Staff Sergeant (S/Sgt) · Company A, 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division
Army · Service no. 33 539 178
Service Number
33 539 178
Rank
Staff Sergeant (S/Sgt)
Combat Unit
Company A, 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion, 7th Armored Division
Theater
European Theater of Operations (ETO)
This timeline reconstructs Joseph's World War II service from the
Army enlistment record and the Morning Reports, orders, hospital registers and unit records held by the National Archives, searched
by service number. Each entry cites its source; items marked
Newly discovered were recovered from the records.
Map of Service
Route reconstructed from confirmed locations.
Service stops
Charlottesville, Va.enlisted 22 Jan 1943
Camp Howze, Tex.Co H, 343rd Infantry, 1943
Louisianamaneuvers and Camp Livingston, 1943-44
Fort Meade, Md.replacement depot, Aug-Sep 1944
St. Vith, BelgiumCo A, 23rd Armored Inf. Bn., Dec 1944
Liège, Belgium56th General Hospital, 22 Dec 1944
Paris, France108th General Hospital, 29 Dec 1944
Route notes
1 → 2Training, 1943
2 → 3With the 86th Division, late 1943
3 → 4Sent as a replacement, Aug 1944
4 → 5Overseas through replacement depots, Oct-Nov 1944
5 → 6Evacuated wounded, 22 Dec 1944
6 → 733rd Hospital Train, 28 Dec 1944
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How to read this service timeline
This page brings together records created for different purposes. The labels below tell you what kind of evidence supports each entry; open either guide when a record or military term is unfamiliar.
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Confirmed — Service record
A personal military record supports the entry.
Confirmed — Unit record
A record created by his unit names him or documents the unit’s activity.
Context / in progress
Helpful background, clearly separated from personal evidence.
Newly discovered
Information recovered during this research, rather than supplied at the start.
How to read a Morning Report
Morning Reports were daily administrative records prepared by individual Army and Army Air Forces units. They generally recorded changes—such as arrivals, transfers, promotions, illness, or return to duty—not a complete list of everyone present.
MORNING REPORT · SAMPLE
1Organization Company A, 123rd Infantry
2Station or location Camp Example, Virginia
3Date 14 September 1944
4Section Personnel changes
5Pvt Smith, John A., 35123456 6asgd fr Hq Co per SO 187, Hq 123d Inf
In plain English
Private John A. Smith, identified by Army Serial Number 35123456, was assigned to Company A from Headquarters Company under Special Orders No. 187.
1Organization: the company, hospital, squadron, or other unit filing the report.
2Station or location: where that unit reported from on that date.
3Report date: the date of the report, which may differ from the effective date of a change.
4Section: the part of the form containing personnel changes or the unit’s record of events.
5Soldier entry: usually rank, name, and Army Serial Number.
6Change and authority: what happened and the order authorizing it.
asgd
assigned
atchd
attached
trfd
transferred
fr
from
aptd
appointed
EM
enlisted men
SO
Special Orders
GO
General Orders
orgn
organization
sta
station
Common military and research terms
Army Serial Number (ASN)
The unique service number used to distinguish one soldier from others with similar names.
Discharge or separation paper
The document issued when a service member left active service. For many WWII Army enlisted soldiers, this is WD AGO Form 53-55. It summarizes service but is not a day-by-day history.
Morning Report
An Army unit’s daily administrative report. It usually lists people whose status changed, not every person in the unit.
Unit record
A document created by a military organization. It may name the soldier directly or provide context about his unit; the timeline states which applies.
OMPF or “201 file”
The service member’s Official Military Personnel File. Many Army and Air Force files were damaged or destroyed in the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire.
Unit and final unit
A unit is the organization in which someone served. The final unit is the organization shown at separation; it may not be the only unit in the service history.
Rank or grade
The service member’s level in the military hierarchy. A timeline may show changes in rank over time.
MOS
Military Occupational Specialty—the Army’s classification for a soldier’s primary military job.
Assigned and attached
Assigned means formally placed in a unit. Attached usually means serving with a unit temporarily while belonging administratively elsewhere.
Special Orders and General Orders
Official directives used to authorize personnel actions, awards, organizational changes, and other decisions.
