Gilles sent the following email to several of us this week and wanted to know about the engineer unit listed on the V-Mail that he found on Ebay. Well I am happy to say that Steve came up with the following info on this unit.
Marion,
First Reference Check: Dept of Army Pamphlet 672-1
"Unit Citation and Campaign Participation Credit Register" dated July 1961
66th Engineer Topographic Co. Campaigns {in no particular order }-
(1) Algiers-Morroco - 1943
(2) Naples-Foggia ground - Sept - Dec 1944
(3) North Apennines Sept - Oct? 1944
(3) Po Valley April 1945
(4) Rome-Arno - May - July 1944
(5) Sicily ground - July 1943
No other engineer unit numbered 66 is listed. Sometimes there are more that one unit with same number, which could be because it changed its identity and role.
Check Other References:
"15th Army Group", Appendix with Organization of both 5th and British 8th Armies. Nothing.
The 66th Engineer Topographic Company is a support unit that would not have been involved with front-line combat. It is more of a think-tank unit. I don't expect to see it mentioned in any of the usual unit history books.
BUT, I got an idea. I thought about checking my Maps. Each map issued by the US Army has reference info in the bottom Left Hand corner. Typically, the LH details identifies the map as prepared under the direction of the Chief of Engineers and may contain some specific info and a date it was originally drawn up. Any revision date might be in the Legend area.
However, the map could be reprinted over and over. So at the Right Hand corner of the map it will list what unit was responsible for the printing and it is marked with a print date. I checked my map collection and most are reprinted by British Royal Engineers. However, I found this on one of my special maps made for the II Corps HQ:
PHOTOLITHOGRAPHED BY 66TH ENGR. TOP. CO. U.S. ARMY, SEPT 1944.
then a little further down, printed in small black letters are:
OVERPRINT BY 66TH. ENGR. TOP. CO., US.S. ARMY, SEPTEMBER 1944.
This map was a map that was printed with the usual contours this is a redish brown color and it had additional info over-printed in BLACK that showed the jeep and mule trails in the mountains around Lioano and Livergano---the scene of the heavy fighting at and above the GOTHIC Line in the fall of 1944.
I can scan the corner of this map for your friend if you think they would be interested. Here is a link my Maps page that shows a close-up of the above described map.
Map Page: http://www.custermen.com/Maps/ArmyMaps.htm
Closeup view of Map: http://www.custermen.com/Maps/MapLoiano2.jpg
Closeup view of map with portion converted to B&W.
http://www.custermen.com/Maps/MapLoiano2.jpg
So I'm positive that this unit served in Italy and made maps for the 5th Army. That is about as good as I can do.
Steve Cole