Posted on behalf of Robert E. Jones:
I have conned my daughter into setting up this meeting place for the 835th Aviation Battalion of the Army Corps of Engineers in the hope I can make contact with some of the guys from my unit. Because I am about as computer-phobic as it is possible to be in the 21st Century, you will see posts stating they are "by" my daughter Yvonne or my wife Margaret, but they are posting on my behalf. Any errors you see are theirs. Any wit, wisdom, and insight are my own.
I did my basic training at Camp Young in California in 1942, went to OCS at Fort Belvoir in Virginia emerging as a "90 Day Wonder", then off to sunny North Africa with Company C of the 835th Aviation Battalion where we built airfields and the like until they sent us off to Southern Italy.
I got separated from my unit when I was sent by Liberty Ship with two others to accompany heavy equipment to Okinawa, while the rest of the unit shipped out separately. Japan surrendered while we were still en route. My ship returned to Boston, while the ship with the rest of my unit returned to Newport News.
All this is by way of saying that to my long-time regret, I was not with the rest of my unit when it was disbanded, and so had no chance to get all of your phone numbers and addresses in the States.
If you guys are out there, I think of you often and would be very grateful if you would get in touch by sending an email to Bob Jones.
Better yet, post your contact information and email address here so all who are interested can find you. After that, please post anything you are willing to share, including your current activities, family news, vacation plans, or anything else of interest.
After a long post-retirement stint in Grass Valley, California, we moved several years ago to Sun City, Arizona. If you live in the area, please let me know, but I want to hear from all of you, wherever you are!
Hurry, before I get old!
[For the techies among you, my daughter is setting up this blog with an RSS feed [yes, it's Greek to me too]. What that means, apparently, is that if you have a program called a "news aggregator", you can get new posts to this site sent to you automatically without having to actually visit the site to see what's new and exciting.]
If anyone can help me find the division symbol for the 814th Engr Avn Bn I would greatly appreciate any help suggestions of anything Please. My grandfather served during WWII for the 814th Engr Avn Bn and it really means a lot to me to find his division symbol.
Posted by: Lesley | Dec 27, 2004 at 03:43 PM
I'm glad to see another attempt to locate Aviation Engineers. I am trying to do the same for men of the IX Engineer Command ... men who landed in Normandy and served in France and Germany.
My grandfather commanded the 922nd EAR from April 1944 till he was killed outside Paris in late August 1944. Before taking command of the 922nd though, he commaned the 814th EAB through North Africa, Sicily and into Italy. I don't know if the 814th and 835th ever served in the same areas but if anyone in the 835th knew men in the 814th or who would like to correspond about the Aviation Engineer efforts in the MTO, I'd love to share information.
David Little
Posted by: David Little | Jul 04, 2004 at 04:30 PM