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Army battle star number in question wwii


DeGrendel
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Hello I have a question for anyone who has knowledge of how battle stars work in the army. Specifically WWII. My grandfather fought in Europe in Pattons third army in the Lucky 7th armored division. 48th armored infantry batallion. I finally found his discharge papers because luckily he registered them in his home county. The originals were burned in the archives. According to his discharge papers in the decorations and citations it states victory medal European African middle eastern theater ribbon w/1 bronze battle stars 4 overseas service bars good conduct medal

I recently acquired what is supposedly his original uniform from my uncle with his ribbons and patches and pins. Everything seems to match up and it definitely seems official and original. The only thing I noticed is he has 3 battle stars and theres is a hole in which looks like a fourth battle star on the center rectangular ribbon. My question is if his discharge papers said 1 battle star, why would he have 4 on the ribbon? It makes me wonder if it was in fact his original uniform. Perhaps he put more stars than he actually earned? Is there a way his stars may have increased after he was discharged? I dont believe he was active after ww2. Anyway does anyone have any thoughts? Thanks!!!

 

RJ DeGrendel

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4th Armd Div receives 5 Campaign credits

  • Normandy
  • Northern France
  • Ardennes
  • Rhineland
  • Central Europe

Now depending on when he arrived to the division, this should be judged on just how many credits he got, thus the stars one might wear. Do you know when he was there, got there? Also, the entries on discharge documents have been know to be rife with errors and omissions, these are generally due to clerical errors, typos, incomplete information given to clerk when he's filling out document for whatever reason and just a careless lack of attention to detail and or lack of knowledge on the part of the GI clerk typing them, Quite a few examples are seen on this forum, in example a CIB not being listed, an entry of two purple hearts, when there should be only one, an no entry of a wartime awarded bronze star etc etc.

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It was the 3rd army, 7th armored division. 48th batallion

He wrote a timeline that shows he was there in Aug 1944

It starts out in Southampton England (unsure if Aug 1944 is the beginning of combat or just his arrival in England. I can email the docs for further analysis.)

Combat in

*France

*Holland

*Belgium

*Germany

End of war

Antwerpen Belgium

Breamenhamer hospital Germany

Switzerland

Halleram hospital, Staten Island

I know he spoke a lot about the battle of the bulge and he kept in touch with some of the starving Jews they rescued after the war. One actually came to visit him Im the US

Anyway so is it possible he earned 4 battle stars even though his discharge papers said 1?

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BILL THE PATCH

I think his discharge papers should say one silver star, for 5 campaigns, patches is right lots of mistakes made. If he was in the 5 campaigns then he could put one silver star instead of 5 seperate bronze stars. Hope this helps. Are all those campaigns listed on his discharge?

 

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

 

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I think his discharge papers should say one silver star, for 5 campaigns, patches is right lots of mistakes made. If he was in the 5 campaigns then he could put one silver star instead of 5 seperate bronze stars. Hope this helps. Are all those campaigns listed on his discharge?

 

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

+1

 

However, seeing now that member states a August date that he arrives, may indicate that 4 stars would be correct, as the first credit NORMANDY, has it's campaign credit ending 24 July 1944, which of course is odd in that the fighting was still going on in my estimation, Falaise ,Mortain etc etc, but then that's the army LOL. The next campaign as we know is Northern France, so officially that covers the latter campaigns for some reason in Normandy.

 

https://history.army.mil/html/reference/army_flag/ww2_eame.html

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I believe he entered France via Omaha beach. However it was after the beaches were stormed. So I dont think thats where the combat in France was. I remember after seeing Saving Private Ryan in the theater and the next time I saw him i asked if thats what he did and he said we are all lucky he didnt because none of us would be here.

I guess my biggest question is, are the four battle stars legit? It is very important for me to make his shrine with all his medals, his military funeral flag and photos accurate. It will be something I give to my son someday and our family can continue to honor his service. I know for sure the battle of the bulge is the battle he mentioned the most. God I wish I was more interested in hearing about this stuff when he was still here. He died in 2004. I didnt really start getting into this kind of history until around 2015.

Anyway his discharge papers say 1 battle star. His hand written timeline shows four separate countries and has an asterisks next to them and a bracket that labels them combat. His supposed uniform has 4 battle stars. My uncle tells me it is in fact his uniform. So I guess I just need reassurance before I tack on three more battle stars to his ribbon display. I want it to be accurate. I cant stop thinking of the possibility that it may not be his original uniform. I guess i dont see why not. Didnt everyone get to keep their uniforms? Why would he have more battle stars than he should? I dont think of him as someone who would pin on more than what he actually earned... Thank you for all your thoughts and expertise!!

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Whoops, damn I see I was thinking 4th Armd Div all this time rather than the 7th Armd Div, I don't know why, must of had 4th Armd Div on the brain it happens with me sometimes :lol: , my profound apologizes.

 

So lets start afresh. Omaha Beach and I might add Utah Beach was a major entry point for whole divisions and separate units as well as groups of individual replacements and supplies arriving on the continent during a better part of the campaign in the ETO, Antwerp I believe later in the war, nothing out of the ordinary there, 7th Armd Div does indeed come to France in August, fights in Northern France after the Normandy Campaign, just on the fringes of Lorraine, it's reassigned from 3rd Army to newly arrived 9thArmy in September (Patton didn't like that at all) and goes north into The Netherlands during operation Market Garden, it stays up and around this region for a bit.,so there's your first two Stars, Northern France and the Rhineland, Market Garden for U.S. forces falls under the Rhineland Campaign.

