My father and I are trying to piece together the wartime service of his Uncle. We know only that he left Kansas in 1942 and returned in 1945 - we have no service info on him at all - except - that he was with the 348th Engineer Combat Battalion!

His name was Joseph H. Debold, and I believe he left the service as a SSgt. His service number was 37216331 and his discharge certificate lists him as a Combat Engineer. He was most likely a driver or machinery operator as he was a farmer from Kansas who had much experience with driving large equipment. Ideally, we'd like to put together a chronology of his entire time in service but know that may be hard as we don't have his company or detachment number. Any suggestions on how to find this out?

Nice to have you here Major, and I know Major Todd is delighted to have another Marine Corps Major as a fellow member of this forum.

Let's see what our sleuths (including moi) can discover.

Thanks for your service.

Semper Fi and Essayons!

https://ww2combatengineers.comengforum/index.php?showtopic=1143

https://ww2combatengineers.comengforum/index.php?showtopic=3404

https://ww2combatengineers.comengforum/index.php?showtopic=4048

https://ww2combatengineers.comengforum/index.php?showtopic=7165

https://ww2combatengineers.comengforum/index.php?showtopic=7167

They are having a reunion again this year. If you can attend?????

https://ww2combatengineers.comengforum/index.php?showtopic=7320

You can talk directly via PM with any forum member. So it's a great idea to talk with anyone who posted anything on the 348th in the recent past. You can do this by clicking on their forum names, any time you are logged in.

Welcome to the forum Mr Winslow, Thank you for service to our country.

Just for starters, some quikly found info on the 348th:

The 348th Engineer Combat Battalion was descended from the 40th Engineer Battalion:

Lineage & Honors

40th ENGINEER BATTALION

Constituted 29 July 1921 in the Organized Reserves as the 1st Battalion, 348th Engineers

Organized in September 1922 at Telluride, Colorado

Location changed 21 May 1925 to Denver, Colorado

Inactivated 1 January 1938 at Denver, Colorado; concurrently withdrawn from the Organized Reserves and allotted to the Regular Army

Activated 15 July 1942 at Camp Crowder, Missouri, as the 1st Battalion, 348th Engineer Regiment

Redesignated 24 October 1942 as the 1st Battalion, 348th Engineer General Service Regiment

Reorganized and redesignated 15 April 1943 as the 348th Engineer Combat Battalion

Inactivated 27 February 1946 at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey

Redesignated 17 February 1947 as the 40th Engineer Combat Battalion

CAMPAIGN PARTICIPATION CREDIT

World War II

Normandy (with arrowhead)

Northern France

Rhineland

Ardennes-Alsace

Central Europe

Just a brief outline:

Early 1943 Trained at Camp Young, California

Amphibious training at Fort Pierce, Florida

More training at Camp Pickett, VA

then to Camp Miles Standish, Mass

around end of October they moved by train to cross the border of Canada to Halifax

Sailed on the ship "Mauretania" to Liverpool, Eng, arriving November 9, 1943

They spent time during the winter 1943 -1944 in Swansea

moved to Weymouth., boarded LST (Landing Ship Tanks)

D-DAY

A part of the unit participated at the landing on Omaha Beach June 6th 1944

The 348th landed on the sector Easy Red and Fox Green. Some of men attacked June 6th 1944 with the first wave in support of the 1st Infantry Division. Some others the same day with others waves. Unit was split in several team dispatched with other groups. Between the 6th to the 8th of June the entire of the unit got ashore.

After Normandy unit was at Cherborg then participated in the Battle of the Bulge, Later did Occupation Duty, Germany 2 May - 31 Oct`45.

--------------------------

We`ll see what we can find on your dad`s uncle, seems to be a lot written on the 348th but it`s scattered around the web. They should have a published unit history we`ll try to locate a copy of it.

I took the liberty to combine both of your posts, since we had answers in both of them. B)

There is a couple of books about the 348th you might be interested in, the first appearears to be a unit history written by Keith Bryan intitled: "Pack up and move; a pictorial history of the 348th Engineer Combat Battalion".

it is currently not availible on Amazon & a WorldCat search only shows a copy at the New York Public Library. You might want to try the Library of Congress.

The other is: "From Boston to Berlin" by Roland Regan Jr.

http://www.bostontoberlin.org/index.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Boston-Berlin-Roland-Regan-Jr/dp/1557532265/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223925080&sr=8-1

As far as finding out what company he was with, the best thing to do is is to obtain his personnel file ( ask for complete 201 file)from NARA in ST Louis. you can use EVetrecs at the NARA website or send in a form SF-180 request.

Unit records for the 348th will be found at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

Good Morning Maj Winslow,

I'm looking for information on my father's service. He was also with the 348th Engineers. I found a web site yesterday 348th.com, you may want to check there. They have a truncated copy of Pack Up and Move posted. I have a complete copy. Included with my copy is what I assume is a roster of personnel assigned to the 348th. It's a 17 page document with names and address. Your uncle's name is listed.

Hope this helps a little.

Ron Maenpaa

Hi Ron. Thanks for posting the additional information here.