Engineer Poems of WWII

[Walt's Daughter]

Well seems we've posted a lot of poems as of late, so I will share some poetry from "our" boys. Hope you enjoy it. From the Overseas with the 540th Engineers book:

 

What Did It Cost?

 

Well, the Gun and the

Assault Boat, the

Bailey Bridging, the

Halftrack and the

Fuselage come to a figure

Resembling the distance

Between Stars

High Octane and HE

Are high and K Rations

In the Aggregrate mount up

Also Atabrine and Battleships

Together with Jeep Tires and

Jump Suits...

But these costs are calculable

 

And there is always Fort Knox.

In the matter of the Dozerman

Killed when his blade stirred up

Those Tellers at St. Raphael,

There is no fixed price and

No amount of taxes,

No reparation, even in kind

Can return him to Elm street USA.

And yet Man fights and dies

Through the eons of Time,

Guided always by that Farthing, That Mite

Of Faith

That Freedom, next to Godlove

Is Man's most Righteous Hope.

[Walt's Daughter]

This was the editorial from the Eager Beaver (the 540th's official newspaper overseas), published VE Day, May 9 , 1945

 

THIS IS IT!

 

Today is Victory Day in Europe

Eagerly awaited by allied forces.

Military and civilian, the world over

 

THIS IS THE DAY which has been

"sweated out" for months which

stretched themselves into years

to cover the advances and the

movements in retrogression,

the shellings, the bombings

the strafings, the quick and

the dead, in the greatest war

the world has ever known.

 

THIS IS THE DAY which has been

awaited, never patiently. By the

doughfeet in the foxholes,...

By the engineers at their bridges,

the ackack men at their

gunposts, by the brass and by

the yardbirds, by the men and

by the women in Europe and at

home...Wherever home was.

THIS IS IT!

[Walt's Daughter]

Song of the 540th Engineer-

 

This is a visual. Joel Minkoff, 540th Engineer and artist extraordinaire, placed the words of this poem by 1st Lt Fred Woods, and added his artistic flare.

[CaptO]

Do you know what the tune was?