Index to the General Orders of the 71st Infantry Division, in WWII
Statistics:
Silver
Star Medals 169
Soldier’s Medals 7
Bronze Star Medals 1,075
Air Medals 26
Purple Heart Medals 391
Combat Infantryman Badge 3
Combat Medic Badge 102
Battle Losses 168
Total Awards 1,773
This book has 43 pages
ISBN 978-1-932891-21-8
ISBN 1-932891-21-8
Library of Congress Control Number 2004-270249
71st Division's WWII Order of Battle
Headquarters Company
5th Infantry Regiment
14th Infantry Regiment
66th Infantry Regiment
Headquarters Battery, 71st Division
Artillery
607th Field Artillery Battalion
608th Field Artillery Battalion
609th Field Artillery Battalion
581st Field Artillery Battery
71st Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized
271st Engineer Combat Battalion
371st Medical Battalion
71st Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment
Headquarters, Special Troops
771st Ordnance Light Maintenance Company
71st Quartermaster Company
571st Signal Company
Military Police Platoon
Units attached during combat operations*:
749th Tank Battalion
761st Tank Battalion
635th Tank Destroyer Battalion
530th AAA Auto-Weapons Battalion
*the time period of each attachment varies
WWII Campaigns
Rhineland
Central Europe
This is the nineteen in a series of indexes of all the divisions, corps, armies and commands of the US Army in WWII. Others will be published as they are completed.
This work includes all decorations cited in the general orders of the 71st Division.* Please note that some decorations awarded to members of this division may have been cited in the general orders of other commands. Many awards of the Purple Heart Medal, for example, are missing as they were cited in the general orders of the hospitals which received the evacuated men. This index does not attempt to list all of the Bronze Star Medals 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. This work does list the awards of those specialty badges cited in the general orders of the 71st Division. Unit awards, awards of specific Battle Stars, and Good Conduct Medals are not listed.
Some general orders, before General Order #17 of the 1945 series, do not give complete unit assignments. These general orders may be missing the numerical designation of the regiment or separate battalion of the decoration recipient. It is assumed that all decorations recipients were assigned to the 71st Division, unless they are listed in a branch of service that was not organic to this division. (Example: Tank Destroyer, etc.).
This index also includes the names of all men who gave their lives in combat listed in the Adjutant General’s Battle Death Report of the 71st Infantry Division.
How to read the sources: (GO#46,1945,71DIV) is broken down as “GO” (General Order), “#” (Number 46, 1945), “71DIV” (71st Division). Information cited as (71DIVAGOBD) is from the Adjutant General’s 1947 Battle Death Report for the 71st Infantry Division. Italicized entries 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.