When I started researching my grandfather’s WWII story eight years ago, I had difficulty finding his exact unit and fully understanding its role in the war. My real interest was deciphering precisely what his job was during the war. His discharge paperwork simply listed “supply clerk”, but that could have been several things. I also knew from his memoir that he was relatively close to, and moved with, the Allied front line... but a “service squadron” is about as generic as military unit nomenclature gets. As an example, today’s service-oriented squadrons run the on-base gyms, hotels, and dining facilities. They also run mortuary services, morale/recreation/welfare (MWR) programs, and personnel record-keeping.
In addition to these generic descriptions, I had some knowledge gaps to overcome. At the time, circa 2015, I didn’t understand Army unit hierarchy. I also had to translate my knowledge of the Air Force as an independent service into dependent service terms. From 1907-1947, the Air Force was a component of the Army and was known by many names. From 1941-1947, it was called the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF). I had no idea how relevant my 2015 knowledge of Air Force unit hierarchy would be, but it was the best starting point I had.
For readers who are unfamiliar with military unit hierarchy, I’ll briefly explain. Each service has its own structure, and they are not really comparable. I’ll stick to the services relevant to this post (sorry Navy and Marines).
The modern-day Army is structured largest to smallest by Field Army > Corps > Division > Brigade > Regiment > Battalion > Company > Platoon > Section > Squad > Team, eleven echelons in total. There is currently only one standing field army (Eighth Army in South Korea) and regiments are rarely used. These units are entirely modular, so the Army will often take a piece of one unit and attach it to whatever echelon they desire in a different unit. This means a company can be directly attached to a division; in other words, a company will report to a division boss without any brigade, regiment, or battalion bosses in between. From the Army perspective, this allows them to precisely tailor military capabilities and resources for whatever job they must complete. From the Air Force perspective, it’s higgledy-piggledy nonsense (cue inter-service jabs).
The modern-day Air Force is structured largest to smallest by Major Command (MAJCOM) > Numbered Air Force (NAF) > Wing > Group > Squadron > Flight, six echelons in total. All of these echelons are used in this order. A wing must have at least two groups, a group must have at least two squadrons, etc. There are often sections or elements within a flight, but these are not officially recognized echelons. As an example, an airfield operations flight almost always has at least three sections: air traffic control, airfield management, and airfield systems. But I digress… back to grandpa’s story!
When a search for his specific squadron yielded nothing, I set out to find his unit’s wing alignment. Modern-day wings usually have their own historian, and their lineages are well documented. His memoir names the Ninth Air Force, 329th Air Service Group, and 327th Service Squadron. Unfortunately, no wing is mentioned between the NAF and group, so my idea of finding the wing he served under was a dead end. As it turns out, the Air Force didn’t use the wing echelon until after it became an independent service, so in 1944 all the groups reported directly to a NAF.
My next lead was his squadron’s attachment to the 48th Fighter Bomber Group. While I didn’t fully comprehend what being attached meant in 2015, it now makes a lot of sense given “the Army way” of McGyver-ing units together. What I did know in 2015 was how obsessed Air Force culture can be with technology, particularly its own. Anything that flies and carries boom-booms or pew-pews is considered supremely fascinating and worthy of extensive documentation. Since the 48th Fighter Bomber Group was an operational flying unit (it had pilots and planes), I knew this was my next best bet to find historical records.
Researching the fighter group instead of the service group had spectacular results. Four months after my grandfather arrived in the UK, the unit’s name changed, dropping the bomber nomenclature to become the 48th Fighter Group (48 FG). This is the name that had the most information tied to it. I was surprised at how well the timeline in his memoir matched the 48 FG’s assignment history. I then realized the service group was the equivalent of today’s maintenance groups (MXG for my AF fam); and the term “attached” was more literal than I thought. Wherever the 48 FG went, the 327th Service Squadron also went. Even today, AF planes don’t go anywhere for a significant amount of time without at least two types of Airmen: pilots to fly them and maintainers to fix them. My grandpa’s squadron was comprised of aircraft mechanics and supply personnel that repaired and maintained the P-47s of the 48 FG to keep the unit—and its prodigious number of wing-mounted 50-caliber barrels—in the fight.
More specifically, my grandpa was the local/forward aircraft maintenance supply person that inventoried, stored, and delivered plane parts for aircraft maintainers on the flightline. He also shipped plane parts to a supply depot that was further behind the front. The depot (like the one he describes at Liege) had the time, tools, and materials to repair more heavily damaged parts, as well as the space to store larger stocks. The depot would then send repaired parts and small stock replenishments back to the front line. My grandpa would receive the parts and make sure they were put on/into the right plane. He dealt with everything from small buttons, hoses, and bolts, to whole aircraft wings, as evidenced by what he was doing when Battle of the Bulge began.
Fun closing fact: AF aircraft maintenance still operates this way! Each type of aircraft has a maintenance depot where more advanced repairs can be conducted, and it is often geographically separated from the aircraft’s assigned station.
Thanks for reading my first post, Tango Sierra out!
Comments