Statistics:

Silver Star Medals 1,845
Soldier's Medals 65
Bronze Star Medals 5,421
Air Medals 142
Purple Heart Medals 9,987
Combat Infantryman Badges 6
Combat Medic Badges 189
Combat Losses 4,574

Total Awards 17,655

This book has 269 pages

ISBN 978-1-932891-42-3

ISBN 1-932891-42-0

Library of Congress Control Number 2005-274564

9^th Infantry Division's WWII
Order of Battle

Headquarters Company

39^th Infantry Regiment
47^th Infantry Regiment
60^th Infantry Regiment

Headquarters Battery, 9^th Division Artillery
26^th Field Artillery Battalion
34^th Field Artillery Battalion
60^th Field Artillery Battalion
84^th Field Artillery Battalion

9^th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized
15^th Engineer Combat Battalion
9^th Medical Battalion
9^th Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment
Headquarters, Special Troops
709^th Ordnance Light Maintenance Company
9^th Quartermaster Company
9^th Signal Company
Military Police Platoon

Units Attached During Combat Operations*:

746^th Tank Battalion
629^th Tank Destroyer Battalion
899^th Tank Destroyer Battalion
376^th AAA Auto-Weapons Battalion
413^th AAA Gun Battalion
*the duration of each attachment varies

WWII Campaigns

Algeria-French Morocco
Tunisia
Sicily
Normandy
Northern France
Rhineland
Ardennes-Alsace
Central Europe

This is the thirtieth-second 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 9^th Infantry Division.* Please note that many decorations presented to members of the 9^th Infantry Division may have been 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.  

This index also includes the names from the Adjutant General’s Battle Death Report of the 9^th Infantry Division. This lists all the men from the 9^th Infantry Division who gave their lives in combat.

Most General Orders, of the 9^th Division, do not contain the recipient’s unit assignment information. The recipient’s branch of service is listed in its place. 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. Prior to the 9^th Division landing in France most of its general orders did state unit assignments with the numerical designation of the regiment or battalion expunged along with the company designation. A few general orders issued after the division landed in France do give unit information but these are exceptions to the general rule.

 Several decorations recipients were listed with a different branch of service in different general orders. Most of these cases dealt with recipients listed in the Medical Department and another branch of service. I assume that most were men assigned to the medical detachment of a unit of a different branch of service. The second most common occurrence is with officers, who were likely assigned to headquarters elements. All others need further examination.

 Many of the general orders issued during 1943 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 their wounds or captivity. To eliminate confusion, the rescinded medals numbers are not included in this work. I found at least two instances where two different individuals were awarded the same medal number.

 Prior to 1945 the number of individual Oak Leaf Clusters awarded to each recipient was not annotated in the general order. Therefore, to determine the total number awarded to each individual, I added up each time they were cited for a Oak Leaf Cluster to a particular decoration. This is not a perfect system, as it does not account for Oak Leaf Clusters awarded by other commands to a specific service member. So there is a possibility that the number of Oak Leaf Clusters stated in this work may be less then the actual number awarded. I find this the likelihood of this very small, but I must point of the possibility anyway.

 The 9^th Infantry Division suffered a lot of casualties, which meant that a lot of men passed through the division during combat operations. This combined with the fact that the 9^th Infantry Division did not publish unit information in its general orders causes a problem. There are many decorations recipients who appear in more than one general order. On several occasions I found that service members with the same name have vastly different service number. With most other commands that I compile this normally only occurs with common surnames, but I had several persons with unusual surnames in this division as well. It is too time consuming to check each service member who appears in more than one general order, to verify service numbers. So as I always recommend, please refer back to the original general order before forming a final conclusion. I feel that I did a good job merging or not merging these service members. But there still are possibilities for errors or omissions

 There is also an issue of enlisted rank reductions. Many people do not realize that until after World War II enlisted rank 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. But the 9^th Division fought longer then most others divisions in the ETO. This combined with the high casualty rate means 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:

              * There is a massive ink stain that obscures the text on several pages (GO#42,1945,9DIV)

                 * There is a piece missing from page 1 & 2 of (GO#60,1945,9DIV)

How to read the sources: (GO#46,1945,9Div) is broken down as “GO” (General Order), “#” (Number 46, 1945), “9Div” (9^th Infantry Division).  Information cited as (9DivAGOBD) is from the Adjutant General’s 1947 Battle Death Report for the 9^th 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.

Contact

Home

Order