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782nd Tank Batallion
Get PDFThis little history from 1 February 1943 up to the time of arrival in the ETO has been prepared so that present and former members of the battalion may have a few notes to recall some of the humorous, routine and sometimes serious moments of their days in the 782nd Tank Battalion. All facts and figures are obtained from the official Battalion History which is filed in the Historical Section of the War Department, Washington, D. C. What is to follow has been reworded slightly to make easier reading and if possible to add a laugh, give credit or to add a few bits of information that would ordinarily be lacking from an official communique.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1008/thumbnail.jp
329 Buckshot Infantry Regiment: a history
Get PDFThis history is taken from the official records of the 329th Infantry.
It covers the battle actions of the regiment from the dogged yard by yard bloody and uninspiring slugging match of the hedgerows of Normandy, to our spectacular dash from the Rhine to the Elbe.
The record of accomplishments of the 329th is one of which any member may justifiably be proud. This record of battles won and of ground gained and held is the composite picture of many smaller fights where the decisive action was the marching fire of the rifleman, the steadfastness of the machine gunner under attack or the bravery of the bazooka man stalking p, tank. The spirit and determination of the individual made possible the winning of important battles.
These successes have not been won cheaply. Beneath the soil of Europe lie the bodies of over 850 of our comrades. To the hospitals have gone nearly 4000 others wounded in action. Most of these were killed or wounded because when the time came for them to decide between safety and duty they chose the latter. Our debt to them cannot be paid.
Colonel Edwin B. Crabillhttps://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1028/thumbnail.jp
D + 106 to V-E: the story of the 2nd Division
Get PDFFrom the Introduction:
This booklet is designed to give a general picture of the Second Infantry Division in its operations from the time it reached the Siegfried Line in Germany on October 4, 1944, until it arrived in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, its location on V-E Day, May 8, 1945.
A preceding booklet told how the Second, which was activated in France in 1917 and which probably gained more renown in World War I than any other division, opened its campaign in World War II when it came ashore on Omaha Beach in France, D plus 1, June 7. The story described the manner in which the wearers of the Indianhead patch fought their way through Treviers, Cerisy La Foret, and then, in one mighty effort, crushed the powerful Nazi defenses on Hill 192, grassy slope holding up the advance on St. Lo.
In the speedy breakthrough South that followed, the Second stepped out in front and pushed through St. Jean des Baisants, Vire, and Tinchebray in victorious but hard fighting. It was next ordered along with two other divisions to take Brest, heavily defended seaport which the Germans had used as a submarine base. After a bitter four-week struggle, in which the Nazis fought desperately to prevent the port from passing into U. S. hands, the garrison formally surrendered to Major General Walter M. Robertson, Division Commander, from Nelson County, Virginia, on September 18, 1944.
The division then moved by truck and train across France and Belgium to the Siegfried Line, where this story begins.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1095/thumbnail.jp
History of the 410th Bombardment Group
Get PDFForeword
This is the first page in the unofficial history of the 410th Bombardment Group (L). Written in France at a time when Hitler\u27s throne is crumbling and the axis dream of world domination is about to burst like a bubble in the breeze, it is intended to recall a few incidents of the past without any attempt to foresee the future.
Lacking a crystal ball or the courage of a weatherman, we frown upon all attempts to predict how, when or where the 410th Bomb Group will cease to exist. To the contrary, we confine these pages to history, and history, as you know, is a recitation of facts.
You will therefore find among the pages to follow both humor and tragedy -- the fun of a party, the loss of a friend. You will find here many things that can never be forgotten and consequently need never be written, and yet if among the pages you find one little incident worthwhile remembering that might otherwise have been forgotten, this book does indeed serve its purpose.
Author unknownhttps://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1131/thumbnail.jp
U.S.S. Boston, CA-69
Get PDFFrom The Story of the U.S.S. Boston by Henry G. Leader, SP (X) 3/C:
Built for speed, maneuverability and tremendous fire power, the USS Boston is the second ship of the Baltimore class. Ordered July 1, 1940 prior to the outbreak of the war, her keel was laid June 30, 1941 in the Fore river yard, Quincy, Massachusetts by the Bethlehem Steel Company.
On August 26, 1942 Mrs. Maurice J. Tobin, wife of the Honorable Maurice J. Tobin, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, sponsored the launching, and on June 30th of the following year, the ship\u27s ensign fluttered in a gentle breeze as she was officially commissioned and accepted by her first commanding officer, Captain John H. Carson, USN.
