OPERATIONAL DOCUMENTS

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UNIT HISTORIES

Operational documents include Division and regimental monthly narratives, or "periodic reports," which provide a comprehensive overview of combat during the months of November 1944 through May 1945 for the Division as a whole and for each of the infantry regiments and DIVARTY; sometimes, these documents are referred to as After Action Reports, or "AARs."

Unit Histories are narrative reports of unit activities during specified periods.

The G-3 Journals (for the Division and for DIVARTY) and the unit S-3 Journals provide a minute - by - minute account of action as reported to the recording headquarters. These are some of the most useful of all documents, as they provide an accurate record of exactly which events were reported and when.

Many operations (and also intelligence) reports include hard-copy overlays depicting friendly operations and often, nearby enemy activities and even engineer obstacle plans (minefields, roadblocks. abatis, etc.) as well. These overlays are always keyed to topographical maps (at Division level, mostly 1:100.000 or 1:50,000; at regimental/DIVARTY level, mostly 1:50,000 or 1:25,000), so for optimal utility, researchers need copies of the original maps.

WARNING: Modern maps, available through better map supply stores (or, for active duty military researchers on official business, through the Engineer map service), not only contain a lot of man-made features that were not there during WWII, but also use a grid system that is completely incompatible with the grid system used in WWII -- grid coordinates are therefore not interchangeable. However, even if researchers cannot come up with original topographical maps, the overlays can often be roughly oriented on well-defined, unchanging geographical features (such as major towns, mountain peaks, etc.) that are still portrayed on modern maps; using a few known points, the truly resourceful and industrious researcher can fairly accurately recreate the original grid system using this technique.

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