Requesting After Action Reports

[Carl W.]

An After Action Report (or AAR) is any form of retrospective analysis on a given sequence of goal oriented actions previously undertaken by a military unit, generally by the author itself.
The information it contains can be very interesting in order to learn what actions a unit has been involved in.

All you need to do in order to get a copy of an AAR of a certain unit, is send a letter to the following address:

National Archives and Records at college park
8601 Adelphi road
College Park, MD 20740-6001
United States

Always mention the specific unit of which you are requesting the AAR:

[Example] Company D, 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division

Also mention the months of which you would like the AAR’s


ATTENTION!

When requesting AAR’s for several months you will probably get a message in which you are asked to pay a certain amount as expense for your request. Therefore always request an AAR for a specific month, this is a FREE service.

[gfgrant8443]

Carl W.

I did this and I was told that there are no after-action reports in the National Archives for the 422nd for the month of December 1944. I don't want to discourage anyone from asking for other units, but I drew a blank on the 422nd.

Frank Grant

[Carl W.]

Hi Frank

This probably makes sense. The division lost many of it's G-2 files to the enemy as St. Vith was evacuated. Also, the 422nd and 423rd lost/destroyed most of their intelligence reports as they did not want these to fall into the hands of the enemy. Therefore After Action reports are inexistant for these units. However those of the 424th are available at NARA.

There are reports of some of the Battalion commanders written as a post-operational view on the situation. Many of these were used for instructional purposes at the Infantry School.
Jim has some of these online on his website under "commanding officer narratives". I know of reports written by Col Puett (423/2 BN), Col. Moon (422/1 BN) and Capt. Jones (423 INF).

Hope this helps!
Carl

[gfgrant8443]

Carl

I had hoped some of the reports from earlier in the month had made it back to a secure area. I was curious as to the circumstances of a Purple Heart Medal my father was awarded for wounds received on 12-11-44. I was aware of the circumstances surrounding wounds he received on 12-19-44, but did not know about the first medal until I got his discharge papers from the Record Center in St. Louis.

Frank

[connie]

I am only beginning to wade through some after action reports and absorb details. But, this conversation is interesting to me. I had realized that units would have destroyed papers before captivity. But, I hadn't begun to picture what must have gone on at Division Headquarters when St. Vith was evacuated... or where the trail of records lead. I'm guessing that St. Vith WAS considered the secure area to which all the paperwork went. If there was a system for sending reports on to Corps or Army level, I wonder if there was even time to have done any of that between arrival and the beginning of the German Offensive... (??) I hope you can find something out there. Maybe someone's personal accounts will contain a clue. All else is guess work. I have vague memories of having read of areas that were subject to frequent German shelling in the days leading up to the offensive. One spot was, I think, along a N-S road east of Schönberg, Belgium. It became known as "Purple Heart Crossing" or something to that effect. My impression is that this was a bit south of the area that would have been frequented by the 422nd -- closer to 423rd territory. But, I don't have a clear picture. Probably Carl could enlighten on this.

Good luck on the search! I hope there are answers out there for you. But, even the questions can be interesting...

[Carl W.]

Before St. Vith fell, Div HQ was relocated to Vielsalm. With everything in a termoil, documents probably got lost. Personally I have an original report of an 81st Engineer unit about the placement of a minefield in the Vielsalm area. These were found years after the war and had not been transferred to the official US archives.

I do wonder why no reports of the earlier days of the 106th deployment are in the National Archives. Perhaps they were kept in the HQ and were destroyed when the surrender took place. The Army must have had some sort of documented statement of the wounds your father received in action to have him awarded the PH medal. These must still be out there somewhere, the only question is where. Perhaps he was mentioned in dispatches of the 422nd after its reconstitution? I'm just guessing here.

Concerning the Purple Heart Corner. That place did indeed exist. This was a sharp bend which connected the Schonberg-Bleialf road with the Skyline Drive. At Justenschlag, this road took a sharp turn which forced supply truck drivers to slow down in order to take the turn onto the Skyline Drive. However, this area was under direct artillery observation by the Germans in the town of Brandscheid, south of Bleialf. If a vehicle would appear, the driver was most certainly eligible for PH Medal. This is the reason the engineer cut a road through the woods, forming a cut-off which allowed the vehicles to pass through the area unobserved. Hence the name "Engineer Cut-Off" which probably sounds familiar.



The exact location of "88 Corner", "Purple Heart Corner", "Purple Heart Lane", "Purple heart Crossing" or whatever other nick-name the GI's had for it. Taken in January 2008 at dusk.



But I'm probably going off-topic ;D

[connie]

Well... we did get a bit far afield from the original topic. But, it was for a good cause. And, I'm guilty of leading us here.

I've linked to this post under Purple Heart Crossing in Dates and Places so that someone can find what we came up with here.

Back to After Action Reports, but if anyone wants to continue the discussion of the roads in this sector, here's the places link:
106thdivision.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=dates&action=display&thread=230