Campaign credit
Official recognition for service connected with a named campaign. It does not, by itself, describe a service member’s individual actions.
Station or location
The place from which a unit filed a report. It does not automatically prove that every member was physically present there.
Source citation
The note beneath a timeline entry identifying the record or records that support it.
Service Timeline
10 min
Confirmed — Record
August 20, 1923
Born in Gangi, Sicily
Joseph Anthony Seminara was born in Gangi, a town in the province of Palermo, Sicily. His Social Security application of August 1939 names his parents as Anthony Seminara and Concetta Rinaldi. His father's 1980 death notice gives the father's name as Antonino, the Sicilian form of Anthony, and lists Joseph among his sons.
On 30 June 1942, eighteen-year-old Joseph Anthony Seminara registered for the draft with Local Board No. 2 at the Arlington County Court House. He gave his home as 1531 N. 18th St., Arlington, Virginia, and his birthplace as Gangi, Sicily. He named his father, Antonio Seminara of 112 E St. N.W., Washington, D.C., as the man who would always know his address. The registrar described him as 5 feet 4 inches and 135 pounds, with brown eyes, brown hair and a dark complexion.
He worked for John McShain, 701 Columbia Pike, and wrote his place of work as War Dept., Columbia Pike. McShain's firm was the main contractor on the Pentagon, the War Department's new headquarters, which crews were building beside Columbia Pike that year. Joseph was most likely one of those workers. Seven months later he entered the Army at Charlottesville. Newly discovered.The number 342 on the card is his draft registration serial, not his Army serial number. Background source: Encyclopedia Virginia, The Pentagon.
His draft card: 1531 N. 18th St., Arlington, and his employer, John McShain.The registrar's report: Local Board No. 2, Arlington County, 30 June 1942.
The Army's wartime enlistment list shows Joseph A. Seminara entering the Army on this day at Charlottesville, Virginia, with Army serial number 33 539 178. The Veterans Administration's index gives the same date for the start of his service. We found every Army document in this timeline by searching for that number.
Company H of the 343rd Infantry Regiment filed its morning report at Camp Howze, Texas. Beside his name and serial number the clerk typed Pmtd to grade of Sgt. eff 2 Nov 43: he had been promoted to Sergeant on 2 November 1943, about nine months after entering the Army. The 343rd was part of the 86th Infantry Division. Newly discovered.
His line in the Camp Howze morning report, 6 November 1943. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Company H, 343rd Infantry Regiment — NARA Roll 355, image 1796 (6 November 1943)
Confirmed — Unit record
December 28, 1943
Louisiana, training in the field
The company reported from APO 450, the field post office in care of the Postmaster at Shreveport, Louisiana, where the division was training in the field. Seminara appears as a Sergeant, and again in the company's report of 9 January 1944. By spring the regiment was at Camp Livingston, Louisiana. Its morning report of 24 May 1944 lists him, by then a Staff Sergeant, going on eleven days' furlough.
APO 450, Shreveport, Louisiana, 28 December 1943. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.APO 450, Shreveport, Louisiana, 9 January 1944. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.Camp Livingston, 24 May 1944: eleven days' furlough. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Company H, 343rd Infantry Regiment — NARA Roll 227, image 2639 (28 December 1943); Morning Report — 343rd Infantry Regiment — NARA Roll 246, image 2225 (9 January 1944); Morning Report — Company H, 343rd Infantry Regiment — NARA Roll 142, image 2938 (24 May 1944)
Confirmed — Unit record
August 9, 1944
Pulled out of the regiment
At Camp Livingston the clerk wrote him out of the company: Seminara Joseph A, 33539178, S Sgt, Dy to DS enroute AGF Replacement Depot No 1 Ft Geo G Meade Md. Three days later a second entry relieved him from assignment and transferred him out for good. He would go overseas on his own as a replacement, a soldier sent to fill a gap in a unit already fighting.
