I had a little time this afternoon and got this photo from my dad's house.

The thing is just shy of 3' long.

here is a little better shot of the whole picture. I wasn't sure how much space i was allowed when uploading images.

That turned out very nice. Thanks for taking the time to do that. I hope some others from the unit or their family members will find this post. I think they would be pleasantly surprised.

Marion, this is just total curiosity but I have read the foregoing posts and as always I like to look up in our 'bible' what the various organisations were doing in Europe. Why is it there is no mention of the 285th or the 1142nd there? In the index it goes from 284th to 286th and 1141st to 1145th.

 

Colin.

I haven't been on this forum for some time, but checked in this evening. My dad never mentioned 1142nd. What he did say was that the 285th was attached to XII Corps during the war.

I'm not sure whether this information helps or not, but I thought I would toss it out there.

I also have a book XXII Corps, Spearhead of Patton's Third Army

\

It's a treasured piece for me, now that my dad is gone.

Joe

Good to hear from you this evening. I do not have that book. Guess I will have to add that one to my collection.

Here's another link to peruse:

http://www.1142combatengineers.com/documents.htm

Notice the mention of the 285th!

My grandfather served in the 285th Engineer Combat Battalion. His name was Daniel Warchol. I'm looking to get more information about his time in the service during WWII. He passed away in June 2005 and never really talked a lot about the war (to me anyway)...I can clearly see him in the picture above (2nd of the 3 close-up pictures, 2nd row up, 3rd person from the right). If anyone knew him, i'd be so happy to know more about his time in the service!

Hi: I'm posting this letter for Dale. Looking forward to chatting with him here too. How wonderful to hear from a member of this unit. A warm, warm welcome.

Mrs. Chard,

A paragraph about myself. I was in 285th Engineer © Battalion. I

joined the 285th in Camp Crowder. At the time I joined the 285th we were

only occupying one barracks. There were only cadre. The day I entered

the unit a Tec/Sgt was latrine orderly.

 

I give this information to show how few men were in the outfit, they were

only waiting for fillers to start training to be Combat Engineers.

Before we ever got to the ETO we had 2 as I remember or maybe three

battalion commanding officers relieved of their command for inefficiency.

The only time I was not with the 285th was 13 weeks I spent in Ft.

Belvoir radio school. I was with the 285th until it was redeployed to

the US. I did not have enough points to return with them and was

transferred to the 4th Armored Division at that time.

 

About 1975 I got a mailing asking if I would be interested in a reunion of

the 285th and of course I replied that I would be interested and would

attend any reunion. The first reunion was in 1976(I think). After

several years of reunions I became part of the reunion organizers and

organized and attended reunions until several years ago when only 3 vets

showed an interest in attending. I cancelled the reunion, for 4

attendees hotels would not give reunion rates.

 

I have a list of all the 285th vets that were located. I looked at the

forum and the questions about 285th vets are about men we could not

locate, with the exception of Capt. Joe Mioux. Capt. Mioux attended a

number of the reunions and I have been in contact with his son.

I hope this explains I have no interest in spamming. I would like to

contact others looking for information. Unhappily I have only a few

mementos of the 285th but I have the original list of the men that were

located. The list is quite old and probably outdated by now and there

are more passed away than there are still living.

 

I live in the St. Louis, MO area and I am always interested in finding

more information about anyone that had been in the 285th and maybe even

getting old comrades together.

 

Dale Diller

 

Another email....

Mrs. Chard,

If you know of anyone that was in B Co. of the 285th I have a picture

taken in Camp Campbell Kentucky showing all of B Co.

I also have a battle map showing our route arriving in England and across

France, Luxembourg, Germany and into Austria, Hungary and

Czechoslovakia.

 

Dale Diller

 

Just wanted to extend a warm welcome to Nicole (nayers) too. It's nice to have you here.

I know this is kind of an old thread but I thought that I'd mention that the 285th is mentioned in the Battle of the Bulge book:

http://books.google.com/books?id=fldMWJ6Kwg8C&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=285th+combat+engineers&source=bl&ots=JQLznD2_C8&sig=yFX7LSMMkKNb-WwjHhajLWw5ZjQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eoSTUrTVAYu-kQfJ8ICAAg&ved=0CHgQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=285th%20combat%20engineers&f=false

I also have a few documents posted on the 284th's website that talks about the 284th and the 285th when they were assigned to the 2nd Cav as Infantry (see Thesis document Patton's Iron Cavalry - The Impact of the Mechanized Cavarly on the U.S. Third Army) and their work at Skyline drive (General Patton's book: The War as I Knew It pages: 226-227)

http://284thcombatengineers.com/documents/index.cfm