Years ago when I paid a private researcher to obtain copies of the archived records for the 540th, I also wound up with a couple hundred duplicate copies which are laying around the house. So... if anyone is interested, I would be happy to mail these to you under one condition - you pay for the postage. These are various records that you would have to recompile (sort), but I'm most happy to share. Please let me know. First come, first serve.
Excited. Presents were left on my porch this morning from my buddy John Priest, and member of the 1277th Engineers of WWII. He made me a full-sized map, gave me a book called Retracing the Steps of the 1277th, which chronicles his return to Europe to retrace his army steps, and finally a book on the unit, itself. So much to peruse. I will take pics later to share. And oh ya, brought me some homemade honey. How sweet! Love ya John.
Here's the link to the blog regarding John's revisit to trace his steps during the war.
My Grandfather had an old picture of this unit that we found after he passed. On the bottom of the picture are the names of the soldiers in the unit. Unfortunately, there's no date or mention of what unit this is. His discharge lists, "H & S Co. 257th Engr Combat Bn" as the last unit he was in. According to him, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, then was transferred to the infantry, then transferred to the combat engineers. I'm assuming it was taken after basic training, but cannot confirm.
Maybe someone will recognize one of the names in here and have more context!