9 August 1944: ordered to the replacement depot at Fort Meade. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.12 August 1944: relieved from assignment and transferred. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Company H, 343rd Infantry — NARA Roll 241, image 1531 (9 and 12 August 1944)
Confirmed — Unit record
September 23, 1944
Fort George G. Meade, Maryland
A roster of Company A, 13th Battalion, Fourth Replacement Regiment at AGF Replacement Depot No. 1 carries his name and serial number. A replacement depot was a holding and processing camp where soldiers waited to be sent where they were needed. A second sheet from the same depot puts him on an outgoing transport list. It is the last document placing him in the United States before he went overseas.
Fort Meade replacement roster, 23 September 1944. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The battalion attachment list: SEMINARA JOSEPH A, 33539178, S/Sgt, 652. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The outgoing transport list, his name second. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Co A, 13th Bn, 4th Replacement Regiment (Inf) — NARA Roll 335, image 451 (23 September 1944); Morning Report — Attachment list, Co A, 13th Bn — NARA Roll 299, image 376 (August 1944); Morning Report — Outgoing transport, alternate list no. 2 — NARA Roll 335, image 615 (September 1944)
Confirmed — Unit record
October 6, 1944
Across the Atlantic, into the replacement stream
He crossed the Atlantic with Replacement Detachment X136D, whose embarkation roster lists him as line 155. Overseas, Special Order 213 of the 16th Replacement Depot shows him reporting in on 6 October 1944 and joining the 220th Replacement Company. A month of replacement depots followed. On 6 November the 14th Replacement Depot listed him again, ninety-third on a roster of infantry heavy-weapons sergeants waiting for an assignment.
Special Order 213, 16th Replacement Depot, 6 October 1944. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.Embarkation roster, Replacement Detachment X136D: line 155. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.14th Replacement Depot, 6 November 1944, entry 93. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — HQ 16th Replacement Depot, SO 213 — NARA Roll 606, image 630 (6 October 1944); Morning Report — Embarkation personnel roster, Repl Det X136D — NARA Roll 605, image 641 (October 1944); Morning Report — HQ 14th Replacement Depot, ETOUSA, SO 200 par 15 — NARA Roll 560, image 964 (6 November 1944)
Confirmed — Unit record
November 9, 1944
Assigned to the 7th Armored Division
Special Order 258 of the 18th Replacement Depot sent a list of infantry replacements, Staff Sergeant Seminara among them, to the 7th Armored Division. The division placed him in Company A of the 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion, the unit named beside him in the December hospital registers. Armored infantrymen fought alongside the division's tanks and rode into action in half-tracks. The division was then resting in the southern Netherlands and taking in replacements; the fighting at St. Vith in December was most likely his first time in combat. Newly discovered.Background source: 7th Armored Division After Action Report, November 1944.
Special Order 258: transferred in grade to the 7th Armored Division. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — HQ 18th Replacement Depot, APO 872, SO 258 — NARA Roll 559, image 81 (9 November 1944)
Context / in progress
December 16, 1944
The German offensive opens in the Ardennes
On 16 December 1944 Germany launched a surprise attack through the Ardennes forest, the start of what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. The 7th Armored Division was rushed south to St. Vith, Belgium, a town where several key roads met, and held it for six days against much larger German forces. From 18 December Companies A and B of the 23rd Armored Infantry Battalion held a line in the woods east of the town. On the evening of 21 December German attacks broke through that line, and St. Vith fell that night. This card describes his division and battalion. The official histories cited here do not name individual soldiers.
The 56th General Hospital at Liège, Belgium, admitted him in the 24 hours ending at midnight on 22 December, as patient 2774: Seminara, Joseph (BC) 33539178 S/Sgt Co A 23rd Armd Inf APO 257. The letters BC are the register's mark for a battle casualty, a man wounded in action. He was most likely wounded on 21 or 22 December, when the German attack broke his company's line east of St. Vith and the men fell back through the night. Newly discovered.Background source: U.S. National Library of Medicine photograph, 56th General Hospital, Liège.
The admissions sheet: patient 2774, Co A, 23rd Armored Infantry. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The register header that dates the sheet. The yellow is ours — it marks the date of the register.
