Naval officer and PT boat commander William "Bud" Liebenow passed away Friday February 24th, 2017 at age 97. It was him and his crew that rescued future President John F. Kennedy and the rest of the PT-109 survivors in 1943.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/wwii-navy-officer-who-helped-rescue-kennedy-dies-at-age/article_bd313c11-3700-5b6a-a844-953a1fc972e9.html

Thank you for your service to our country sir, rest in peace.

:36_15_54:

I subscribe to the Government Publishing Office (GPO) emails to get info on the books that they are featuring - every now and then they are WWII ones. Today's email was about engineer books since it is - apparently - Engineer Week. Who knew? Apparently, it coincides with the week of George Washington's birthday. This year it is February 19-25. The email I got sent me to "Government Book Talk" for Engineer Week. 

As for the GPO, they are the place you can buy your brand new versions of the US Army's Green Books about WWII. For Christmas, I bought the Okinawa green book (with a picture on the cover and no longer green), some posters and a few small publications. Very cool. Anyway, it's pretty easy to navigate around the book store site. The search is ok but you will get a lot of results that don't have anything to do with your search parameters. Here is a search for "Engineers World War II"

   https://bookstore.gpo.gov/search/apachesolr_search/engineer world war ii

Great place for government published books that are hard to get elsewhere.

Looking for the Green Books on PDF. . . and for free?

http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/collect/usaww2.html

Retired Lt. Gen Harold Moore has passed away Friday February 1st, 2017 at his residence in Auburn,Alabama. A Lt. Colonel at the time, Mr. Moore commanded the 1st Battalion,7th Calvary Regiment at the 1965 Battle of Ia Drang, the first major battle between US and North Vietnamese armies. This action was detailed in the book "We Were Soldiers Once... And Young". I have not read very many books about Vietnam but I have read this one and it is a great read, recommend it. I also enjoyed the movie adapted from it starring Mel Gibson as Lt.Colonel Moore.

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/lt-gen-hal-moore-dies-depicted-in-film-we-were/article_74d91bc4-bb34-5bc4-b8f6-4e90c25b9289.html

Thank for your service Mr. Moore

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PFC Edward Tipper, member of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the famed "Band of Brothers", passed away on February 1st, 2017.

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/band-of-brothers-veteran-edward-tipper-dies-in-colorado/article_3600e2ae-bdcf-58a8-a4b9-96d2dbd828cc.html

Thank you Mr. Tipper for your service

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My father-in-law is deceased and while alive did not talk much of his time served during WWII. I have been trying to piece together his life while in the Army.
I do know that they were demolition specialist and he said their focus was on blowing up bridges.

His name was Steve Szalko Jr. He entered service at Ft. Sheridan on March 28, 1944 and was honorably discharged at Ft. Sheridan on June 11, 1946. He was a demolition specialist and did serve in the European Theater. He was with the 1260th Engineers, Company B, Platoon 2.

I do have his Discharge papers and many of the photos that he took while serving. On some of the unit photos he has complete lists of those that are in the photo with him. I was hoping to find a place to share them with the families of those who had served with him but don't know if there are any web sites out there specific to the unit.

My main interest right now is learning the history of his unit - dates and route traveled and what they did along the way. If anyone could help in any way it would be greatly appreciated.