What you have written is right on to what the book goes through. There is no author to give credit for this book. A few years ago I looked up another soldier that was listed in the manifest as being in my Grandfather's platoon. When I contacted him I described the book to him and he had never heard of it although he knew my remembered my Grandfather. But when I started dropping names of different officers he was astonished. One thing it talks about is they had the job of building the dummy tanks for Pattons fictious army. The book goes on to say that for most of the war they were in close proximity to tanks at all times, which makes sense because of the few stories he used to tell, was about being in jeeps with blacked out headlights and there was a time that they had to march through the snow and when they would stop they would sit down and the person in front would allow the person behind to put his feet in their armpits. As soon as they hit the beach the first job they had was clearing beach obsticles and mine fields. One story was of a local French farmer who had observed the Germans planting the minefields and when the engineers came up he showed them his diagram to help them clear them. Do you want my email? I can go into more detail on whatever you want to know.
Aaron, I am always interested in seeing new members here and in welcoming them, looking into the history of what they know of relatives serving with the US Corps of Engineers during WWII.The 359th landed on OMAHA beach 9th June 1944 and as the largest unit in the US engineers POL organisation was soon operating on the Cherbourg peninsula. The pipelines they constructed and operated there were joined to the famous PLUTO (pipeline under the ocean) across the English channel, sending MT80 motor fuel and avgas aviation gasoline south to Carentan, Alencon and beyond, starting by the 11th of June!
I would be interested to know Aaron, if the above ties in with what you have learnt of your grandfathers service? I hope you enjoy your stay on Marions great website.
Colin