Slipping smoothly through Atlantic waters, the Boston began her maiden voyage on August 13, 1943 en route to the Gulf of Paria, between Trinidad and Venezuela, for the shakedown cruise designed to accustom her crew to the sea and enable officers to detect any possible wrinkles in her makeup. A month later the Boston returned to her home port. a fighting ship with her crew well trained to fight the enemy. On the record of her engineering trial, she was established as one of the fastest heavy ships in the fleet; on the record of her gunnery exercises she was established as a good gunnery ship.
After a few more weeks in the port of Boston and some trial runs off Rockland, Maine, the USS Boston set out on November 18 to fulfill the job for which she was designed and built-the defeat of this country\u27s enemy in the Pacific. After passing through the Panama Canal, followed by a two day lay-over in San Francisco, she arrived at Pearl Harbor on the eve of the second anniversary of the Japanese sneak attack. Six weeks were spent in Pearl Harbor waters engaging in more of the exercises that are so essential to the maintenance of the fighting qualities of a First Class Warship.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1135/thumbnail.jp
We the 48th
Get PDFPrologue
There isn\u27t too much difference between a good outfit and usst another one that does its routine job in its own routine way.
It isn\u27t the draft board, army selection, or luck; it\u27s just a happy circumstance when certain men are chosen as officers and others for enlisted men -- and it\u27s even a happier circumstance when they click into a well geared machine.
But an outfit isn\u27t a machine either. It\u27s a group of 600 individual personalities who are thinking 600 different ways towards getting the job done.
It\u27s the 600 different ways of thinking that makes an outfit good. It\u27s the American soldier with his self-initiative, imagination, intelligence and ability. It\u27s the American officer with his leadership and knowledge, and it\u27s the American field commander with his patience and restraint -- that makes a good outfit.
We, the men of the 48th Engineers, want to tell you the story of our outfit -- the 48th Engineer Combat Battalion.
Signed,
The Staffhttps://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/1202/thumbnail.jp
Make Victory Sure, Buy Victory Bonds
No full texthttps://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/wwII_posters_bdsloans/1026/thumbnail.jp
The Reaper\u27s Harvest: The Story of the Third Attack Group
Get PDFOpening paragraphs:
In the spring of 1942 the Japanese were successfully over-running the Pacific, and their tentacles were reaching down to touch the Australian mainland with the threat of invasion. Their eyes were on the strategic base of Port Moresby, and the pitiful Allied forces charged with stemming this tide were in the unenviable position of defending Moresby against attacks by land, sea, and air
So in April 1942 the Grim Reapers received their baptism of fire and jungle, something that all of them had hoped for and feared since their designation to overseas duty. Powerful Japanese bases were springing up on the east New Guinea coast. Enemy ships plied the once peaceful seas among the southern archipelagos, transporting men and equipment with impunity to the swelling Japanese camps on the beaches of New Guinea. All knew that the time was at hand when the enemy must be stopped or supreme sacrifices made.
Credit:
Produced in New Guinea by Lt. Col. Charles P. Martin, Capt. Frederick L. Newmeyer, Jr., Capt. Edward Mandell and T/Sgt. Harold A. Larsen.
Grateful appreciation to Col. Richard· H. Ellis for his sponsorship, to Capt. Robert Spieth and Group Photography for outstanding camera work, to the late Lt. Kenneth W. Lindsay, to Sgt. Peter Catizone, Cpl. Frank G. Farina and Cpl. George H. Dernoeden for their excellent art work and cartooning and to Maj. Ivan P. Head for his combat information
January 3, 1945
Get PDFPage One recounts the November 29, 1944, landing and capture of two German spies, Erich Gimpel and William Curtis Colepaugh, undertaking Operation Elster at Hancock Point on the Schoodic Penisula.
The Observer had previously scooped the nation with the story just a few weeks prior. Much of this issue provides a wealth of details of this incident perhaps long-forgotten or not previously known.
This issue also profiles WAC LT Mildred Hearon, PVT Frances Dickerson, PVT Alice Fillion, and PVT Ruth Collins; and we see SGT Chester C. Sutton and PVT Samuel A. West making yarn mats.https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/dowfieldobserver/1036/thumbnail.jp