Engineers in World War II 1944

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1 January 4 Number 1, May 1994 Engineers in World War II 1944 The attack on Mount Porchia, Italy, by the 6th Armored Division began at 1930, and by daylight the division had been pushed back to its starting point. The 1108th Engineer Combat Group of Colonel K. S. Andersson, composed of the 48th Engineer Combat Battalion (ECB) commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Andrew J. Goodpaster and the 235th Engineer Combat Battalion commanded by Major Frank Polish, were ordered in as infantry. After several days of heavy fighting, the engineers took and held Mount Porchia. Both units received heavy casualties. Colonel Goodpaster was severely wounded and evacuated. Sergeant Joseph C. Specker, Co C, 48th ECB, received the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions in wiping out snipers. Both units received the Presidential Unit Citation. February 13 The 1875th Engineer Aviation Battalion landed at Bombay, India, and moved to Dudhkundi where it began to convert the old Royal Air Force field to B-29 superfortress standards. On 20 June 1944, a B-29 pilot landed on the new runway at Dudhkundi by mistake, thus establishing the runway as operational and ready for launching long-range bombers into the Japanese homeland. May 17 Japanese forces blocked construction of the Ledo Road at Myitkyina, Burma. A detachment of Company A. 879th Airborne Engineer Battalion, with equipment, began landing at Myitkyinaair strip in gliders and continued to land during the night. Work began rapidly on the airstrip with the unit providing its own defense against Japanese attacks until the strip was finished. May 18 While under hostile fire, 25 landing craft manned by Company A, 542d Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment, landed a reinforced battalion of the 163d Infantry, 41st Infantry Division, on Wadke Island. The infantry soldiers flattened themselves on the bottoms of the boats for protection behind armored plates, but the engineer crews, lacking this shielding, took many hits. As soon as one engineer went down, another took his place. In recognition of its work, Co. A, 542d Boat and Shore Regiment, received the Presidential Unit Citation.

2 May 26 June 6 Japanese attacks seriously threatened the Myitkyina Airstrip in Burma, leading General Stillwell to send the 209th and 236th Engineer Combat Battalions forward as infantry. Fighting continued for two months before the Japanese retreated. Twentyeight officers and enlisted men from the two engineer units were killed in action, and another 335 were wounded. Both units received the Presidential Unit Citation. The U.S. Army's V Corps landed on OMAHA Beach, Normandy, supported by Brigadier General William M. Hoge's Provisional Engineer Special Brigade Group, consisting of the 5th and 6th Special Brigades and the 11th Port Headquarters. On UTAH Beach the 1st Engineer Special Brigade supported VII Corps. Colonel Paul Thompson, 6th Brigade commander, was seriously wounded twice and evacuated on D-Day. From D-Day until D+100, more than 1,000,000 tons of supplies, 100,000 vehicles, and 600,000 men poured over OMAHA Beach. During this same period 93,000 casualties were evacuated. During the assault phase on OMAHA Beach, special engineer assault gapping teams came ashore with the infantry and opened gaps 50 yards wide in the barbed wire and obstacles lined the shore. Support teams followed to widen the gaps. Slowly, against stiff German opposition, the engineers on OMAHA Beach began opening the exits. At Exit E-l, mines, barbed wire, obstacles, antitank ditches, and impassable gravel and sand, barred the tanks from moving until Private Vinton Dove, a bulldozer operator from Company C, 37th Engineer Combat Battalion, and his relief operator, Private William J. Shoemaker, cleared a road through the shingle, removed the roadblock at E-l, and filled the antitank ditch, opening a path for the Sherman tanks. For their actions both men were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. June 26 The Germans surrendered Cherbourg on D+20, and the next day 18 engineer units, led by the 1056th Engineer Group, began reconstruction of Cherbourg. By 1 November, when the group was ordered to the Albert Canal area, engineers had completed facilities for unloading 25,000 tons a day, well over the planned figure of 7,900 tons a day. July 21 On Guam, the 77th Infantry Division, supported by the 302d Engineer Combat Battalion, began landing in the early afternoon,

