Headquarters Company?

[SergeantMajorGray]

Through records posted on a members website I have confirmed that my grandfather was WIA with the 17th Airborne during WW2. He was in HQ Co. 2nd Battalion 513th PIR. What do soldiers in a HQ company do? Are they front line infantry like others or do they only guard the Hq behind the front lines? I'm trying to figure out how he was wounded maybe he was wounded when the Hq was shelled or attacked or was he on the front securing towns and stuff?

 

Thanks for any help.

[uberguido]

in an infantry unit, HQ company consists of Mortars, company designated sharpshooters, intel detatchment, human resources, logistics, supply. basically all the support behind the line units, and command staff. everything from the cooks, to jeep drivers, to the CSM and Col themselves, are all in HQ company, where the regular line folk are in different companies. the support elements are attached to other companies, but still fall under HQ company. make sense? I know its confusing. its basically a way to keep ALL of your support elements in one company, and all your line elements in other companies.

 

for example in my battalion, everyone in the ABCD companies were straight infantry. HQ company was all support, S shops and command, to include scouts, sniper detatchment, counter IED, intel, counter intel and all that. and then there was a separate company for maintenance, E company, loaned to us by a whole different battalion.

 

If your grandfather was infantry, he could have been assigned scout, or even Personal Security Detail to the command elements. what was his job?

[MattS]

I imagine units vary, but the Battalion HQ unit in my aviation battalion were the personnel clerks (S-1), intel guys (S-2), operations guys (S-3), and supply section (S-4) along with the command staff (XO, CO) and their staffs (drivers, typists, etc.) There were probably 50 people in HQ Company.

[SergeantMajorGray]

Thanks for the information. The records say he was a Private at the time he was wounded so it might have happened during the Battle of the Bulge. I know he was a Sergeant at the end of the war.

[uberguido]

oh yeah, promotion potential rises as people exit theater for one reason or another.

do you know what his job was? it could really help narrow down what exactly he did in in HQ

[SergeantMajorGray]

I really have no idea it was a challenge to find out what unit he was in. There is a story that a German shot at him and the bullet grazed his helmet. So maybe He was doing something more combat oritrented but the story could be from Korea or Vietnam and over the years my mom thought it happend in WW2.

[uberguido]

hey man, in WW2 everyone was getting dinged with something. he could have been in signal and running a message, he could have been a forward observer, he could have been the colonels jeep driver, you have no clue, BUT guys from all walks of life and all jobs were getting dinged. enough stuff flying around at any given time anyone could have gotten some "internal body bling"

[zotig111]

hey man, in WW2 everyone was getting dinged with something. he could have been in signal and running a message, he could have been a forward observer, he could have been the colonels jeep driver, you have no clue, BUT guys from all walks of life and all jobs were getting dinged. enough stuff flying around at any given time anyone could have gotten some "internal body bling"

I think uberguido hit it on the head (pun intended). My neighbor was in the 5th Army, ordnance supply. He got the purple heart when the depot he was working in was shelled or bombed (sorry I can't remember which). Unless you were in the US for the whole war, you had a chance of getting hit by something... Even there you were taking a chance at boot camp!

[Buckshot329]

I got a friend who was in a Headquarters Company and he told though they were supposed to be behind the rifle companies they got shelled almost daily when not in a rest area. Also he remembered a couple incidents where the situation got really chaotic and they found themselves in the thick of battle or off course messengers etc. could find themselves in bad situations.

In short my guess is Hq companies got in less combat situations because they were no front line infantry but off course war never exactly goes by the book!