Sorry I haven't responded to requests until now.

Life has kept me busy - as have the 25,000 kids at the schools I take care of - seems like the Engineering/Maintenance Department has a never-ending job.

I am going to try to post an attachment of the final paper I submitted. It was up for consideration for publication in a major history journal, but due to my refusal to edit it to fit space requirements (it would have eliminated some very pertinent data, in my opinion), the submission was finally rejected after more than a year.

I hope this will be informative for those of you who read it.

The Bastard Battalion.docx

So wonderful seeing this thread being revived. That's what I love about this forum. No topic ever slips away for good.

Do we have any professional writers in this group? I think the story of the 1264th ECB would make a fantastic book and/or movie - but the information I have been able to find out is very limited, as the unit history book I have didn't cover everything, according to Rex Pierce, and sadly, he passed away a few years ago without being able to share all his knowledge of his service. The others that have passed either didn't share their experiences (like my father), or those that did did not have their stories shared with the world.

While the stories of the "Big Red 1", the 101st Airborne, and several others have been told (usually with many omissions and much embellishment), the stories of the ECB's haven't seen as much attention. The stories of the 291st and the 238th ECB's have appeared in print, but I consider the contributions of the 1264th to be of equal importance as those of any other unit in WWII. Victory would not have come if all the men and women in the military, and those who supported them, had failed in their quest to achieve victory. The wives and mothers left behind who donated time and labor to volunteer, working hard to recycle metals and rubber; the women who stepped up and worked long hours in factories; the men and women who designed and tested the weapons used; the doctors and nurses who cared for and treated the wounded, and even the orderlies who cleaned the bedpans of those injured in combat all have stories to tell, and all of them contributed to the allied victory.

These stories need to be shared - especially with the majority of today's younger generation, with their misguided grasp on reality, their lack of understanding of history, and their delusional ideas of safe spaces. They need to learn the realities of the world - and what better way than to know that those who came before fought through the worst the world could throw at them, and the fortunate ones also experienced the best the world and their fellow man could give.

I'm actually a writer, editor and publisher. I've written some magazine articles for WWII magazines and such, and also published a tween trilogy in the past few years. Story of Q

Here's a page that features my articles

As far as storytelling is concerned, it's one of the reasons this website exists. If you check out all the memoirs on the main site, you will see how many stories have been shared with me over the last decade or so.