3 unopposed because of naval bombardment. The main job of the engineers was to keep the supply roads open. In hand-to-hand fighting that night, 18 Japanese and 3 engineers were killed when the enemy attempted to penetrate the perimeter. August 19 August 25 October 2 October 20 November 4 In southern France, the 343d Engineer General Service Regiment restored rail service to Aix in 10 days, repairing a 104-foot gap in the rail bridge by using a German 270-mm railway gun. The 343d stripped the gun and the rail trucks, attached a 10-foot steel extension, and launched the platform as the stringers for the new span across the gap. The 603d Engineer Camouflage Battalion, one of four such battalions that formed a group called the 23d Headquarters Special Troops, took part in Operation BREST, near Brest, France, augmenting real units already in place with dummies, spoof radio installations, and a variety of misleading special effects. On three successive nights men of the 23d approached within 500 yards of the enemy lines and projected their amplified recordings of tanks approaching, taking up positions, and withdrawing. Engines roared; gears clashed and ground. Voices shouted in the dark. The dummy flash batteries drew repeated counterfire. The German commander later testified he had been taken in by the deception. D-Day for the XIX Corps' attack on the Siegfried Line began with an air strike preceding an 1100 jump-off. The 105th Engineer Combat Battalion, 30th Infantry Division, and the 24th Engineer Combat Battalion, 1104th Engineer Combat Group, went forward under fire, assaulting pillboxes and constructing treadway bridges. By 7 October, XIX Corps had breached the West Wall in its sector. The Sixth Army assaulted Leyte, Philippines, with the 2d Engineer Special Brigade supporting the X Corps landings. In the XXIV Corps area, engineers unloaded all ships of the initial assault force within the first 44 hours of landing. Engineers of the 20th Engineer Combat Battalion were assigned to develop a trail in the Kall River gorge, Huertgen Forest area, Germany, into a main supply road. The Germans launched an attack that drove the infantry back in disorder. The 146th Engineer Combat Battalion rushed into Vossenack, and the 1340th and Company A, 20th Engineer Combat Battalion, were committed as

4 infantry to hold the Kall River bridge. The engineers drove off the enemy and secured the bridge during a week-long battle When Germany launched its offensive from the Eifel region against the First United States Army lines in the Ardennes section of Belgium and Luxemburg, it marked the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. It also set the stage for the development of the largest continuous minefield ever laid on any American division front. The 1st Engineer Combat Battalion planned and installed this extensive 12-mile minefield of 31,480 antitank mines, 127 antipersonnel mines, and 38 trip flares in 2 weeks beginning on 20. The minefield aided the 1st Infantry Division in firmly repelling three of Von Rundstedt's best divisions, thereby preventing a successful breakthrough in the Monschau shoulder. The 158th Engineer Combat Battalion, under Lieutenant Colonel Sam Tabet, was assigned to protect VIII Corps headquarters at Bastogne until the 101st Airborne Division arrived. Engineers constructed and manned a line of roadblocks, hasty minefields, and dug-in positions. They stretched chains of antitank mines across the roads and covered these obstacles with rifles, machine guns, and bazookas. Elements of an armored division were forced back leaving the 158th Engineer Combat Battalion and a company of the 35th Engineer Combat Battalion as the only force in front of Bastogne. By afternoon, 19, the engineers had held the line long enough for the 101st to move up and relieve them. Lieutenant Colonel Dave Pergrin, 291st Engineer Combat Battalion, sent a squad of his engineers equipped with 20 mines and 1 bazooka to set up a roadblock at Stavelot, Belgium. At 1900, three Mark IV tanks came toward the bridge. The first tank struck a mine that blew off its treads; the others withdrew. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Riggs, 81st Engineer Combat Battalion, received orders from the l06th Infantry Division to establish a line east of St. Vith and hold off the Germans. He rounded up all available men of the 81st and 168th Engineer Combat Battalions and managed to hold off the Germans until 21 when they broke up into small groups and attempted to make their way back to St. Vith. Colonel Riggs was captured, but he escaped in Poland and fought with the Russians until he returned to his unit in April 1945.

5 The Army map depot at Stavelot, Belgium, was abandoned during the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes. All depot records were removed, but none of the map stocks were removed or destroyed. Upon recapture of the depot, engineers found that few map stocks had been taken or destroyed. The 1111th Engineer Combat Group ordered Company C, 51st Engineer Combat Battalion, to Trois Ponts to defend the town from German attack. Under the leadership of Major "Bull" Yates, the battalion executive officer, they defended against German tanks until relieved by the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment. The airborne troops took up positions across the river, but were surrounded. The engineers had to provide covering fire to extricate them. After holding Trois Ponts for 5 days, Yates and his men withdrew during the evening of 21. An important Class 70 bridge at Hotton, Belgium, was defended by elements of Lieutenant Colonel Harvey R. Fraser's 51st Engineer Combat Battalion when attacked by five tanks and armored infantry. This force, under the command of Captain Preston C. Hodges, Company B, held the town, knocking out several tanks, until relieved in the early evening by the 84th Infantry Division. Bridge to the Past is an unofficial publication of the Office of History, Headquarters, U.S. Corps of Engineers, under authorization of AR Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is a World War II Commemorative Community