Hi and welcome to our forum.
If you cannot retrieve a copy of his discharge papers, please turn to either the local county building (where he lived) or get in touch with the local Veteran's Admin in his home state. Most soldiers filed a copy of their papers with the county or if they had any medical treatment with the VA, then they will also have copies. This is how I obtained a copy of my father's paperwork.
Here's the link for the VA - http://www2.va.gov/d...center_flsh.asp
Unfortunate as it may appear, many times things happened in the course of the war, making it impossible for injuries, etc., to be recorded and therefore impossible to make it possible to get the proper medals later in life. As in his case, you would have to find the proper documentation in order to proceed. What I would recommend is to try and obtain copies of the units history via NARA in Maryland. This is NOT the same establishment as St Louis. The Maryland facility contains archived unit histories.
http://www.archives....rcher-info.html
You can either hire a research assistant or schedule a time to go there yourself. Complete info and instructions are listed on the link above.
Have you had time to look at the links and uploaded documents earlier in this posting? They will help you pull together a more precise timeline.
As I did for others, i will add your name to my 257th group and introduce you to them. I'm sure they will be able to assist you too.
Let me know if you have any other questions. Happy to try and help.
Hey Marion,
Thanks very much for all your help. I have looked at the links above and they have been very helpful, especially the letter from the soldier. While reading that I was able to track the journey of the 257th. It also confirmed a lot of the stories and locations my grandfather told me. The detail the soldier went into about the concentration camp very much aligned with what my grandfather had said. Do we have the name of the soldier who wrote this?
I already have all of the discharge papers and anything associated with his service and hopefully I can plan a trip to MD soon to research unit records. Here is one of my biggest problems though, I have confirmed by seeing a picture of him taken in 1943 or 44 that he was at one point in the Army Air Corps. On his uniform he is wearing the "Enlisted Aviation Insignia" pin. This has been my biggest challenge, to find out where in Italy he was and with what unit from his enlistment in 1943 until he was transferred to the 257th sometime in 1944. I'm assuming that the picture was taken between tours because on his uniform he is wearing the Army Good Conduct ribbon (also not on his discharge) and the WWII Europe, Africa, Middle East, ribbon with no bronze star (to signify another tour of duty) at this point, this means he hadn't served his second tour to earn the bronze star on the ribbon.
My timeline so far consists of this:
Enlisted - March 15, 1943
Activated - March 22, 1943
Basic Training - 10 weeks?
Completed Basic - Est. June 1943 (Allies invade Italy July 1943)
Deployed to Italy - July 1943 w/ Army Air Corps
Leave in England before being deployed to France - ? 1944 w/ 257th Engineers
From here I just followed the letter because it was pretty in line with what my grandfather said, however it didn't mention (to my recollection) the Ardennes Forest and the Battle of the Bulge which he remembered vividly.
Honorable Discharge - November 16, 1945
Here lies the challenge:
Was the 257th always together? Probably not.
Do we know what Army or Division the 257th was with for sure? Was it 1st Infantry? I've also seen Ninth U.S. Army. I'm not sure.
Its a long road and its nice to have another people along with me on this journey. Thanks for all your help and please keep up the fight for CIBs for Combat Engineers, they deserve it.
Thanks,
Anthony