...as wonderful as my grandfather's letters are (once we can decipher the scrawling handwriting), and they are an absolute treasure, there's only so much his letters can tell us. I mean, it's not like he could actually talk about what he was doing in Europe. From the sounds of some of his letters, he sounds like he was on a nice little international vacation.
I'll admit, even though I'm a history major, my background on military history is somewhat weak. You're only as strong as those who taught and encouraged your education, and I've never really had anyone in my life who was a huge military history lover. I've always viewed the military and its history as part of a bigger picture. It's not that I'm not interested in learning more, I have just never had a reason to. Now I do.
Looking over his letters, I realized I didn't even understand everything that was in his address line. I mean, look at this:
That looks like coding for some super secret society. I realized I didn't even know what half of it meant...
So that's where the investigating came in. For those of you with a solid background in military history, I apologize, you're going to probably be bored with this post. For the 98% of you who are not well-versed in your USMH, you better pay attention, because there's a quiz at the end!
The first thing I looked at with my research was the top line, "T-5 Archie Kumasaka". What did T-5 mean? Was that even a 5? Was it an S?
Thankfully, the internet had the answer. It was a 5, and T-5 stood for my grandfather's ranking. I hate Wikipedia (HATE IT!) but someone with too much time on their hands created a pretty awesome chart that explains where and what a T-5 ranked as during WWII:
If you'd like to see the entire article (you nerdy person you!) you can click here to have a history moment.
So to sum it up, a T-5 is a technical Fifth Grade, which is the same ranking as Corporal. They were identified by the "T" marking under their Chevron-style bars. They were also classified into the 5th grade pay scale, that's 5th from the top, 5th highest. They obviously earned the same as any Corporal would.
That led us to the next question, then (we're falling down a worm hole here)....what would a Corporal in WWII make? How much were these young men getting paid to fight for their country overseas?
Thankfully, Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly published a great report on April 24, 1944 charting how much a single or married serviceman could expect to make while overseas. Since my grandfather wasn't married at the time, I figured it's best to use the Single Man's Chart. They do not use pay grades to list the different pays in the military, so I highlighted the one my grandfather would receive:
[1]
Not too shabby, gramps! You'd be making what amounts to four thousand dollars a year after income tax, why that must be worth...well, how much would it be worth?
I'm so glad the U.S. government has put some of my tax dollars to work and found a way to provide inflation answers for me before I even realized I needed them...
[2]
Big money big money!!! He was earning overseas what most middle class people earn today. At least he was able to leave the war with a little money in his pocket, after everything was said and done.
Next I took a look at the second line of his address, "ASN 32609377". Again, Google is our best friend, because we typed that in and found that ASN stood for Army Serial Number. Makes sense, the government had to figure out a good way to take track you, not only to figure out who was where, but to determine pay, communications, just about everything.
The really interesting thing I found while I was searching for this is that you can bring up a ton of information dealing with Army Serial Numbers on the internet. Again, I'm glad the government has been forward thinking in all of this, saving me many hours of frustrated hunting. The National Archives have a fantastic search option that lets you look up anyone you may know who has a military background. An ASN is the most surefire way to get an exact hit, but they also allow you to search by name, or even place. Click here if you're curious and want to play around with the system. Be warned, there are some errors in the system that time will never help to repair: if an application form was illegible, or left blank on accident, a "#" will be placed in the answer area showing no information was able to be gathered from the form. The originals have been destroyed, which means anything we might have been able to gleam off of them today is null and void...they've gone to the great big recycling bin in the sky.
The next line is a complete jumble of letters, and it's what initially led me to start looking into this return address: "Hq Btry 863 FA Bn". Hq Btry is short for Headquarter Battery, or as we call it today, simply headquarters. You know, where you're reporting back to, and, more importantly, where your mail is going in and out of. This is important for the people who need to send letters back to him. 863 FA Bn is stating what division and group my grandfather was in. FA Bn stands for Field Artillery Battalion (more on that in another post), which lists not only what he was doing in the war, but where he was located.
To sum it up, if you were sending mail to my grandfather, you were sending it to the headquarters of the 863 Field Artillery Battalion. Wherever that happened to be on that particular day.
The last line is fairly easy, "APO 410 c/o PM N.Y. N.Y." APO is short for Army Post Office, and you were to reply to the Postmaster in New York City. Seems silly, since NYC is a few thousand miles away from France and Germany where my grandfather was stationed, but it was a way for the military to keep everything organized. You can't have my grandfather's return address reading "Paris France, north side, gonna push these Nazi's back!"
Whew! You still with me? That's a LOT of history talk right there! I hope you hung in there, because the more I dive into this, the more I want to know. I've definitely been digging up some more information, but I'll leave that for another post.
As the hunt for my grandfather's life continues, I hope this inspires you a little bit to find out more about your relatives lives. I know I'm blessed that my grandfather is still alive, that I can talk to him and ask him questions, but even if you do not have that opportunity anymore, don't let that deter you. The internet is a great tool, and you'd be amazed at what you can find with a simple search.
That's all for now, gonna take a break from my research for the evening. Have a wonderful day! Before you know it the weekend will be here.
E
Notes
[1] Army-Navy Pay Tops Most Civilian's Unmarried Private's Income Equivalent to $3,600 Salary. American Merchant Marine at War. September 4, 2013. http://www.usmm.org/barrons.html[2] CPI Inflation Calculator. US Dept of Labor. http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
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