294th Engineer Combat Battalion - 1944.

[Walt's Daughter]

5th photo

[crsjnsn]

Was searching the internet for my father-in-law who was a member of 294th Engineer Combat Battalion during WWII and found your web site. I've heard the story of the training accident many times. I believe my father-in-law was in A Company. While he was not in the immediate area of the blast he was at the scene of the accident shortly after it occured.

 

If you have additional information on the 294th I would like to share it with my father-in-law. I'm sure he would be glad to share his experiences with you.

 

Regards,

 

Bob Christianson

[Walt's Daughter]

You may want to try and contact this gentleman. I do not know how current the info is, but it's worth trying first:

 

294th Engineer Combat Battalion

Mr. James G. Hand

157 East Pearl Street

Wellsville, NY 14895

(Newsletter)

(716) 593-5094

 

Unfortunately I do not have anymore info at the present time. However, I strongly suggest that you contact the Army Corps of Engineers to see if they have a file on his unit. This is a free service. Please tell Michael Brodhead that I sent you.

 

http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/history/contact_us.htm

 

Please see my link on where to go for help.

 

http://208.56.11.96/Invision/index.php?showtopic=23

 

My first suggestion? I would try Richard Horrell of WWII Connections. His name is on the link above. He has over 5000 books in his WWII repetoire and may have further info on the 294th.

 

Once you look through everything, please let me know if you have any further questions. We are always glad to assist!

[colinhotham]

This tradgedy took place in the grounds that housed the 228th American Hospital in Sherborne, Dorset, UK. During my visit to Sherborne for research purposes I met Mrs Jean Treasure who was employed as a typist in the hospital HQ as a young girl. She was also present on that fateful day. Does your father-in-law remember the hospital and was he involved in the building of the road from the port of Weymouth prior to and for D-Day? As a young airman I hitchiked many times over that road to see my wife in the 1950s.

 

Colin.

 

[billh]

Somehow I found this site and yes my Dad who was in the 294th had told me that story many times. He was in the hospital right at the time of the explosion . The windows blew out the way he told me.

[Joe Izzillo]

Colonel:

 

I can tell you a lot about the 294th Combat Engineers and the incident which took place on March 20, 1944.

When I entered the Army in March 1943, I was assigned to the 293rd Combat Engineers and we trained in Camp Gordon, Georgia. The 294th Combat Engineers were training at the same time at Camp Gordon.

Then, we went to Tennessee maneuvers for a couple of months. From there we were sent for desert training in Camp Pilot Knob in the Mojave Desert, near Yuma Arizona, which was started by Gen. Patton, as a training ground for the war in Africa. By the time we finished training, the war in Africa was over.

In December, 1943, I was transferred to the 294th Combat Engineers,assigned to Company "B", and we were on our way East by train to Camp Myles Standish in Taunton MA. From there, we boarded a ship and headed out in convoy to Glasgow, Scotland in January, 1944. We traveled by train down to Sherborne in Dorset.

We did all of our training with mines and bridges on the property formerly owned by Sir Walter Raleigh, and now owned by the Digby family. Raleigh's castle was in ruins and on a large lake and that is where we did our training, building and blowing up static and floating bridges and working with mines. The Digby family were living in the relatively new castle at the time. One of the daughters, Pamela Digby later married Randolph Churchill, Winston's son. Later, they were divorced and she had a series of lovers and, at one time, became America's ambassador to France. Late in life she married Averill Harriman. She dissipated his fortune and after he died, she was sued by his children.

On the grounds of the Digby estate was the 228th Station Hospital, which consisted of a bunch of Quonset huts.

The winter of 1943 was brutal. One day I woke up in my foxhole covered with frost and I realized that I had lost most of my hearing. This was not surprising since we were constantly working with explosives. I was taken to the 228th for treatment. On March 20, 1944, I was lying in bed when there was a huge explosion and I was blown off my bed. The other patients and I raced outside and we saw the carnage. Company "C" had just finished an exercise with mine laying and then picked up the anti-tank mines and placed them alongside a truck to be taken to a safe area until the next exercise. The truck accidentally back up over some mines and about 90 mines exploded. The truck disappeared and 29 men were torn apart and their bodies were scattered through the trees. It was horrendous.

Naturally, we were warned by security to keep quiet or we would end up being taken to Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas. The story was put out that two German saboteurs had set off an explosion. I understand that this was done because placing a hospital near explosives was a violation of the Geneva Convention.

It was many years after the war that a local reporter, using the Freedom of Information Act, wrote the true story. As an aside, many of you, I am sure, have heard about the Slapton Sands incident. That took place in Devon when the soldiers and sailors were practicing landings in an area which had been picked because the topography was similar to Normandy. All the villages there had been evacuated and were ultimately destroyed by gunfire. On this day, two German E-boats came out of the fog and fired their torpedoes and escaped back to France. The result was almost 800 dead. This incident was also kept secret until many years after the war when a local resident told of seeing hundreds of bodies being buried on the beach. Ironically, the wounded were taken to the 228th Station Hospital in Sherborne.

About a week after the explosion on March 20th, I was taken to a General Hospital in Taunton, Somerset for further treatment. While there, there was a German air raid and two planes were shot down. One of the pilots was brought into our hospital and had his legs amputated. I went to visit him and he was cursing a blue streak in German. I was finally told that they could nothing for me and that I would have to get hearing aids in the U.S. when I returned. I have been wearing hearing aids since 1946 and I am now profoundly deaf.

