavalry Division's WWII Order of Battle

Headquarters Troop

1^st Cavalry Brigade
5^th Cavalry Regiment
12^th Cavalry Regiment

2^nd Cavalry Brigade
7^th Cavalry Regiment
8^th Cavalry Regiment

Headquarters Battery, 1^st Cavalry Division Artillery
61^st Field Artillery Battalion
82^nd Field Artillery Battalion
99^th Field Artillery Battalion
271^st Field Artillery Battalion

7^th Reconnaissance Squadron inactivated 12/04/43
302^nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized
603^rd Tank Battalion
8^th Engineer Combat Squadron
1^st Medical Squadron
801^st Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment
Headquarters, Special Troops
27^th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Company
16^h Quartermaster Squadron
1^st Signal Troop
Military Police Platoon

WWII Campaigns

New Guinea
Bismarck Archipelago
Leyte
Luzon

            This is the fifty-seventh 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 Cavalry Division.* Please note that many decorations presented to members of the 1^st Cavalry 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 cavalry regiments. I have made no attempt to list the unit awards, awards of specific Battle Stars, and Good Conduct Medals. 

Most of the 1^st Cavalry 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’s command mentioned in the text of the citation; 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.

 Some of the general orders issued during 1943 and 1944, contain the medal numbers awarded to living recipients. 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.

 The 1^st Cavalry Division was deployed by echelons to New Guinea in late 1943 through early 1944. During this period the advanced elements forward deployed issued general orders. These general orders are distinguished by the addition of “Unit 1” added to the command designation. The general orders of Unit 1 are unorthodox in that they are numbered using hyphens such as General Order 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, etc …

The Adjutant General’s Battle Death Report lists one officer on both the 7^th Cavalry Regiment list and the 8^th Cavalry Regiment list. In one instance the clerk who prepared the list typed an additional number in his service number. I can only assume that this caused the computer that generated the report to assume that they were indeed different men. Although I have listed this officer as a member of both regiments, the assignments may be out of order. It may be determined that he never served in one of the regiments listed.

 There is also an issue of enlisted rank reductions. Many people do not realize that until after World War II enlisted ranks belong to the unit and not the individual. So if an enlisted man left his unit he was reduced to a private, unless the receiving unit had a vacancy. This was not an issue for most combat units during WWII. The 1^st Cavalry Division remained in theater longer than most of the other units in the Pacific Theater. This combined with the high casualty rate meant that some non-commissioned officers who were wounded and evacuated were reduced to a lower rank upon their return. As commanders needed a strong command structure, it was necessary to promote deserving men to fill the vacancies caused by attrition.

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

                 How to read the sources: (GO#46,1945,1CAVDIV) is broken down as “GO” (General Order), “#” (Number 46, 1945), “1CAVDIV” (1^st Cavalry Division). Unit #1 General Orders are cited in the following fashion, (GO#1-3,1944,1CAVDIVUnit#1). Information cited as (1CAVDIVAGOBD) is from the Adjutant General’s 1947 Battle Death Report for the 1^st Cavalry Division. 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.

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