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[stratasfan]

Thought I'd post these, as I can hardly find anything about the 472nd Field Artillery Para-Glider Battalion! If anyone has more info to add about this forgotten group, would love to hear! Can't find anywhere when they were called the "Para-Glider" battalion. Was it normal for a Field Artillery unit to go into Airborne? I did find online that they served in the taking of the Philippines and were with MacArthur when he went to Japan.

 

This is such an interesting set, I think, because it is one kind of four different drinking cup types - coffee mug, beer mug, wine glass, water glass. 

 

 

I found this online, which lists the places the group went, too.

 

Edited by stratasfan, 04 May 2018 - 02:12 PM.

[Rakkasan187]

The 472nd GFAB was part of the 11th Airborne Division in WW2 and during Occupation Duty in Japan...

 

 

The cadre for the 472nd Field Artillery was constituted on 15 October 1921 in the Organized Reserves as the 1st Battalion, 472nd Field Artillery and allotted to the Second Corps Area. The unit was then organized on March 1922 in New York with Headquarters at Buffalo. Eventually it was assigned to the 98th Division on 12 July 1929.

Ordered into active military service, less personnel, the 472nd was organized 1 August 1942 at Camp Gordon, Georgia. The following year on 1 March 1943, it was organized and redesignated the 472nd Field Artillery Battalion. The unit was later redesignated as the 472nd Glider Field Artillery Battalion and assigned to the 11th Airborne Division.

In early March 1945 the 11th Airborne's mission was to clear southern Luzon as part of XIV Corps southeastern drive through the Lipa Corridor. The 457th PFAB reinforced by the 472nd GFAB would directly support the 188th GIR in the area southwest of Manila at Ternate. A month-long war of attrition was waged against the innumerable well-camouflaged cave postions throughout this sector. In April the Battalion was involved in action around Mts.Macolod and Malepunyo. The 11th Airborne spent the next few weeks mopping up resistance throughout the southern areas of Luzon.

The 472nd GFAB along with the rest of the 11th Airborne Division moved from Luzon to Okinawa in the early part of August, 1945 to spearhead the occupation of Japan by escorting General Douglas MacArthur into that country.

 

​This is a rather difficult unit to find information on but there is some basic information out there, and a unit history...

 

​Leigh