401st Combat Engineer Battalion from WW2

[Jason Corliss]

Hello all,

My grandfather served with the 401 Combat Engineer Battalion during World War 2. He was drafted and reported to Ft Devens in Mass. As a lot of you know, a fire took place in the 1970's in St Louis Missouri which destroyed many service records. I'm trying to piecing together a bit of history for my 2 sons about there Great Grandfathers experiences from WW2. I hoping to find anyone that might know  or know of someone who could have served with him. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

 

Regards,

Jason C.

[colinhotham]

Jason I cannot help you with details of anyone who might have served with your grandfather but I have a link that gives some idea of what he was doing in Jan/Aug 1945 during the advance to the Alps. His unit was obviously concerned with bridging and in particular the Bailey bridge. At Capua there was established the British Bailey bridge school  open to Americans, which along with the American School at Maddaloni gave instruction on bridging. It could be he went through one of these establishments. The first mention of the 401st is on page 220* and reading on from there gives some idea of what your grandfather was going through.

 *See online: US Army in WW2 - The Technical Services - The Corps of Engineers The War Against Germany. (one volume)  https://archive.org/details/corpsofengineers00beck

NOTE. You may be interested that the person who created this website Marion Chard has made an excellent video entitled NO BRIDGE TOO FAR.  www.nobridgetoofar.com

Colin Hotham WW2 Researcher.

[Walt's Daughter]

Good morning to you and a warm welcome. And thank you Colin for throwing out some info to get him started. Wonderful.  :wub:

As I explain to all my "newbies", in the introduction membership email (and at the top of the main page on the forum), please see my help section in our Research section. It provides all the necessary info to help get you started in regards to discharge documents, etc. Here's the referral link. Let me know if you have any immediate questions regarding how to get the data. :-)  Many new peeps have found this helpful. :-)

 

Also please do an initial search on the forum and main site  - The search button on the forum is located at the upper right corner. Type in "401st" (if you haven't done so already) and it will bring up a ton of info on this unit. :-)

I  look forward to talking with you about your grandfather. 

Warmly, 
M1