My grandpa was in the 80th Infantry Division in Patton's 3rd Army, 3rd
Platoon of Company C in 317th Regiment of the 80th Infantry Division.
I cant find any info. on the unit or who was in it! I want to get in
contact with someone who knew him.

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Clarification of Question by thetexan-ga on 09 Jul 2003 21:17 PDT

his name was Oscar Ray Griffin and he was an Infantryman and a Combat
Medic from 1943 to 1945

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Request for Question Clarification by byrd-ga on 10 Jul 2003 11:57 PDT

You state you haven’t been able to find any information about your
grandfather’s unit from WWII.  I’m not sure whether you mean just his
company or the 3rd Army itself and subordinate units including the
80th ID, but in case you’ve come up totally empty handed,  I’m happy
to tell you I have been able to locate quite a bit of information
about Patton’s Third Army, the history of the 80th Infantry Division
(Blue Ridge Division), and a little  about the 317th Inf. Regiment,
though unfortunately nothing about Company “C” specifically, nor the
names of people who knew or might have known your grandfather.

Since I couldn’t fully answer your question, I’m posting what I found
here instead of as an official answer in case some other Researcher
might have better luck.  However,  if not and you’d like to accept
this information as an answer, I’ll be glad to post it as such.  I’ve
also listed links to a few sites where you might search existing
messages and postings, and also send or post a query(ies) of your own
looking for information about your grandpa.

Patton’s Third Army:
http://www.arcent.army.mil/history/pattons.asp
http://www.pattonhq.com/textfiles/thirdhst.html 
http://www.firstgov.gov/fgsearch/index.jsp?nr=10&mt0=null&ms0=should&mw0=%22third+army%22&in0=domain&dom0=www.army.mil%2Fcmh-pg%2F&submit=Submit&db=www&st=AS&rn=37&parsed=true
http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=384

80th Infantry Division:
http://www.afn.org/~aadkins/80th/
http://www.firstgov.gov/fgsearch/index.jsp?nr=10&mt0=null&ms0=should&mw0=%2280th+infantry+division%22&in0=domain&dom0=www.army.mil%2Fcmh-pg%2F&submit=Submit&db=www&st=AS&rn=37&parsed=true
http://www.grunts.net/army/80thid.html
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/eto-ob/80ID-ETO.htm
http://www.thedigitalbookshelf.com/division_80.htm 

317th Infantry Regiment (80th ID):
http://www.geocities.com/wwii317/

Here are some internet services and/or bulletin boards where one may
read and/or post messages either looking for or giving information:
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/1inquiries.html
http://www.military.com/HomePage/UnitCreatedPage/0,11003,100051,00.html
http://www.vets-internet.com/

You might like to search for your grandfather’s Army records.  They
would be located at the National Personnel Records Center in Missouri,
here, where they have information on:
Officers separated after June 29, 1917
Enlisted personnel separated after October 31, 1912
Note: Many records were destroyed by fire in the St. Louis Center in
1973.
The link is:  http://www.archives.gov/research_room/obtain_copies/veterans_service_records.html
 Scroll down the page for further links and instructions.

To continue searching on your own, you might try using these search
terms:
“third army” OR “3rd army” OR “patton’s third army”
“80th ID” OR “80th Infantry Division”
“317th Infantry Regiment” OR “317th Infantry” OR “317th Inf”
You can also try various combinations of the above together, though I
should mention I didn’t have any luck including “Co. C” or “Company C”
or similar, nor using that term alone.  There are just too many units
that have a “C Co” that the returns were in the many thousands. 
However, if you have the time to sift through them, you might have
better luck.

Best wishes to you in your search,
--Byrd

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Clarification of Question by thetexan-ga on 10 Jul 2003 12:52 PDT

Byrd, thanx for your help. If you can please tell me what you need to
bew clarified i might be able to help you out.

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Request for Question Clarification by byrd-ga on 10 Jul 2003 14:23 PDT

Hi "thetexan," 

I don't really need any clarification; I just posted the information I
found in this section so you would receive the notification.  I could
have posted it as a comment, but you wouldn't have received email
notice of that.  You'd likely still have seen it, of course, but I
thought you might like to have it sooner in case you weren't keeping a
close eye on your question.  As I said, I wasn't able to find an exact
answer, so I left the question open in case another Researcher could.

Best wishes,
Byrd

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Clarification of Question by thetexan-ga on 11 Jul 2003 18:25 PDT

hey byrd, this isnt exactly the answer i wanted but, u got me
something so u deserve the money. feel free to collect it. bye.

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Request for Question Clarification by byrd-ga on 11 Jul 2003 19:03 PDT

Dear thetexan-ga,

That's mighty generous of you.  Tell you what.  Let's leave the
question open over the weekend, and if no one (including me - I'll
look a bit more too) has come up with anything more definite by, say,
Monday night, I'll go ahead and claim the money.  If anyone thinks
they're on the trail and so indicates that, I'll back off.

Thanks again, and I wish you the best - it can certainly be both
fascinating and frustrating to run down these family mysteries!

Regards,
--Byrd

Hello thetexan,

It would seem that information about your grandfather hasn't been any
easier for anyone else to find, rather as I expected. Part of the
reason for this is that information about military servicemen/women in
any war from any branch of service just isn't publicly available to
anyone who wants it.  Much unit information, including and especially
personnel records, etc. is only available to the person directly
connected to it, or if that person is deceased, to the next available
kin.  In your case, that might be you, or your parent(s) or another
relative.

So, as you graciously offered, I'll claim the fee for this question,
having provided you with what I believe to be the best currently
available general public links to information about your grandfather's
unit, and about where to inquire further.  I'll also give you this
additional link, which has some very good and quite comprehensive
advice about how to locate information about someone's military
service, as well as how to go about finding "someone who knew
someone."

http://www.militaria.com/8th/finding.html

I will keep your question in mind as I'm online, and should I come
across anything else I think might be of use to you, I'll post it as a
clarification.  Thank you again, and best of luck.

Regards,
--Byrd

http://www.militaria.com/8th/finding.html

He did a good job with what little info. I had at the time and that is
what counts in my book. He well deserved the money!