 

During the German Ardennes Offensive it's reassigned from 9th Army and whatever British control it fell under and assigned to 1st Army, where it famously serves in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, that's the third Star, this battle, falls under a blanket credit, Ardennes-Alasce.Though units still fight in taken the Rhine River in the late winter of 1945, this still falls under the Rhineland Campaign (15 September 1944 - 21 March 1945), the 7th Armd Div does this as well, then the Ruhr region, where it remains with 1st Army it's in action into Germany, the fourth Star, Central Europe,

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Here's the 7th Armd Div's association if you like.

 

http://www.7tharmddiv.org/

 

As to why the one Star? and while where thinking, the 4 overseas bars (for now he should have only around two OS bars, each bar signifies 6 months, if he had 4 bars that would signify 2 years of overseas service), the best guess is just what Bill the Patch and myself and I'm sure other members will state, a clerical error goof, because to me, clearly he was in all campaigns of the 7th Armd Div.

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I just noticed on the ltimeline it says he was in Beccles England in Nov 1943.

Then High Green Sheffield England

Next Stone England and finally Southampton England

He then went to combat in Aug of 1944.

France

Holland

Belgium

Germany

After a bunch more countries and hospitals he finally came home in April 1946. he wrote 3 years

Which is 3 years from his initial enlistment at Camp Custer In March 1943.( or whatever he did at camp Custer before his basic training in Salt Lake City and a whole bunch of other places on the west side of the continental US)

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James Dana Military Timeline

Camp Custer, Michigan, March 1943

Basic Camp Kearne, Salt Lake City, Utah

​Hospital (Spinal Meningitis)

Buckley, Denver, Colo

Colorado State College, Greeley Colo

Hammer Field, Fresno, Cal

Camp Pine Top, Fall River, Mass

Beccles, England Nov 1943

High Green, Sheffield Eng

Stone, Eng

Aug, 1944

*France

*Holland. Combat

* Belgium

*Germany

End of war 1945

 

Antwerp, Belgium

Breamerhaven Hospital, Germany Sept 19, 1945

Switzerland Furloose (not sure what this word is) from Hosp.

Halleran Hosp. Staten Island, N.Y. Jan 1945

Mayo General Hosp, Galesberg, Ill

Camp Sheridan, Ill

Home April 1946

Discharged

3 yrs

Ships

To England Sterling Castle British

Home- Blanch F. Sigmund Hosp. Ship

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The word combat was to the right of the for countries with asterisks. There was a bracket that stretched from the word France down to Germany. When I cut and pasted it the formatting messed it up

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Eh lets try to sort this out then, seems he was in a different unit before the 7th Armd Div if he was in England in November 1943, 7th Armd Div leaves New York Port of Embarkation only on 7 June 1944, arrives in England 14 June, them the continent 11 August, he most likely was reassigned to the 7th Armd Div as a filler after they arrived in England. We see a lot of hospital stays, was he wounded? You make no mention of a Purple Heart. The Switzerland entry I don't get, we know now that a lot of GIs in the occupation period visited some cities in Switzerland, like Lausanne but not when the war was ongoing,

 

So there seems to be a few errors, like why being at a stateside hospital Halleran Hosp. Staten Island, N.Y. in January 1945, but an entry for being in a Bremerhaven Hospital in September 1945!

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It was supposed to say Jan 1946. I retyped what he wrote and copied and pasted it into this window and I messed up on the date. No Purple Heart. He had athsma. The story is he wiped the x off his chest in the bathroom after his physical so he could fight. At the end of the war he used his asthma as an excuse to get home sooner thinking the hospital ship would be faster but he ended up taking a lot longer to get home. Its funny because he has a cigarette in every picture of him. Even though his older brother died from athsma in 1942.

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If you have an ancestry subscription I have all the photos and documents and anything i could find in my grandmas shoe box scanned and posted. I could also email the original scans if youre not on ancestry. I really appreciate all your help. You are truly helping me out. As you can tell accuracy about his action is very important to me. I am proud of him no matter how many battle stars he is credited for. I just want it to be correct.

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It was supposed to say Jan 1946. I retyped what he wrote and copied and pasted it into this window and I messed up on the date. No Purple Heart. He had asthma. The story is he wiped the x off his chest in the bathroom after his physical so he could fight. At the end of the war he used his asthma as an excuse to get home sooner thinking the hospital ship would be faster but he ended up taking a lot longer to get home. Its funny because he has a cigarette in every picture of him. Even though his older brother died from asthma in 1942.

So if we're reading this correctly, he stays in Europe, he leaves Europe in early 1946 after 7th Armd Div leaves in Oct 45 and is inactivated stateside the same month , if so then the 4 overseas bars would be correct Nov 43-Nov 45 4 years. Hmm so maybe that Swiss entry is for a special clinic for asthma he was sent too briefly sometime in 1945 after the war ended???

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That part of the timeline that shows Switzerland and Breamenhaven hospital, Germany actually has Switzerland first but there are arrows that indicate to flip flop the order of the two. You can also see that he erased something. He may have been a bit confused about the order. It definitely has Breamenhaven hospital Germany in Sept 1945.

He has a certificate stating he was with the 7th division 48 th armored infantry batallion. He also has a patch on the arm of his coat with the 7th division logo and then four bars on his sleeve. Like I indicated before the only discrepancy I find between his discharge papers and his uniform is the 4 battle stars. The papers say 1 and his pin has 4.

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