My dad died when I was young. He was a combat engineer in WW2 but I am not sure what unit he was with. I know a few things about his experiences, such as his unit was involved with "heavy ponton" bridges. I know that he crossed the Remagen bridge before it collapsed.
His name: Thomas R. Burns
I have various stripes from his uniforms, looks like his highest rank was Staff Sergeant.
I have a lot of old boxes to go thru and am sure that I come up with more information.
Welcome to the forum, I think we can help you in your search but we will need to uncover some more information about your father. Do you have his discharge papers? Did he enlistist in Illinios? Chicago?
As your searching through the boxes, look for anything with numbers on it, letters or envelopes with an army address or his serial number. His serial number will help in obtaining his service record.
There were many engineer units involved in the crossing at the Remagan bridge, most of them were units of the 1110th Combat Engineer Group, but probably other units too.
The first engineers at the bridge were 1 platoon from company B, 9th armoured engineer bn of the 9th Armored Div.
I'll take whatever help I can get. I do have his serial number, and I have seen some papers that appeared to detail "points" in the past butthey have not turned up in recent searches yet.
I came across two sets of vacination records yesterday. One was when he was 24yrs old and the other was at 27yrs old. I think he may have had two deployments. As I recall the "points" detail, there were points for North Africa, Italy and Normandy.
I can photograph the vacination records and post them if you'd like. On those forms there is a spot for his unit. It is interesting because the one at 27yrs old has his unit crossed out and then one hand written in. The one at 24 yrs old has been completely eliminated as though it was physically cut out in a perfect rectangle.
When you are posting, look down to your lower right. See the BROWSE and UPLOAD buttons? Simply hit the browse button and find the document on your hard drive. When you are successful, then simply hit upload and wait. If you are successful, it will show the number of attachments. You can do this several times, just repeat said procedure. Oh, and welcome!!!
Marion J Chard
Proud Daughter of Walter (Monday) Poniedzialek
540th Engineer Combat Regiment, 2833rd Bn, H&S Co, 4th Platoon
There's "No Bridge Too Far"
Hi, the 181st Engineer Heavy Pontoon Battalion & the 51st Engineer Combat Battalion built the second ponton bridge across the Rhine at Remagan.
The 181st was never in North Africa but the 51st was in North Africa on the way to India before being redirected to England for the Normandy invasion. Neither unit was in Italy. So we might have it narrowed down a little, or not.
If you have trouble posting your documents in the forum, you can attach them to an email & send them to me, you will find my email address on my profile in the left column.
