Campaign Ribbon Question

[connie]

423rd Infantry Regiment
Here's a link to Carl's reply to a question about Campaign Ribbons awarded to the 423rd Infantry Regiment (found under Unit Specific Discussions:
106thdivision.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=unit&thread=530&page=1#2555

[roger]

The Central Europe Campaign credit for the 106th still is a bit of mystery to me. Some references give it credit while other sources do not. I saw Carl's comments dated several months ago.....but I am still confused. It seems he said that some 106th Div individuals might have received it while others would not. Is there some criteria that comes into play here?

[floydragsdale]

I was with the 424th Regiment of the 106th Division through August 1945 and was in every WWII Campaign the 106th Div. was involved in.

My discharge papers give me credit for the Ardennes Campaign, commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge, Northern France, in the Brittany Peninsula of France and the Rhineland Campaign in Germany which may have been thought as Central Europe in later years.

Today,in this period of time after WWII, many people believe that the Ardennes Campaign and the Battle of the Bulge were two different Campaigns. The U.S. Army labeled it as the Ardennes Campaign while the News Media called it the Battle of the Bulge because that is what it appeared to be on a Battle drawn map of Belgium and was illustrated in the newspapers as a Bulge in the Allied/German battle lines.

I'm not aware of any news story in that time period (1945) that referred to Bulge Campaign as the Ardennes Battle, or Ardennes Campaign.

I hope this will be of help.

Floyd
424th Regiment

[connie]

Floyd,

Good to see that technical problems have been resolved and you're back on the discussion board!

Your answer is clear. But raised new questions in this uninitiated mind. I did some web searching and didn't find immediate answers or a nice, tidy list of Campaign Ribbons issued in WWII.

Did people use the words " Rhineland" and "Central Europe" to refer to the same campaign ribbons? I don't know what ribbons my dad had. This has not been an area of interest to me as I track down where he was, but maybe I'll do some looking...

Connie

[roger]

So, I had my personal interest in this question. My father received the ribbon for Central Europe Campaign. To my knowledge he was not attached in any way to the 106th during the established time period for that campaign. He did receive the Army of Occupation-Germany ribbon which does coincide with his unit's (6951 Prov Guard Bn) attachment to the 106th at PWTE-A2 (Remagen).

In my research, I have NOT seen the 106th Div being awarded the Central Europe Campaign ribbon. However, The Cub indicates on the cover page that it was awarded that ribbon. That is part of my confusion.

Up to now I have maintained that my dad's award of the Central Europe Campaign ribbon was from the possibility that between his transition from AAF assignment at Burtonwood Base to his assignment to the 6951 Prov Guard Bn, he was a replacement troop someplace within the 89th Div. This supposition is based on the 89th Div patch I found in his box of memorabilia, a few comments he made about being shelled by artillery and moving supplies by convoy at night and other situations reported to me by a friend of our family...all this coupled with the fact that the 89th is credited with the Central Europe Campaign ribbon. Perhaps this is a long shot conclusion because he does not appear on any 89th Div rosters and his discharge papers do not reference it either. BUT, his papers do not reference his Burtonwood assignment or his assignment with the 6951 Prov Guard Bn either. However, I have photographic evidence and some newspaper clippings that do verify those assignments.

Thoughts?

[Carl W.]

Hi all,

I did a short research project on this very subject some time ago for the Cub.

Campaign credits were marked on the European-African-Mediterranean Campaign Medal ribbon bar (also known as the "spam" ribbon in military slang) by adding small bronze service stars. Each star represents a distinctive campaign for which the individual soldier was credited for his participation.

Each campaign has a territorial boundry and a boundry in time. Everything depends if the individual soldier was active within the boundries of the campaign zone to be credited. 14 out of 22 units (integral or at some point attached to the 106th) that I researched were elegible for the Central Europe Campaign star on the EAME medal/ribbon. The Central Europe campaign is not the same one as the Rhineland campaign though.

Roger, I do believe that your dad's connection with the 89th division explains for his campaign credit in the Central European Campaign. This must have taken place somewhere between 22 March and 11 May 1945 as this is the timeframe for the Central Europe campaign.'

