I know that the veteran served with the 6th Armored Division in WW II
The good news is, you've come to the right spot, and we have put a lot of information on the web site here so you can do some of your own research (see below).The bad news is, the Sixth Armored Division Association formally disbanded in September 2000 after more than 50 years. And there are fewer and fewer veterans left. However, along with the remaining veterans, there is a network of family members and friends of the Division who may be able to answer your question.
IMPORTANT: Please read Doing Your Own Research below before contacting us.
Once you have as much specific information about your veteran as you can find on your own (such as which battalion or company designation within the 6th Armored Division he served with), you can try e-mailing your question to:
?super6th at verizon period net
(Remove the question mark and use common sense when reconstructing the email address above when sending mail.) This address routes your query to an informal network of people associated with the 6th Armored Division who MIGHT recognize the name and who MIGHT be able to respond to you.
Doing Your Own Research
We have put a lot of time and effort into scanning and uploading a huge number of documents on this site, and you may be able to answer some of your own questions before using the e-mail address. There is so much information (and some of it is admittedly poorly organized) that it can be difficult to find what you need, so please follow these steps:
- First use this search window to search this site and see if there are any specific references to the veteran.
Frankly, there's not a great chance that you'll find anything related to a specific soldier. Something like 25,000 men had served with the Division by the time it was deactivated in 1945, and relatively few individuals got mentioned by name in any of the histories. But it's worth checking. Sometimes we get lucky. NOTE: There is no comprehensive, single roster of everybody who served in the Division. The best we have are a handful of rosters from some of the units who happened to compile histories at the end of the war. If your soldier happened to serve in one of these units, and if we happen to have scanned and uploaded that history, and if that history happens to contain a roster, and if there are no typos in that entry, then you may hit a home run. - If you know what unit your soldier served in, and if that unit is one of the ones that wrote a history, and we have it on this site, you can at least read about what that unit went through. For a complete list of units, and links to documents on this site (if they exist), please see 6th AD Units on the home page.
- One of the most common questions we get is "Do you know where my veteran was on such-and-such a date?", usually in reference to a man who was wounded or Killed in Action. We have a series of maps on this site, listed by date, that can help you narrow down where a soldier was on a particular day. The maps show unit labels similar to "TF50" or "CCA", which stand for "Task Force 50" and "Combat Command A". A particular unit might have been assigned to such a group for a particular action, so (for example) if you know that your veteran was part of the 212th AFA, and you read in the 212th AFA history that on a particular day they were supporting the 15th Tank Battalion (the core of "Task Force 15"), you can go to the map for that day and see where that Task Force was. These maps are reproduced with permission from Dr. George Hofmann's definitive history of the Division, "Super Sixth", ordering information for which is located at Super Sixth and other books by Dr. George F. Hofmann. Note that the maps are intentionally reproduced at low resolution -- they are good enough to read, but not good enough to pirate and republish. To see the high resolution originals, please consider purchasing Dr. Hofmann's book.
- To get an overview of what the Division was doing on a particular day, you can also peruse the Combat History of the 6th Armored Division. You can also check out other publications related to the Division at Super Sixth: Publications, some of which are available from Amazon or eBay or military book dealers, and some of which have excerpts reproduced (with permission) on this web site.
- Finally, if your veteran was KIA in action, please see the suggestions below at "The veteran was Killed in Action in Europe".
Once you have done your own research using the resources available on this web site, please feel free to contact us at the "super6th" e-mail address. Just remember that we are not some kind of personal research bureau and we have no access to government records and there is no master roster of everybody who served in the Division, and we can't tell you why your grandfather won his Bronze Star Medal. The best we can do is see if somebody recognizes the name and maybe (maybe) put you in touch with somebody who knew your serviceman, or maybe who can tell you a little bit about the experiences he might have had.
NOTE: the "6th Armored Division" is completely unrelated to units with similar designations like "6th Army" or "6th Armored Infantry". See the section above for more information.
So...do a little research on your own first, try to narrow down your query to something specific, and who knows? Maybe you'll find somebody who knew your father or grandfather or uncle or brother in 1944.
I know that the veteran served with the 6th Armored Division, but in the 1950s, at Fort Leonard Wood.
Sorry, but this Cold War training unit was completely unrelated to the World War II unit except in name. It was reactivated for a few years in the 1950s, and we just don't know much about it or the people who served with it. We get a couple of queries per year about it, so there is some interest out there. Hopefully, somebody who served with that unit will create a web site and serve as a contact point. But we can't help you with any info. Sorry.The veteran was Killed in Action in Europe
The American Battle Monuments Commission has placed their database on the web, so it is now possible to find the resting place of soldiers buried in Europe by visiting:
http://www.abmc.gov/search/wwii.php
These listings include unit designations, which are invaluable for further research.
We also have a rapidly-increasing amount of information on the super6th web site about 6th Armored Division casualties interred in Europe, including detailed listings and "virtual tours" for some cemeteries:
http://www.super6th.org/cemeteries
The original source of this information was based on scans of old ABMC hardcopy print-outs listing Sixers buried in the various European cemeteries. Many thanks are due to Vince Gish (25th Armored Engineer Bn.) for acquiring this information and making it available to us. These old scans are still available for historical purposes, but were are now able to provide up-to-date, contemporary information thanks to the database search mechanism that the ABMC has provided on their web site for the past several years. Thanks to this search mechanism, and thanks to digital photography, it is now possible to compile this information in new ways, and even create "virtual tours" of Sixer grave sites at the ABMC cemeteries. The listings allow you to easily plan your own visits to these grave site. The virtual tours allow you to view specific grave markers even if you are unable to travel there yourself. At the time of this writing, we currently have tours of three cemeteries completed, and will add others over time.
Also see the information above at Doing Your Own Research, for hints about how to find where your veteran was when he was KIA.
AWON
Finally, if it was your own father who was KIA, I strongly recommend that you visit the AWON (American War Orphans Network) site at:Email information
Remove the question mark and use common sense when reconstructing the email address:?super6th at verizon period net.
NOTE: If you do send us email asking about 6th AD, and we send you an answer, please have the courtesy to acknowledge the response.
Last updated: May 5, 2012
