I'm not sure what I need to say here but i'm trying to find out anything I can about my fathers past military history. I'm hoping somewheres out there it will reach anyone who can help me.

His name was Charles D Guy he served in the 180th infantry in G company from 8/43 to 10/45 He was in Southern France, Central Europe, Rhineland. He was wounded in action in Southern France Oct 31 44. He passed away when I was very young there was no records, medals, pictures or anything of the sort left by the time I was old enough to think about that part of his life. He also served from 12/45 to 12/48 but noone I can find knows what or where he served at that time.

What I'm looking for is anyone who knew him or pictures really anything at all about him. I know you may not have know him or even been in this unit. But I guess it may be possible that you knew someone else that did. Or could tell me even if I'm close to being on the right track for this company. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate anything you could tell me.

Jim Guy my email addy is jag322@hotmail.com

Jag 322: Evidentally he served in the 45th Inf Div. 180 th Reg. 2nd Bn. Company G

(which is a rifle company) during WW 2. His discharge should show all medals and

records. A reissue of these medals earned can be obtained free from St. Louis for a

next of kin. The other service without a discharge copy is something again. However,

a lot of us had our discharges recorded at the County Clerks office where we lived at time of discharge. (back when it showed our Serial numbers and not as S.S. numbers).

If I an be of any further help I am at j3rdinf@comcast.net Joe

he served in the 180th infantry in G company from 8/43 to 10/45

If he was with the 45th Infantry Division all that time, then that meant he may have landed at Salerno on 10 September, 1943 and fought all the way up to Cassino. Then a few days after the landing on Anzio beach on 22 Jan 1944, his unit would have gone in as support and a long struggle. After the fall of Rome, on June 4th, he would have been pulled back for preparation for another amphibious assault.

The 45th Division, along with the 36th Division and Marion's Engineers were part of the VI Corps that landed in Southern France on 25 August 1944.

Sorry, I don't have any good reference material on the 180 Regiment. I have the History of the 157th Infantry Regiment, its sister unit.

I also have a DUI pin for the 180 Regiment. The motto is not in Latin but Cherokee. I'll try to post an image of it, later. It's not working at the moment.

It would be good to know the dates he was overseas. Aug 43 might have been his enlistment date.

Here are two sites:

The 45th Division Museum

Great museum. Might contact them for help.

History of 45th Division

An Re-enactor's site with photos and documents, etc.

Steve

:edited:

Finally. I got my image to work. I uploaded it with one missing letter.

DUIs: Units that fought in Italy [infty Reg (Division)]

135IR (34ID)_________157IR_______180IR______ 371IR(92ID)___362IR (91ID)___85MR(10Mtn)

The pin worn by the 180th Infantry Regiment is the one in the center with the 3 arrows. Sorry, you can't read the motto: "TANAP NANAIYAKIA ALTHAIYANA ". The red one next to it is the DUI for the 157th Infantry Regiment, 45th Division. All DUIs for the 45th Division has the Indian head on top of the pin but the one exception is the 157 Regiment.

Thank you my dear friends for jumping in and helping.

First off, welcome Jim. I hope you will enjoy your stay here and most importantly, I hope we can shed some light on the subject for you.

I am going to put you into contact with three of my friends from the 45th Inf Div. They may be able to help you.

http://www.6thcorpscombatengineers.com/Rus...Weiskircher.htm

http://www.6thcorpscombatengineers.com/JamesBird.htm

http://45thinfantrydivision.com/ This gentleman's name is Albert Panebianco and he has his own site.

I will forward your email to them this morning, and they can respond privately to you. Good luck.

Dear Jim:

So glad that we could help you. You'll find a great group of people here and I'm happy to report that many of them will take time out of their busy schedules to jump in and help one another. I've had many folks tell me that they've posted other places too and have never recieved any responses. One gentleman told me he and his dad had been searching for almost three years and until they came here, they were just running around in circles. They've found out more in two weeks time and were placed in contact with others after trying in vain for months on end. That is good news indeed!

Please let me know when you hear from Al, Russ or Jim of the 45th Inf Div. They are all great gentleman and all a wealth of information on their unit.

You will want to contact your local Veterans Admin. Actually the Admin of the state that your mom received benefits from. They DO have the records. That is how I retrieved my dad's records, because his too were burnt in the fire of 73. Let me know how that goes. I received his records within 2 1/2 weeks of contacting them.

under battles and campaigns ( this part is garbled looks like co 33&40 WD 45 )

That is probably a reference to a General Order. The form usually lists a General Order that awarded him his decorations such as Bronze Star Medal. I don't have one in front of me but it was usually in the form of "GO 25 36ID 45" which was the number of the order, the issuing HQ and the Year it was issued. I think you can order a copy of these---if they have it with the division's records.

Does anyone know if back then they still took basic training photo?

Many units had group photos made during training or before going overseas. These are those "yard-long photos" that contained all the members of a company.

For units that trained early in 1941-1942, they sometimes printed photo albums that contained many individual photos. But I'm not sure if they took individual photos of each soldier to keep in their records.

I would try to be persistant about the records. Marion, I think it was, had a story about that. But they may have lost his records in the fire but that would still have sufficient records to pay benefits.

Steve

under battles and campaigns ( this part is garbled looks like CO 33&40 WD 45 )

That reference still bothers me. I just had someone email me who is researching their family member's records. The discharge papers had a reference to GO33&40 WD45 . And he was a member of the 85th Division (we think). The only thing I can guess is that this was a General Order that issued the Victory Medal or some other medal to all the troops.

Anyone know what this WD 45 refers to??

Steve

Here ya go:

This means that these campaigns were declared (authorized, defined)

by General Order of the War Department in 1945.

So GO = General Order of

WD 45 = War Department 1945

I will place more info here in a bit!

This means that these campaigns were declared (authorized, defined)

by General Order of the War Department in 1945.

Of course---the War Department. You can't go much higher in command than that. Since it was issued in 1945, I would not think that refers to the EAME Campaign Ribbon. Probably refers to the Victory Medal.

But his papers did refer to 2 orders, No 33 & 40, so maybe the other one was the Po Valley Battle Star for the EAME.

Great info. Got any more???

Steve