Special Orders, 1942–1946
Orders recording personnel actions across the 306th Bomb Group, Station 111 and the squadrons — arrivals, assignments, promotions, reductions, leave, transfers and departures — including the July and August 1942 movement orders that sent the Group from Wendover, Utah to England.
About these orders
Some of these documents still carry their wartime classification markings. All of them have since been declassified.
Special Orders were the Army Air Forces’ record of personnel actions. Each one names the men it concerns by name and serial number, which is what makes the collection so useful to families tracing a relative: over the course of the war, virtually everyone who served with the 306th Bombardment Group and its supporting ground echelon is named somewhere in these orders.
Typical entries record arrivals at the unit and the assignments that followed, promotions and reductions in rank, leaves of absence, transfers out for special training or on completion of a tour of duty, and departures from the unit.
Orders were issued at three levels of command, and the letterhead tells you which. The Commanding Officer of the 306th Bombardment Group was also Commanding Officer of Army Air Force Station 111, so he issued orders under both headings. At group and station level they appeared virtually daily and were numbered sequentially through each year. Squadron-level orders were far fewer, used mainly to appoint flight commanders, squadron bombardiers and navigators.
Of particular interest are the special and movement orders of July and August 1942, which sent the 306th Bombardment Group on its way from Wendover, Utah to England.
Russell Strong gathered copies of more than 770 special orders at all levels of command. This collection is drawn from that work.