From Taunton, I was transferred to the Topographic Engineers in Leicester in the Midlands. There we prepared the maps for the invasion and also the maps for the other countries on the continent. I fell in love with an English lass, Noreen, in Leicester. I came back from Germany to get married on August 4, 1945. We have six children, thirteen grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Many years after the war, I found out that the 294th went up to Wales and from there sailed to Normandy in the Susan B. Anthony to Utah Beach on June 7, 1944. As they approached the beach, the ship hit two mines and sank. Destroyers came alongside and were able to rescue all the men on board. They lost all of their equipment. Later, they were reequipped and went on with the war and a number of the men were killed in later battles, including the Hurtgen Forest and the Battle of the Bulge.

When the war ended, I was in Austria and I was discharged in January, 1946.

However, when we sailed out of Antwerp,Belgium in January, 1946, our troubles were far from over. About 400 miles east of Newfoundland, we hit a terrible storm with 70 foot seas. The Captain said that in 25 years at sea he had never seen such a storm. The ship cracked across the deck and partly down the hull. An SOS went out and two Coast Guard cutters came out from Argentia, Newfoundland. We spent the night shifting the ballast, which was sand, from the stern, forward of the crack in the hull, to try to lift the stern higher out of the water. We could not launch the life boats because of the high seas and the Coast Guard told us later that if we sank they would have tried to rescue as many as they could. In the North Atlantic in January, they said that we would have lasted only about five minutes in that cold water.

We slowly made out way West with the two Cutters alongside and landed in Argentia in Newfoundland. They welded up the old tub and then put us on board again and we made our way down to New York. It took us 21 days from Antwerp to New York.

I have been back to Sherborne on four occasions. There are two plaques on the south side of Sherborne Abbey with the names of the 29 men who were killed on March 20, 1944. Alongside those are the plaques with the names of the Sherborne men who were killed in World War II.

I have gone back to the Digby property several times and I have found the remnants of the 228th Hospital, and this past October, I found the site of the explosion and I placed American Flags in memory of those who were killed and prayed for their souls. It was an emotional moment.

I have also visited with Jean Treasure in her home. She worked as a secretary at the 228th while I was there.

Now you have information on the tragic accident from someone who was there.

 

Joe Izzillo- 4907 Europa Drive, Naples FL 34105- (239) 262-2778

[Walt's Daughter]

Bravo Joe. Now that's what I call getting the REAL SCOOP!

 

How very nice to hear from you. What a great way to start my Sunday; hearing from someone who was there in the flesh. Thanks so much for taking the time to write all this down. I know Colin will be tickled pink to read this.

 

I like how you also gave us further background with the "asides", such as the history of the Digby family. Those do give us a better feel for the area and the time period.

 

Must have brought back some intriguing memories going back to the Isles. And even better that you got the chance to visit with Jean Treasure.

 

It's rotten losing men at any point in the juncture, but so sad that all these men were killed in training.

 

Can't wait to hear more about your time spent in training and your work with the engineers. Let me repeat how exciting it is to hear from someone who was part of the 294th. Welcome sir.

[Joe Izzillo]

Marion:

 

Thank you. I have a lot more to tell. I am writing my memoirs and I already have over 200 pages.

Also, I have been practicing law for 55 years and I hope to write a book about some of my cases which read like Hollywood fiction.

I am now a Captain in the Civil Air Patrol of the United States Air Force Auxiliary. I have been flying since 1963. Unfortunately, because of my profound deafness, I am not permitted to fly. However, I do rent airplanes and fly and have the other pilot handle the radio.

I am now in my 83rd year and I hope that I do not run out of time before I finish what I am now working on.

I am an amateur artist and I just had a one-man show with 40 paintings. God has been good to me and I thank Him every day for sparing me into old age. Our World War II veterans are dying at the rate of 1500 a day!

God bless!

P.S. I am attaching a painting I did of Sherborne Abbey and the Cross Keys pub next door where I learned to play darts while serving with the 294th.

 

Joe Izzillo

[Walt's Daughter]

Hey Joe:

 

Yes I thank God every day too for my many blessings. I get so tired of hearing some complain day in and day out about how it's too hot or too cold, or how they had to drive 15 miles to pick up a wife's prescription, or... You get the drift. Many of them do not realize how lucky they are to have what they have and that INCLUDES full use of all five of their senses. They don't realize how wonderful it is to hear and I bet you'd be so happy to have yours back.

 

Love your art work. That's just great.

 

Well I for one will be one of the first in line to read and buy your memoirs. I will be able to say, I know the man behind the book!

 

In the interim my dear, I would be happy to provide you with your own page, as I have done for so many of my other vet friends on the main site. Yours will be another great story for people to see. So how about it?

 

And now if we ever need to consult a lawyer online...

 

God bless ya!

[chambers]

Welcome Mr. Joe Izzillo !!

 

Thank you very much for your service to our country and sharing your experiences with us. That is a very good idea to write your memiors, and I do want to read them and will be in line myself, behind Marion of course.

 

After practicing law for 55 years, I'm sure you have more than a few stories to tell.

 

You are a great artist. I dabble a bit in the creative stuff myself.

 

Hugs,

Brooke