Wayback Machine

 

Someone I served with sent an email asking if I still had some pictures. Yes, not the greatest quality after 55-56 years of benign neglect. Maybe some of you might enjoy them.

The title picture is a float bridge across the Rhine at the place Patton crossed. We could only close the river on Sunday for an hour or two.

LL talked about the Danube, which is the Donau in Deutschland. This is our bridge across it in the dead of winter. The water was so cold when you filled a bucket and set it down, the water immediately froze. If the picture seems especially weird, we were being covered with a smoke screen.

The Army was modernizing, slowly, and going to what was called a Mobile Assault Ferry. This unit didn’t succeed in building a complete bridge.

The next picture is a footbridge, all built by muscle, and not much different than the Romans used. That is ice floating in the water.

We used 27’ Bridge Erection Boats, powered by two 6 cyl gas engines. The stern section rode in a 2/12 ton truck with the bow section in a towed 1 ½ ton trailer. A crane was necessary to launch.

With no NCO’s around, the lads wore Air Force Mittens for this picture. The truck wasn’t stuck; just in Rhine River mud as was the 5 ton with a bridge section. The trucks could always move but sometimes had trouble getting out of the ruts.

Finally, two PFC’s ready to hit the Strasse and find some trouble.

Greatest Generation Supplement

Follow up/back story on Al Vella.

http://wellseasonedfool.blogspot.com/2013/06/greatest-generation-repost.html

Germany, early 60’s, I pissed off my First Sergeant. Alcohol was probably involved. He decided my idle hours needed to be filled doing something useful, and handed me some file folders, about 6” thick, that contained our unit history. The assignment was to sort it, catalog it, and retype a new summary.

Turned out to be an interesting assignment. In fact, I enjoyed it.

When I met Al Vella, and started talking to him, I learned he was at the Normandy landing in the predecessor company to mine. We had some interesting conversations.

The company is still on active duty and has been in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unit was activated as the 511th Engineer Light Pontoon Company in 1942 at Camp Bowie, TX. WWII Campaigns were Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, Central Europe.

After WWII, the unit was inactivated, then reactivated in 1954 as the 814th Engineer Company (Float Bridge) at Hanau (Pioneer Kaserne). It was inactivated in 1992, then reactivated at Ft Polk, LA and is still active.

The black and white photos aren't mine but are early 60's. The troops are still wearing "Ridgeway" covers instead of the ridiculous Baseball caps. That is an Atomic Cannon on that raft. Class 80 load on a Class 60 bridge section.

Learning what Al and his buddies accomplished added quite a bit of humility to memories of my service in a designated Soviet Army speed bump unit.