This is especially for Colin. You probably already have this page in your "favorites", but it's a great source for the Sicilian Campaign.
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/histor...t/w/ww2mto3.asc
I was looking through it again tonight and ran across a name. Wait, I said out loud. I know that name. Well sure enough I did. He's a man who just started corresponding with me a few weeks back. He's a 39th Combat Engineer, 91 and real go-getter. Here's the entry for his book:
Dziuban, Stanley W. "When Engineers Fight as Infantry: The
Amphibious Assault on Gela by a Ranger-Engineer Force." Army 13
(Sep 1962): pp. 68-72. Per.
Here's some excerpts from email this past month:
...I commanded 1st bn from arrival in N Africa Jan 43 until Anzio 1 Jan 44, after which I commanded 2nd bn until Apr 44 when I left Anzio to attend 5-month
Army-Navy Staff College in US. Am now 91 and can even pronounce your
maiden name as it's done in the old country. I'll be glad to try to be of help.
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See letter I mailed to you yesterday. Except for Sicily campaign, 39th
was part of 6th Corps/5th Army from arrival Jan 43 in Africa to V-E day
in Italy. The 36th and 540th similarly were detached from 5th Army
and were attached to II Corps/7th Army for the Sicily campaign, after
which all three units reverted to 6th Corps/5th Army for the Salerno
landings and subsequent operations in Italy.
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I wrote to him tonight and told him I would love to read his book.