Index to the General Orders Issued by the War Department, 1941-47
Statistics:
Medal of Honor 284
Distinguished Service Cross 125
Distinguished Service Medals 1,327
Silver Star Medals 334
Distinguished Flying Cross 819
Soldier’s Medals 839
Chief Commander of the Legion of
Merit 25
Commander of the Legion of Merit 380
Officer of the Legion of Merit 921
Legion of Merit 4,200
Bronze Star Medals 2,125
Air Medals 4,371
Purple Heart Medals 8
Army Commendation Ribbons 1,380
Silver Lifesaving Medals 13
Medal of Freedom 114
American Typhus Commission Medals
103
Prisoner of War 72
Defenders of Bataan 566
Oak Leaf Clusters 1,664
Total Awards 19,661
This book has 357 pages
ISBN 978-1-932891-02-7
ISBN 1-932891-02-1
Library of Congress Control Number 2004-268693
This is the thirteenth 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 War Department issued from 1941 thru 1947.
Please note that some decorations posted in 1941 and 1942 series were announcements of awards approved and issued by other commands. Listings that fall into this category will have the general order number and command that awarded the decoration cited before the War Department General Order Number.
Starting in 1946 the War Department awarded decorations that supercede awards issued by other commands for the same period. The terminology used is suspended; I assume this is the same action as a rescinded order. But one command cannot rescind an order of another command so the earlier decorations were suspended. In these instances the general order number and command of the suspended decoration are listed before the War Department General Order. The War Department used different terminology than most other commands. I assume that “corrected” means the same as “amended”.
From 1941 thru 1946 most citations for Oak Leaf Clusters to a specific decoration give the general order number and command of the original award of the basic decoration. Again the general order number and command of the earlier award is listed before the War Department General Order Number. Starting in 1947 this practice stopped.
For the most part general orders of this command do not give complete unit assignments. Of the general orders that do give complete unit assignment they are, almost always, awards for gallantry in action or awards for meritorious service awarded prior to General Order #45, 1944. General Order #45, 1944 was the last general order to publish the citations of decorations for meritorious service. These are generalizations and there are exceptions. The best thing to do is examine each general order that you are interested in. The service member listed may have served in a different unit or units before or after the decoration was issued. Therefore the unit or branch of service listed is just a guide.
If the general order did not list a unit of assignment, then I listed the branch of service. You will note that many entries will have two branches of service listed, one being in parenthesis. I assume that branch of service inside the parenthesis is the recipients’ original branch of service, but that they are detailed to, and serving in the other branch during the period that the award was issued for. In the vast majority of these cases the recipient was currently serving in the General Staff Corps.
The majority of the awards issued by the War Department during this period are of course for service during World War II. But there are some awards for service prior to WWII. Most of these were for service during WWI and there were two awards of the Silver Star Medal for service during the Spanish American War. To illustrate that these awards are not for service during World War II, I have listed the year in which the action occurred, which is commemorated by the award of the decoration in parenthesis after the recipient’s command and before the abbreviation of the award in the listing.
Also, some were awards issued for service after World War II, during the occupation period. If and only if the full period of the award is after 1945, the year or years are listed in parenthesis. The reason for this is there are large numbers of awards for service during WWII with additional service during the occupation period, as most of the troops who performed occupation duty right after the war were combat veterans.
There are large numbers of decorations awarded to foreigners by the War Department. I have tried to list each in the same fashion as US recipients. A problem arises with trying to interpret a foreigner’s last name. Many French and South American officers have complex compound surnames. Some of the South American officers may have their full name listed, as the Spanish naming practice includes the mother’s maiden name. There is no way of knowing if the last surname listed is the recipient’s surname or the recipient’s mother’s surname. I list each person by the last surname unless the name was hyphenated. French, Spanish, Italian and Arabic names have many prefixes such as “de”, “la”, and “al”. To aid in the ability to search names with these prefixes are included without spacing before the surname. This also applies to US recipients with similar names.
There are also awards to nobility, which just give the noble person’s title. I have made every attempt to locate the actual name of the noble person. Many of the English nobility have normal names in addition to their titles. European Royals are listed by the name of the house from which they descend. For example The Crown Prince Olav of Norway is listed as Oldenburg, Olav, Crown Prince of Norway. I have also listed a separate entry by the title, which is cross-referenced under their other names.
I have attempted to look up all the general officers of foreign nations listed in this index. I have used google.com to search, as well as several other web sites. Based on the information I have located, I have changed the spellings of many of the foreign officers’ names, as the name given in the general order does not match any of the references found. I have also included these officer’s assignments during the war, when available.
Chinese service members cause a rather unique problem, as I cannot tell which name listed would correspond to a western surname and which name is the given name. So I have tried to do my best. But the naming practices of the War Department in this matter are not consistent so there are likely several errors.
In the years after the war, many officers reverted back to their Regular Army ranks. In these situations I have listed the rank that the recipient held when the decoration was earned.
How to read the sources: (GO#46,1945,WD), is broken down as “GO” (General Order), “#” (Number 46, 1945), “WD” (War Department).
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.