Hi everyone, I am trying to research my grandfather's unit. He was in the 257th Engineering Combat Battalion Company A according to his discharge papers. We do not have any of his metals or patches because his uniform was stolen when he returned home. Any and all info help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
A picture of his discharge papers would go a long way towards us helping you. I'll look later to see what I can find. In the meantime, welcome. Look around using Search. Good luck.
This doesn't help much, but here is his draft card. American Service Award European-African- Middle East Medal I find it strange that he was only credited with the Central European (22 Mar - 11 May 1945) campaign. The 257th was also credited the Ardennes-Alsace campaign (9 Dec 1944-25 Jan 1945) and the Rhineland (22 Feb - 21 Mar 1945) campaign. Neither of these show up on his DD-214. My guess is he was in another unit prior to his service in the 257th. I hope others will check in. The American Service Award leads me to believe that his previous unit saw action in or around the US, especially since he was inducted in July of 1942, but didn't depart the US until Dec of 1943.
KMZgirl's link to the 6th Corps Combat Engineers forum has a lot of good info on the history of the 257th ECB. In that link, see the posts dated March 28, 2010 and Sep 20, 2016. Both have links to PDFs which will tell you a lot about what the 257th did during the War.
If you can get his service records, they should have that information. Otherwise, you can track his service through unit Morning Reports.
LRusso216, I think you were right about him being with another unit. I have been able to locate his Separation Qualification Record (attached). As well as a uniformed picture of him wear an Air Corp patch. Just by looking at the occupational assignments and a photo of him with anti aircraft gun leads me to believe he was at an air base at some point. I submitted a request for his records a few weeks ago. If an admin would like to move this to an appropriate forum feel free as this post has now gone on to a service record research.
See what records are available and what you get. I have suspicions about his service prior to the 257th. If you can handle the expense, a trained researcher might be the way to go. Geoff at Golden Arrow has a stellar reputation among several of the members, including me. He was able to suss out material that I couldn't have found. Good luck. Keep hunting. PS. Can you post the picture of him in the Air Corps uniform?
Here you go, I also added a picture of him sitting on the leg of a machine gun. (not sure what kind) The photo was taken by the Army. I did notice the lack of AAC patch on his arm.
Well, we heard back from the Archives and they had nothing on my grandfather. All his records were destroyed in the fire. That really stinks
