World War II's Army Eng Fire Fighting Platoons

[chefjuke]

Hi all,

 

My father, William Henry Mackey, Jr. (deceased) was a member of the 1222nd Engineer Fire Fighting Platoon originally based at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. I am trying to find any information related to this platoon, but between the lack of historians noting these small platoons as Jim noted and the personnel records fire in 1973 that destroyed many military records including my Father’s, I haven’t been able to find much.

 

I've also had some trouble just figuring out where they fit in the Order of Battle. I know my Dad was stationed in Wrangaton, Devon, England prior to D-DAY and then spent the rest of the war from D-Day +3 on, in France (mainly from all of the letters he received from friends he made there), but beyond that, have very little to go on.

 

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. My wife and I are taking our first trip to France this fall and will be visiting Paris and Normandy. I am hoping to visit at least some of the places my Dad did 69 years ago.

 

Sincerely,

 

-Patrice Mackey

[SonofaMP]

Hi Pat, welcome to the forum.

Records for the Firefighting Platoons are mostly non existant, especialy for those units that were in Northern France. Most often the platoons would be under command of the Engineer Section of one of the Service Force Base Sections. Sometimes a numbered platoon will be found in a troop list of a Base Section if the list is included in the availible records. In thousands of pages of a Base Section histories, there will just be a mention like '1 section sent to depot' or '1 platoon assigned to port area' with no mention of the unit number. So it`s very hard to even find where a unit was.

But there may be another way to find where your dad was. In your post you mention letters your dad recieved. Do you have any letters he sent or recieved when he was in France? If you do, look for APO numbers in the addresses or on envelopes. We might be able to find where that Army Post Office was located.

The attached page is the ENTIRE firefighting plan in the Engineer Plan for Operation Neptune, the Normandy Invasion. It shows you the typical mentions of the FF Platoons.

 

Neptune Fire Fighting Plan0001.pdf

 

6 sections, probably about 40 men for the whole invasion force.

[Walt's Daughter]

Patrice:

 

Need to put you in touch with Jim Davis. When you are logged in, simply click on his username and you can send him a private message. Last I knew, he was offline for a few weeks, but give him a shout.

[chefjuke]

Larry,

 

Thanks for your message. I will see if I can find any letters with an APO. Most of the letters I have are from after he returned, sent from people he met in Devon in England and near Paris.

[chefjuke]

Larry,

 

I was able to find ONE letter sent to my Dad from my Grandmother while he was in Europe. It's from 12-27-1945 and the APO listed is 887. Not sure if that gives enough info, but I am off to search the internet to see what I can find.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

-Patrice

[SonofaMP]

Hi Pat, one number is all i need. Here is the chronological locations of APO 887:

APO 887

London, England, 15 April 1942 - 1 Sept 1944

Valognes, France, 1 Sept 1944 - 16 Sept 1944

Paris, France, 16 Sept 1944 - 27 March 1947

Liege, Belgium, 27 March 1947 - 28 March 1947

ceased operation 28 March 1947

 

The letter he recieved from your grandmother was sent to Paris.

Valognes is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France.

It lies on the Merderet river, 20 km (12 mi) southeast of Cherbourg.

 

After D-Day the platoon was most likey first under command of "ADSEC" (Advance Section, Communications Zone) until tranfrred to the permanent Base Section in Paris. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSEC

 

If he was stationed in or near Paris, the platoon was most likely under command of the Seine Section which arrived in Paris 25 August 1944.

http://www.lonesentry.com/unithistory/seine/

 

There are some records availible for these Base sections but it will take awhile to locate & go through them.

Larry

[chefjuke]

Wow Larry!

 

That is GREAT info. Thanks so much! That gives me a great amount of info to start with and research!

 

Greatly appreciated!

 

-Pat

[SonofaMP]

So far i`ve found only one mention of the 1222EFFP in the Seine Section records, they were alerted to move from Paris to Soissons for an emergency call on 27 Dec 1944, the returned to Paris by 29 Dec. So far i have not found where their permanent station was, but it gotta be mentioned somewhere in these thousand + pages.

Larry

The mention starts at the last paragraph on page 166.

 

[chefjuke]

Wow.

 

Just speechless. Thank you so much... Eve if you don't find more than that this is far above and beyond what i knew just a few days ago.

 

- Pat

[Walt's Daughter]

Did you try getting in touch with Jim?