Here is a little holiday gift for our friends and veterans of the VI Corps Engineers. (I don’t know if this is new information for most of you, or not, but thought to share it just in case.)
Seventh Army Operations Instructions 24 November 1944
Number 19
Effective 0600A, 25 November 1944, the units listed below will be prepared to move on six (6) hours notice to an area or areas designated by CG VI Corps:
540th Engr Regt © with the following attached units:
85th Engr Bn (Hvy Ponton)
424 Engr Dump Truck Co
Co “A”, 84th Engr Bn (Cam)(-Det)
69th Chem Smoke Gen Co
40th Engr Regt ©, with the following attached units:
1553rd Engr Bn (Hvy Ponton)
Co “D”, 378th Engr Bn (Sep)(DT)
78th Chem Smoke Gen Co
Det, Co “A”, 84th Engr Bn (Cam)
Hqs & Hqs Det, 147th QM Bn (Mb1) with the following attached units:
829 Amphibious Trk Co
830 Amphibious Trk Co
831 Amphibious Trk Co
832 Amphibious Trk Co
3340 QM Trk Co (DUKW)
Looks like these guys were getting ready to go somewhere. The date coincides with 6th Army Groups plans for VI Corps to cross the Rhine north of Strasbourg. Too bad Eisenhower stopped them since it is readily apparent that the German offensives in the Ardennes and Alsace would have been short-circuited by an entire American army group
conducting a major offensive into the German heartland.
Jim