Unit help

[sandy2hall]

I hope someone can help. I'm trying to find what unit, company, ect.
my grandfather was in. No one seems to know. I tried to get his
records but they were distroyed in the fire. What i do know is he was
from Alabama very close to Fort Rucker. He recieved the European-African-Middle Eastern Theater medal. That's been lost. Anyone have any idea's?

Thanks,
Sandy

[Slipdigit]

Do you have anything else on him, old memorbilia, pictures that show unit patches etc? The info you've given is very sparse.

Was he at Rucker or did he grow up there?

[sandy2hall]

You know after i posted this i got to remembering i had two
old postcards that he had saved so i dug them out and on the
back it has his name and where he was. This is what it says.

AAF.BU.sqdn.G. 42nd Gunter ALA. US Army

AAF means airforce base right? I don't know what BU means.

Does all this means he was a fighter pilot? I never remember hearing this.

If anyone as any good info on this unit i'd love to know.

Thanks,
Sandy

[sandy2hall]

Here is a picture of him, left side, girl is Ruth Owen, (don't know who her or him) Warren Owen to the right.

[von Poop]

AAFBU = Army Air Force Base Unit.
Responsible for the day to day smooth running of the base.

Wrong airfield due to typo... I'll leave it here anyway but it's not pertinent to sandy's grandad... Gunter not hunter .
And I've found a little on Hunter airfield but the air war's not really my thing so I'm not convinced I'm looking in the right place, (seems to be in Georgia rather than Alabama??) If it is the right place the name change and 'hunter' on the card could (taking into account people call things what they will regardless of officialdom) indicate at least the latest date the picture was taken on:

Washington gave the Army Air Corps approval to build a base at Hunter on August 30, 1940. The Third and 27th Bombardment Groups and the 35th Air Base Group with 2,700 soldiers from Barksdale Field, Louisiana, were the first tenants. Official dedication of the base, renamed Savannah Air Base, took place February 19, 1941.
The base was an operational training unit for several years. B-10s, B-18s and B-23s gave way to A-20s, P-38s and P-40s as the air arm of the nation matured. It later became a final staging base for B-17 crews on their way to the European Theater of Operations. The Army’s Eighth Air Force was activated at Savannah Air Base during that period.
http://www.stewart.army.mil/ima/sites/haaf/history-haaf.asp

Cheers, (and welcome Sandy!)
Adam.

[sandy2hall]

Thanks for the welcome Adam.

I'm sorry i miss spelled Hunter Field. I meant Gunter Field Ala.

I'm on a roll. I just found in an old box that had pictures a copy of a certificate of merit.
It has 698th Field Artillery Battalion.

I'm so curious to know what it was like for him. I know he never talked about it. Once i asked him when i was a teen but my grandmother cut in and said don't ask.

[von Poop]

Aha, I'll delete that irrelevant stuff on 'hunter' then.

Googling "gunter field" (with those all important quotation marks turns up quite a lot of stuff.

[Slipdigit]

Interesting you should mention Gunter Field. That is where I work. It is part of Maxwell AFB now, you can find information by googling either name. My office could very well be in a tower attached to one of the hangars he may have worked in or out of.

Gunter trained bombers, mainly B-24s.


edit---oops I goofed. Gunter did primary flight training with the the bomber training over at Maxwell. The two bases (now one) are about 10-12 miles apart.

Here's a wikipedia article on Gunter.