Here's a short overview of the different campaigns and who was elegible in the 106th division:
www.scribd.com/doc/47421263/RESEARCH-Unit-Awards-and-Campaign-Credits

Hope this helps!

Greetings
Carl

[floydragsdale]

Hello all:

I'm recalling from memory again. To my knowledge, the 106th Division did not get past the Rhine River valley.

Some U.S. Army units were deep into East Germany. A number of them were in Austria and Czechoslovacia (SP). I met some of those G.I.s who were in those Units and they were wearing the Central European Ribbon.

We (106th Soldiers) were not issued the Central European Campaign Ribbon. If any 106th Soldiers received the Central European ribbon they didn't get it while they were with the Golden Lion Division.

Floyd

[roger]

Carl and Floyd-
Both of you always have so much good information....this message board is fortunate to have such knowledgable resources.....we seldom have to guess or speculate about an issue or question!

I continue searching for some hard evidence of dad's connection to the 89th. According to Mark Kitchell A(representing the 89th website) the common rosters for the 89th do not include him. But since he would have come to that Division as a "replacement" I suppose that could be why he is not listed? I wonder where else I might look?

Roger

[floydragsdale]

Hello Roger:

When I was discharged from the Army, which was at Camp Atterbury, IN the Soldier doing the paper work gave me a choice of being discharged from the last Army Unit that I served in, or, the 424th Inf. Regiment.

I selected the 424th Inf. Regiment and that is on the very front of the discharge document. However, my service record is recorded on the ENLISTED RECORD AND REPORT OF SEPARATION page. On that page it lists all the medals that was issued to me. Also it states all the campaigns that I was in.

The papers do not list any of the other Army Units that I served in although the form goes on to show all that I was qualified to do and had been doing long after I was no longer with the 424th Regiment.

The discharge process was like a production line in a factory. Mountains of record keeping were done by the Army, at all levels, including to the time that a Soldier was being discharged.

If a Soldier was given the time to go through his service record the
army, to this day, would probably still be in the process of discharging WWII G.I.'s. I would be standing in line, waiting to get out of the Army.

Today, descendants of WWII soldiers really have to probe & dig for information. Every time you solve a problem ten more questions pop
up.

Floyd

[floydragsdale]

I just learned yesterday that about 22 March 1945 the name of the Rhineland Campaign was changed to the Central Europe Campaign.
No wonder that has been a confusing issue.

The proof can be found at the following Web Site:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/106th_Infantry_Division_(United_States)#Bibliography

Floyd

[159th]

Department of the Army Pamphlet 672-1 "Unit Citation and Campaign Participation Credit Register" may help clarifying inquiries in this discussion group.

The web link is:
www.apd.army.mil/pdffiles/p672_1.pdf

The document is slightly over 50,000 KB and 547 pages long.

There are still some questions that may not be answered in this pamphlet. For example, The Northern France Campaign (page 2) ran from 24 July to 17 August 1944. There were still German garrisons in some of the port cities in NW France that did not surrender until May 1945. U.S. Army units stationed in these area to keep the German forces in check until their surrender received campaign credit. See pdf page #201 or doc page # 190 for the 159th Infantry Regiment. The 159th arrived in France in March 1945 and was station for time in NW France. My understanding is that, and I wish I could find the source, a theater commander could still award the unit for campaign credit even though hostilities had ceased and the campaign declared over.

If this pamphlet was already included in the group's discussion my apologies for missing the reference. I missed in it my cursory review.

[connie]

Dear "159th"

I moved some of the non-related material to another thread so that the skimming process on this one will be easier... (and the other thread will be easier to find, too!)

Thank you. I haven't seen this link. I did not attempt to download the document, but it looks like it would be a serious resource for those trying to nail down awards due.

Your example of the 159th Infantry Regiment and the German hold-out positions in NW France combined some new info with some familiar for me. I have added a note about the 159th to the Units in the Division section of the Unit Specific Discussions: 106thdivision.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=unit&thread=544&page=1#2844

Thanks again for adding the link to this valuable resource!

Connie