Index to the General Orders of the Department of the Army, 1947-49
Statistics:
Medal of Honors 4
Distinguished Service Crosses 14
Distinguished Service Medals 66
Silver Star Medals 154
Chief Commander of the Legion
of Merit 7
Commander of the Legion of
Merit 99
Officer of the Legion of Merit 280
Legion of Merit 740
Distinguished Flying Cross 19
Soldier’s Medals 98
Bronze Star Medal 1031
Air Medals 155
Army Commendation Ribbons
994
Purple Heart Medal 1
Total Awards 3662
This book has 63 pages
ISBN 978-1-932891-03-4
ISBN 1-932891-03-X
Library of Congress Control Number 2004-269853
This is the seventeenth in a series of indexes of all the divisions, corps, armies and commands of the US Army in WWII. Other indexes will be published as they are completed.
This work includes all decorations cited in the general orders of the Department of the Army issued from 1947 thru 1949.
Some Department of the Army decorations supercede awards issued by other commands for the same period. The terminology used is “suspended,” which I assume is the same as a “rescinded” order. Since one command cannot rescind an order of another command, the earlier decorations were suspended. In these instances, the general order number and command of the suspended decoration are listed before the Department of the Army General Order.
For the most part, general orders of this command do not give complete unit assignments. Those that do are, primarily, awards for gallantry in action. As there are exceptions, the best thing to do is examine each general order in which you have an interest.
If the general order did not provide an assigned unit, I listed the branch of service. You will note that many entries have two branches of service listed, one being in ( ). I assume that the branch of service inside the ( ) is the recipient’s original branch, but they were detailed to and serving in the other branch during the period of the award. In most of these cases, the recipient was serving in the General Staff Corps..
The vast majority of the awards issued by the Department of the Army during this period are for service during World War II. Some awards, however, are for service prior to WWII, primarily during WWI. To illustrate that these awards are not for service during WWII, I have listed the year in which the action occurred, which is commemorated by the award of the decoration in parentheses after the recipient’s command and before the abbreviation of the award.
There are also awards issued for service during the occupation period after WWII. If and only if the full period of the award is after 1945, the year or years are listed in parentheses. This qualification was necessary due to the large numbers of awards issued for service during WWII, with additional service during the occupation period. In fact, most of the troops who performed occupation duty right after the war were combat veterans.
The Department of the Army awarded a large number of decorations to foreigners. An attempt has been made to list each in the same fashion as US recipients. A problem arise3s, however, when trying to classify the foreigner’s last name. Many French and South American officers have complex, compound surnames. Following Spanish tradition, many south American officers included their mother’s maiden name as part of their full surname. There is often no way of knowing if the last surname listed in military records is the recipient’s surname or their mother’s maiden name. To be consistent, I list each person by the last surname given, unless the name was hyphenated. French, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic names have many prefixes, such as “de,” :la,” and “al.” To assist in the ability to search such names, prefixes are included without spacing before the surname. This also applies to US recipients with similar names.
Awards o nobility often just provide the individual’s title, although I have made every attempt to locate their actual name. English nobility often do list their normal names, in addition to their tittles. European Royals are listed by the name of the house from which they descend. For example, Crown Prince Olav of Norway is listed as “Olenburg, Olav, Crown Prince of Norway.” I have also listed a separate entry by title, which is cross-reference under their other names.
During the years following the war, many officers reverted back to their Regular Army ranks. In these situations, I have listed the that the recipient held when the decoration was earned.
How to read the sources: (GO#46,1947,DA) is broken down as “GO” (General Order), “#” (Number 46, 1947), “DA” (Department of the Army).
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.