I got a great letter from my friend David Wagner who's story is on our site. http://www.6thcorpscombatengineers.com/DavidWagner.htm
He has been in contact with Luis and is thrilled about the diary too, however he nicely pointed out a few things that stand to be corrected and rightfully so. Thank you David for you clever and watchful eye. All of us pride ourselves on knowing our history, but when we make mistakes, we also appreciate corrections, for we all learn from each other. The excerpt below is from his letter.
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...I wrote a note to Luis Berrea, Jr. explaining what his
grandfather meant when he referred to crackers. He was
actually referring to craters in the road which were caused
either by bombs, shelling, very heavy traffic or incessant rains
or a combination of any or all of them. I read the stuff you have
on the site and it is really fantastic but I have to make two
comments. Where the grandfather refers to SST boat you
have a comment which corrected it to LST Landing Ship
Troops. In actuality it was known as Landing Ship Tanks. I
know because I helped build them when I worked for the U.S.
Navy before I was inducted.
Also, the Armored Force reference was corrected to read
Devil's Brigade. In actuality this was the first Special Service
Force and was only referred to by us as the SSF. The
Germans referred to them as the Black Devils. This was
because when they went out on patrol at night they smeared
black shoe polish on their faces. The Devil's Brigade came
about in 1968 when a movie was made from a novel which was
written about the SSF and entitled "Devil's Brigade." This was
really one great outfit. The 39th was attached to the SSF as
their nighttime reserve and we went on patrol with them...
Proud Daughter of Walter (Monday) Poniedzialek
540th Engineer Combat Regiment, 2833rd Bn, H&S Co, 4th Platoon
There's "No Bridge Too Far"