Help identifying a US unit in WW2 England

Hi all, just joined this site in the hope that someone may be able to help.
I research and write for the history society of a small village, Norton, in Gloucestershire, England. There were US troops stationed around the village for a number of years during WW2 but the occasion I am particularly interested in would have been early 1944, in the build-up to D-Day.
The river Severn runs through the village and US troops took over an area to rehearse building river crossings and also crossings of a small stream here to replicate the canals etc of Northern France.
My mother was a teenager in the village at the time and remembers that no-one was to go down to the river to see what was happening but I have been told stories by a couple of people who would have been young boys at the time who obviously sneaked a look or two.
The following is an account of memories from one of them; "In 1943/44 they began to construct floating pontoon bridges over the river at Wainlode, near to the landing stage down towards the river Chelt. Later they built more sturdy Bailey bridges. The bridges would go up and down quite quickly as during their construction all river transport was temporarily halted. Later again they would concentrate on building smaller bridges over the River Chelt at Fletchers Leap to prepare themselves for all of the small rivers they would need to cross in France. There was little bridging machinery present and most of the work was constructed by man-handling the pieces into place. At one time they had a ‘Weasel’ at Wainlode".
There is a riverside inn just at this spot, the Red Lion Inn, that became very popular with the servicemen and for many years after the war, through to the 1990s that I know of, they still would get visits from people who had been posted here.
There is little chance of me finding anyone still alive that served here now but I would like to find more official information about these exercises. Can anyone make any suggestions ? Probably not permitted but I would be surprised if there weren't photos taken as well.
I expect I'm flogging a dead horse here but any thoughts or ideas for me to progress this would be most appreciated.
Steve M

 

Welcome to the forums!
Might get some of the answers here-
Locations of US forces in Somerset, 1944 | WW2Talk

 

Thanks all. Someone asked for an e-mail address so; norton_history@hotmail.com