297th Engineers

[Walt's Daughter]

Smile for the camera

[Walt's Daughter]

Generations share

[Walt's Daughter]

Several weeks ago my friend Allison who lives here in town lent me a book that belonged to her father. At the time I didn't realize that it was the SAME battalion. Yes, the 297th! When did I realize this? This morning!

 

I woke up earlier and was going through some things in my office and realized that I still had Allison's book in my possession. Oh know I thought, I should scan some of the pages and get this back to her. So I placed the book on my desk and read the cover again, 297th Engineer Combat Battalion. Wait I thought, don't I already have some info on this unit, and performed a search on our forum. Well duh! I sure do!!

 

With everything going on and the overload of so much info on the site and the forum, I never put two and two together! Mari and Mary I can't wait to tell Allison and her brother about both of you and the upcoming reunion this summer. I wrote a note to Allison this morning with the references to the 297th here on our forum. Wow, this is exciting!

 

Anyway the book called Bridging Europe is a real treasure, and contains some of the best bridge photos I've ever seen. I will try and scan a few for our site, but the book is really deteriorating, and I'm afraid to bend back the cover since it doesn't belong to me.

 

Small world huh? Unbelievable.

[Walt's Daughter]

Since the book is in rough condition, I've decided not to bend the spline and try and scan some of the pages, however, I remembered that within the pages was an envelope with a letter and some photos from the war. So I will scan those today and upload them to the site later. This is very cool.

 

 

Oh her father's name was Albert Hutchings. His address back then was 17190 Strasbur, Detroit, Mich.

[Walt's Daughter]

The letter. Note that there is a typo in the letter because it says 287th, when it should have been 297th!

297th_Letter001.pdf

[Walt's Daughter]

German keepsake that her dad brought home

[Walt's Daughter]

Two photos taken in Germany. On the back of the concentration camp photo it stated:

 

This is a picture of a concentration camp at Nordhausen, Germany. The bodies are that of French, Polish & Russian slave labor. A few days after this picture was taken, the US Army drafted (that word was UNDERLINED) male civilians to dig graves & bury them. There was approximately 3,000 bodies here.

 

The odor was terrible.

[Walt's Daughter]

Photo 1 of 2 says:

 

This sign was the approach to the floating treadway bridge we built across the Rhine River. Notice all the equipment listed necessary to build the bridge. There it says, "Built by Jack Rabbit." Jack Rabbit was our code sign. "C" Co. is known as Jack Rabbit Charlie.

[Walt's Daughter]

Photo 2 of 2:

 

This is the bridge itself taken from the Berlin side of the river. We worked almost 24 hrs continuously on it, being relieved for about 5 hours.

 

What do you think of it?

[Walt's Daughter]

Nothing written on the back of this photo. Have to ask Allison if this is her dad.