Source: Morning Report — 56th General Hospital, APO 350, admissions register dated 23 Dec 1944 covering the 24 hours ending 2400 hrs 22 Dec 1944 (header at image 1285) — NARA Roll 767, image 1290 (22 December 1944)
Confirmed — Unit record
December 25, 1944
Reported missing in action, while lying in a hospital
On Christmas Day Company A filed its morning report from St. Antoine, Belgium, having moved fr near St Vith, Belgium that day. Ninety-eight of its enlisted men, Seminara last on the alphabetical list, were carried fr dy to MIA 22 Dec 44: changed from duty to missing in action on 22 December. The account of the officer who took command of the company on 21 December describes that night: cut off east of St. Vith, about 45 men fought their way out after midnight, and many of the rest were captured. The company amended the entry on 30 December and still listed him as missing.
He was not missing. The 56th General Hospital had admitted him as a battle casualty on 22 December, the same day. Both sets of records are honest. In the confusion of the withdrawal his company did not know he had been evacuated.
25 December 1944: his name, then "above 98 EM fr dy to MIA 22 Dec 44". The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.30 December 1944 at Hamoir: the company corrects the entry, still MIA. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.
Source: Morning Report — Co. "A", 23d Armd Inf Bn, station St Antoine, Belgium — NARA Roll 382, image 118 (25 December 1944); Morning Report — Co. "A", 23d Armd Inf Bn, station Hamoir, Belgium — NARA Roll 382, image 124 (30 December 1944)
Confirmed — Unit record
December 29, 1944
Evacuated to the 108th General Hospital in Paris
The 56th General Hospital sent him out on 28 December aboard the 33rd Hospital Train. The next day the 108th (U.S.) General Hospital, in the Hôpital Beaujon at Clichy on the edge of Paris, admitted him. Its register gives his unit as 23 AIB (23rd Armored Infantry Battalion), marks him again as a battle casualty, and gives his condition as Mod, moderate. The diagnosis reads FCC, thigh lt: a compound fracture of the left thigh, meaning the bone was broken and the skin wounded over it. His Army hospital admission card, filed under his serial number, names the cause: artillery shell fragments, striking the shaft of the femur, the thigh bone. Newly discovered.Background sources: Loyola University Chicago, the 108th General Hospital at the Hôpital Beaujon; WWII Hospital Admission Card Files (National Archives), index entry for serial number 33539178, via Fold3.
Line 30207: Seminara, Joseph A, BC, 33539178, S/Sgt, 23 AIB. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.28 December 1944: sent out on the 33rd Hospital Train. The yellow is ours — it marks his name and service number on the sheet.The 56th General Hospital register header that dates the transfer.
Source: Morning Report — 108th (U.S.) General Hospital, HQ COM Z ETOUSA, APO 887, Admissions for 29 Dec 44, register line 30207 — NARA Roll 775, image 2327 (29 December 1944); Morning Report — 56th General Hospital, dispositions, register dated 29 Dec 1944 (header at image 1365) — NARA Roll 767, image 1366 (28 December 1944)
Confirmed — Service record
November 1, 1945
Released from active service
The Army released Staff Sergeant Seminara from active service on 1 November 1945, two years and nine months after he entered it at Charlottesville. His Army hospital admission card ends with his discharge from the Army under Army Regulation 615-360. It records no return to duty. The release date comes from the Veterans Administration's index of veterans. The National Archives has not put the Army's 1945 daily unit reports online, so the documents in this timeline end with the December 1944 hospital registers.
Laid to rest at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
Joseph Anthony Seminara died in San Antonio, Texas, on 29 December 1999, at the age of 76. The San Antonio Express-News published his death notice on 2 January 2000. He is buried in Section 26 of Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, and his wife Beryle, who died in 2016, rests with him. His government headstone reads:
JOSEPH A SEMINARA · SSGT · US ARMY · WORLD WAR II · AUG 20 1923 · DEC 29 1999 · PURPLE HEART · BELOVED HUBBY
The rank on the stone matches the rank his 1944 morning reports give him. The Purple Heart is the medal awarded for a wound received in action; the hospital registers in this timeline document his battle wound of December 1944.
Source: Find A Grave memorial #1169152 (headstone); VA Gravesite Locator, Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, Section 26, Site 1274; Obituary Daily Times index ("SEMINARA, Joseph Anthony; 76; San Antonio TX; San Antonio E-N; 2000-1-2")
