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Guestbook Entry from Dean R. Kahler

"My Father was in the 174 Combat Engineer in WWII. Leyte Island invasion and Okinawa invasion. I can not find any information about them anywhere. Could you help me?"

The 174th Engineer Combat Battalion was assigned to the XXIV CORPS.

Assault Credit Leyte, 20-22 Oct 44, WD GO 109-46

Assault Credit Okinawa, 1 April 45, DA GO 37-50

Occupation Okinawa, 15 Sept - 14 Nov 45

Occupation Korea 15 Nov 45 - 20 Feb 46

sailed aboard USS Sea Flasher from US to Hawaii

landed on Leyte aboard USS Simon Bolivar

I`ll have to check records of the Leyte operation to see if the is any mention of who they were attached to.

For the Okinawa landings, the 174thECB was under the 1122 Engineer Group, and attached to the 96th Infantry Div for the landing

US 10th Army (Okinawa)

April 1945

XXIV CORPS: Lt. General Hodge

96TH DIVISION

Attached as of L Day

HQ & HQ Company, 1122nd Engineer Combat Group

170th Engineer Combat Battalion

173rd Engineer Combat Battalion

174th Engineer Combat Battalion

2nd Platoon, 1088th Engineer Depot Company

When the war ended the 174thECB went to Korea, landed at Inchon went in LST to Pusan.

Veterans History Project Interview with Victor Selinsky, member of Co C, 174th ECB

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp-stories/loc.natlib.afc2001001.15293/

Unit records may be obtained from the National Archives in College Park MD, or from the Eisenhower Library in Abiline, KS.

Hello Dean,

  My father, Edward Lucashu, was in Company "C". I actually have copies of the orders that issued the bronze service star to particpants at Okinawa, and for the Bronze service arrowhead for participants in the Leyte landings. Was you dad named John?  He was in Company "B". Attached photos show your dad's name. He is on both lists. I also have several photos of men in the unit but there are only a couple that I can figure out the name. Have you ever seen the color photo of McArthur when he landed at Leyte? There are a lot of guys standing around and I'm pretty sure one of them is my dad. My dad told me that he was right near him when he landed. Perhaps your dad was there too!  Below is the web address of the photo.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emersonkent.com%2Fimages%2Fi_have_returned.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emersonkent.com%2Fspeeches%2Fi_have_returned.htm&docid=nCklfvYvoSjvUM&tbnid=0aqRQHoxPyEE-M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwiCkrnIvtPhAhUmn-AKHSNfDvcQMwhvKBUwFQ..i&w=550&h=380&bih=757&biw=1600&q=general macarthur leyte&ved=0ahUKEwiCkrnIvtPhAhUmn-AKHSNfDvcQMwhvKBUwFQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

I don't know if you can reach Dean directly, because if you look again, it was a guestbook entry that SonofaMP copied to this post. Dean was never a member of this forum. And unfortunately, SonofaMP passed away a few years ago. Sorry to give you that bad news.

Thank you Marion. 

That's not to say that Dean won't see it in the future, if he's hunting on the web, but... you never know.  :pdt20: