Need some research help

[William Yeager]

Hi folks! I'm new to this forum. My father, who was with the 157th has just started to talk about the war. He asked me to attend his 63rd reunion as he could not make it. His legs just don't have it anymore. Sense he started to talk about the war and attending his reunion, it has got my interest up in just what he went through. I went to the Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pa. and got a unit history and have researched the web for all I can get. What I am doing is to make a movie for my father showing his travels from Murrysville, Pa. when he was drafted, through Camp Maxie, to England and Normandy, France, Germany and Austria. The unit history I have is real good but I need some pictures to go with it. It seens as though after the Seine river bridge, any pictorial history is non existant except for the bombing of Nurnburg and a few of the winter in the Ardeneese. What I am looking for are pictures of the cities, like Charmes, Luneville, Bitchie, Worms, Frankenthal and some of the towns he was in, in Austria. I served 7 years in the Air Force and have never seen such destruction while I was overseas in SEA in the early 70's as to what my father saw. England at one time (4 years ago) released around 5 million aerial recon photos of before and after bombing to the general public, but they have closed down the site and have moved the records to Scotland where they tell me there is now a fee for them and I need to supply a map with coordinates and all sorts of stuff. BULL!!! There has got to be a better way. So, I ask that if any of you have any town photos of the towns I have mentioned, I would really like to talk to you. Also, does anyone have a picture of the Joshua P. Lippencot that took troops from Southhampton, England to Utah beach on Normandy? I really need that ship photo.

Any help would be really appreciated as i want this to be a Christmas gift to him.

 

Thanks, Son of a vet

 

Bill

[Walt's Daughter]

I can do you one better; how about a REAL member of the 157th. A very dear friend of mine, Harold Whiting. In fact I just attended their reunion a couple of months ago. It was only a few miles from our engineer reunion in Lebanon, PA. So Harold dropped by ours on Sat and Sun, and then my daughter and I went with him, and attended the 157th's later on Sun and Mon. Great opportunity!

 

Am sending you his private information via email. Also sending four or five other names of sons and daughters. Barbara ran the reunion this year, and should be able to supply you with more veteran contacts etc.

 

As far as places, the 540th, 36th etc., were also in many of those same areas, so we may have photos to share with you too.

 

Regards,

Marion

[Walt's Daughter]

Harold's web page I assembled for him.

 

http://www.6thcorpscombatengineers.com/HaroldWhiting.htm

 

[Roy]

If I am not mistaken, the 157th was a part of the 1109th Engineer Group. If you visit the website of the 163rd Engineers, www.163rd.com they have photos of their bailey bridge that they built at Worms, Germany.

[Walt's Daughter]

Yes, that is correct. Harold's page contains a very good history of the unit.

[William Yeager]

I can do you one better; how about a REAL member of the 157th. A very dear friend of mine, Harold Whiting. In fact I just attended their reunion a couple of months ago. It was only a few miles from our engineer reunion in Lebanon, PA. So Harold dropped by ours on Sat and Sun, and then my daughter and I went with him, and attended the 157th's later on Sun and Mon. Great opportunity!

 

Am sending you his private information via email. Also sending four or five other names of sons and daughters. Barbara ran the reunion this year, and should be able to supply you with more veteran contacts etc.

 

As far as places, the 540th, 36th etc., were also in many of those same areas, so we may have photos to share with you too.

 

Regards,

Marion

 

Well Marion, you should remember me cuz I was there too! If you remember the fella with the video camera, that was me. I have been researching dads service with the 157th since then and have just about everything except a picture of the Joshua B. Lippencott which was the ship that took the unit from Southampton to Utah beach on 25 June, 1944. I have put together a movie for him outlining his journey from the home town through Austria. I found the Time Life magazine web site that had archived photos of the war. Tryiing to use the National Archives is too confusing for me. I can never get to what I am looking for. If I knew how to use their web site that would be nice. Too many drill down menu's and the use of key words must be exact. So I gave up with them. I did find a person who has a picture of that ship I mentioned and have asked him to send me a copy. I'm still wiating for it. I cant find much photo stuff after Munich. The Army War College at Carlisle really helped me alot. They had photos and a real good history with battle maps and all. So thats where I got most of my information. There was a web site in England that had all the aeiral recon photos ( 5 million of them) on line but they have taken that down and all the photos are now in Scottland and they are charging for each photo. None of them are on line. You need to supply them maps and dates and all sorts of stuff. Screw them too!!!!! There are only 3 photos that I would like. One of the ship, one of Tidworth England and one of Chipping Norton England. Any photos would be welcomed. I was awed by the death and devistation he saw. I served during Viet Nam and never saw that much.

 

Any how, I was at the Hershey reunion. So now you know who you are talking to!

 

Bill

[Walt's Daughter]

Okay, I DO know who you are now. Well it's great to have you here, and I hope we will see each other next year again. It was a real honor being able to attend, and meeting so many of the veterans from the 157th, and of course their families.

 

NARA can be flabbergasting, but you can write a letter directly to them, and ask for any unit papers on the 157th. Give them the dates in question (from time departed overseas, until the unit was sent home), giving as much detail as possible, so they can narrow the search. They will write back and tell you what they found. You can then decide what you want. It takes them approximately 3-6 weeks for an answer.

 

National Archives at College Park

8601 Adelphi Road

College Park, MD 20740-6001

 

Another SUPER source is the Army Corps of Engineers' Office of History. Simply email, call or write to them, and request any information on the 157th during WWII. I also followed that route, and in fact, it was my first and main source of information when I began my research.

 

It worked great for me!

 

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me.

 

All this is listed in my research section:

 

http://www.6thcorpscombatengineers.com/eng...hp?showtopic=23

 

Smiles,

M1