On any given Saturday when I lived
in the Kansas City area, you could find me searching the reference areas at the
University of Missouri, Kansas City or the microfiche at Mid-Continent North
Library in Independence. It’s a solitary
activity looking for the WWII troop ship arrivals of September 19, 1945 in the New York Times: Aiken Victory, Charles
Goodyear, Depaux Victory, John Spencer, Clinton Kelley, and the Mormacon. Docking at Newport News were the Fayetteville Victory, Cooper Union Victory, and Howard Victory among others. Twenty-three troop ships arrived that day and
who could say if my father was on any of them?
His Honorable Discharge reflected the same date. Is there any way a Baby Boomer can fill in
that important piece of the puzzle: ship and port of arrival?
There’s nothing like a primary
source sample to clarify things and I found mine at the Internet site of Oak Valley to Po Valley. It’s a WWII web site built around the diary
of a soldier and truck driver in the Engineers who’d been stationed in Leghorn,
Italy where my father was. It looks like
he was also in the Peninsular Base Section (PBS), the collection of Army
service units in Italy. Even though it’s
hard to read, one of the documents on the site is “Water Movement Orders” which
are the GI’s orders sending him home. So
what? I can barely read it. What’s important to the rest of us interested
Boomers are four pieces of information: primary
source Water Movement Orders, their source (27th Replacement Depot at Pisa), the
ship’s name, and the orders’ distribution list.
The Water Movement Orders are what
you search for at the National Archives.
You find records of the 27th to find them. You should discover the ship’s name. Perhaps, more encouragingly, the distribution
list on this example cites 86 copies to 20 commands or individuals: Army
Service Forces, New York Port of Embarkation, Adjutant General, Group
Commander, MTOUSA, Transportation Section PBS et al. The fire at the National Personal Records
Center, St. Louis, in 1973 couldn’t have destroyed everything.
The solution to finding my mystery
ship and its destination began with the Honorable Discharge. Contacting the National Personnel Records
Center in St. Louis for information was next.
They sent me a “Request Pertaining to Military Records” form. I received an “alternate records source”, a “Final
Payment Roll” from the finance records of Jefferson Barracks. In military administrative speak, some of it
reads: “LP 31 July 45 by HA. FUESNOH CAPT FD Trfd as S/Sgt fr 7th RD APO 372 4
Sept 45/Arvd US 19 Sept 45 Incl.” In
plain English I believe it means Dad left the Port of Oran on July 31, 1945 by
the orders of a Captain HA Fuesnoh. He
was transferred as a Staff Sergeant from the 7th Replacement Depot (Bagnoli,
Italy) Army Post Office 372 and finally left Italy, probably from Naples, on
September 4, 1945. He said he heard
about VJ Day (September 2, 1945) on a Victory Ship two days later
at sea.
Many pieces of the puzzle are missing. Was Captain Fuesnoh from E Company 2nd
Transportation Corps Service Battalion (TC Hq. 3rd P of E)? Did he sign the Water Movement Orders for the
replacement depot or was he the disburser for the Finance Department (FD) who
signed the final checks? Was New York or
Newport News Dad’s final destination?
Right now, I don’t have the answers, but I’m getting closer because I’ll
know where to look in the proper National Archive’s Records Group.
