Company A 251st Engineer Construction Battalion

Hello all, I am new as of today. I have listened to my Father and talked to him all my life about WWII. He was in the Combat Engineers that landed at D-Day and he fought all the way across Europe. I came here hoping someone might have just a little bit more information about his unit, Company A 251st Engineer Construction Battalion. I have heard his side of the D-Day landing , the battle of the Hurtgen Forrest, the Rhine River, Ruhr River and much more but would like to know all I can about my father and the men he fought with. My Father was a very good and brave man in my eyes, he past away in 2006 and I miss him every day. I am 61 years old and think about the things these men did in awe. If any one here knows anything at all I would very much like to hear from you. Thank you very much. Sailor

 

Welcome to the forum sailor!

 

Hello sailor,

Found this thread with a little info on the 251st: Request for 251st - VI CORPS COMBAT ENGINEERS WWII Note in particular the 3rd entry from the top, hopefully it's a start for your research.

 

Hey, sailor. Welcome to the best WW2 forum on the internet. Thanks to Steve, you have a lead on some info with only 4 replies.

 

Hello and welcome to the forum

 

My grandfather was in the 251st, his name was SGT. Samuel Sperlazzo.
Unfortunately he was killed while on or while building the Nires Canal Bridge. I don’t know very much about him other than what his sister told me. My mother was only 1 or two years old when he was killed so she didn’t know much either, his wife (my grandmother) died while giving birth to my mother so I lost that source of information also. I do have a few photos of him and his company along with some of his personal effects and that’s about it.
I do have a picture of the Niers Canal Bridge that bares his name along with other dies, but the file is too large to load.

 

Thank you for posting this picture. I knew where he was buried and saw this before.

Thanks again.

 

Steve Morris and others: I am new to this forum. I was looking at some old papers of my fathers (long since deceased) and googled 251st and eventually got here. Its amazing coincidence that you first posted on the day I was looking at these papers. I say that because one of the papers I came across was promotion orders from Camp McCoy from January of '44 and Samuel C. Sperlazzo's promotion was listed. I also have a sketch book history of the 251st which has a map and several pages of sketches with descriptions that include one of the Roer River Battle on February 23 1945 (Portions attached). It was prepared by one of the T/Sgts. I hope you find this interesting and helpful/useful to your research. I am really beginning to look at a lot of this and I have some photos from along their route as well. I hope the uploads worked.I would be happy to share any of this info; it will likely take me a little time to get it scanned etc.

 

Lou: I tried to upload the entire "Sketchbook History", but couldn't because it was too large. I will get some technical assistance and see if I can get it done in 2 or more uploads. MWalsh

 

I just stumbled upon this site tonight as a result of watching the D Day celebrations today. I am the daughter of T/Sgt McHugh who drew this sketchbook. I have a number of photos as well as pictures of the 251st and a roster as well as a few copies of the book itself. If people are interested, I’ll upload them in a few days.