Hi all but especially Marion since I'm hoping she can direct me to the right spot. My uncle was a Seabee in the Pacific during WWII. I wrote to him asking some general questions regarding his service in the hopes he will tell me of his time there.

Are there any sites you've run across that have any details concerning the Seabee's and their involvement in WWII? Just curious, I tried Google and get a few but nothing really that informative. Thanks for any help.

Ron

During the Napoleonic Wars and earlier, the European armies had designated a special soldier called a sapper, who carried an axe to clear roads through heavy woods. Later, engineers were added, who were more specialized troops that could build bridges and observation towers.

The Imperial Guard were the special fighting soldiers that protected Napoleon and his palaces. The Imperial Guard did not have any Engineers. After a fire in his palace in 1807 (I believe), a decree was issued to organize the Engineers of the Guard.

They wore a very similiar uniform as the Foot Artillery of the Guard: blue coat with long tails in red and red turnbacks and black lapels. Usually, they wore black leggings. But instead of a bearskin fur cap, the Engineers of the Guard wore an unusual steel helmet with a black crest. (Cavalry wore either bronze helmets or steel helmets with horse hair "tails").

The Engineers of the Guard were a small unit and in the field, they usually built observation towers for Napoleon to view the battle.

See this link for more history.

http://xoomer.virgilio.it/jmurat/uniformi/geniere1.htm

Actual photo of Engineers of the Line(not the Guard). The Engineers of the Line wore a shako hat, similiar to the Artillery of the Line. These photos are the only surviving images of veterans of the Grande Armée and the Guard actually wearing their original uniforms and insignia they wore in 1815 Waterloo Campaign.

http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/University...ans/Lefebre.jpg

Marion,

I registered but I don't think I introduced myself. Then I began a topic but it timed me out before I posted it.

Anyway, I met Marion thru our interest in the II Corps and the Italian Campaign. For 5 years, I've been compiling info on the Italian Campaign into my website, that includes stories, photos and trivial bits of info. It is sorta like a giant note pad to help me remember what I've read.

I also started collecting books on the Italian Campaign to help research the units that fought there. Now, I've got a pretty good library but am always looking for more books, especially those related to other countries that were in Italy. I'm also interested in Militaria and have an assortment of uniforms and hats and pins, etc. A long time ago, I picked up a British cap badge at a gun show. That eventually turned into a pursuit to collect more and now I have at least 85 cap badges from British & Canadian regiments.

Gotta go, now.

Steve

(Hey! I can edit my post.)

This is a friends son from the 4th Infantry Div...If you look close you may recognize the "hole"

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Here's a great article that is featured in this month's World War II Magazine (April 2005). It's a first hand account of a combat engineer on the day that he led an assault boat across the Rhine River and into the teeth of the German defenses at St. Goarshausen. It's called Red Ran the Rhine. Interview by Paul Trickett. Article by Oscar Friedensohn.

MY LINK WAS DEAD. DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO MY FILE, SO A BIG THANKS EB Thanks for supplying said story below!