Saw this great posting and am placing the link here:

http://www.ww2f.com/military-service-record-genealogical-research/51158-608-engineer-light-equipment-co-cpt-james-l-anderson.html

Hey, does anyone here know exactly where the Pascal bridge was built. Have another person who is very interested in acquiring this info. Thanks!!!

I found another pic of it and it shows a blown portion of the Autobahn, with the Pascal in the background, but what city is this in? Anyone know?

The caption on the photo posted by Brian M said: "Pascal Bridge. (from the Richard Purcell Collection) The Autobahn bridge was blown up by the Germans just a few days before the end of the war. Once the ended, some of the bridge building was performed by the German POWs as can be seen in the photograph. The bridge was named after Tec 4 Pascal of the 157th who drowned during the construction of the bridge. "

On this webage about Harold Whiting, 157th ECB,

http://carol_fus.tripod.com/army_hero_157ceb.html

In the history sketch on that page it says:

"The next major job assigned to the unit was bridging of the Salzach River, west of Salzburg, Austria on the autobahn. The unit was engaged in this project on VE Day."

This may be the Pascal Bridge, but it looks like the 157th had many bridge projects going on that time.

I do know the exact location for that bridge and in fact my WWII buddy Mr. Purcell made a surprise visit to my house this afternoon and I went through and showed him the locations of some of the other bridges he built with the 157th. He was amazed that I could show him aerial shots and street shots (from maps.google.com). I showed him photographs from their bridge building during the war with buildings in the background and then showed the same buildings from current google maps and street shots. He loved it!

As far as the Pascal Bridge, i did have the location of that one and there are some nice shots of the newly constructed bridge that was put up right where the previous one had been blown. The bad part is I am in the middle of organizing all of my data so that is one I could not find this afternoon. I will look for it again tonight and post the location, i know it will not take too long to find.

Marion,

If that is Clementine you are talking to, i may have photos of some cranes and pile-drivers from her dad's outfit. I tried to log onto the forum you posted about earlier where Clementine had the postings about her dad, but it would not let me log in or email me the confirmation information when i signed up.

Stay tuned!

Marion,

The city is Piding, Germany. I suggest searching that on google earth and you will see the bridge to the east of the city. Try using the camera function to see photographs that people have taken and linked to the site. The mountains are beautiful. I have some great shots of both bridges with the mountains in the background and it is breathtaking! (here is one https://ww2combatengineers.comengforum/index.php?showtopic=7758 ) I think it would have been a great place to work on bridges, especially since the war had just ended, but obviously it was still dangerous.

The official paperwork says "Tec 4 Freeman P. Pascal, Jr. was drowned on the night of 12 May 1945 1 mile east of Piding Germany in the Saalach River. Tec 4 Pascal was installing electrical fixtures on a bridge which the battalion was constructing across that Saalach River when the motor boat in which he was working was caught in the strong current and carried down stream hitting a cable which caused the boat to overturn. Every effort was made to save Tec 4 Pascal but due to the difficult conditions these efforts failed. To date the body has not been recovered. The bridge which forms a portion of a by pass on the Autobahn near the town of Piding was upon completion names "Pascal Bridge" in honor of Tec 4 Pascal who gave his life for it".

Mr. Purcell knew Tec 4 Pascal and has told me several times about the events that night. He said one guy jumped in to try and save him but the water was so swift and cold, that there was no way anyone could have gotten to him. This is obviously a hard one for him to talk about.

The bridge built by the 157th was located just south of the original (and current) bridge location. If you do get a chance to go to the site, i would think that a quick walk around would get you the exact spot as they had to move a lot of dirt with the bulldozers and road scrapers to get down to their bridge location.

Brian

Brian thanks SO much for all the info. I will pass that along to my new friend, who was very interested in this.

What an awful thing to happen to Sgt Pascal, but how wonderful that his men remembered him in this way. Ya, and I can imagine it would be a terrible thing to talk about that day and the events surrounding it.