Hello
My Father was also in the 1264th Combat Engineer Battalion. He also went through Fort Hood Tx. his name is William Edward Wells.
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He was originally in the Army Specialist Corp which sent 200 men to the University of Dayton to study engineering for the rebuilding of Europe after the war. Once things escalated he was transferred into the 1264th. He was wounded in the Rhineland campaign and spent 14 months in the hospital.
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If you want any info from the book I would be happy to get it for anyone. I would love to hear more about your dad.
Hello - Wow, that must have been a very traumatic war experience for your Dad. I'm sorry to hear he was injured. I'm glad he made it home. My Dad Ken Zino was also Army Specialist Corp before being pulled out in March 1944 to join the 1264th ECB Company B. He had been sent to Purdue University to study engineering. He was in his third 12 week term at the time the U.S. Army pulled them all out. Ken was Class of 1942 St. Augustine's High School in Brooklyn and I remember he mentioned the testing by the U.S. Army when he was drafted. I don't know how they determined who got sent to what university? Ken had a 2nd cousin who was drafted by the U.S. Army from the same place on Long Island, also in 1942, tested and assigned to the ASTP, but his cousin was sent to the University of North Dakota for engineering studies. From what I have read the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was also relying on interviews to get men who had experience in construction, heavy equipment or who were mechanically inclined. PS: I'm attaching a photo I am fond of from my Dad's Army Specialist Corp days, when he arrived in the summer of 1943 to Purdue. I added a label for the "sliderule" in his left hand because I wasn't so sure his grandchildren and great-grandchildren would know what a sliderule was (or how to use one)!! -barbara
