No problem Jean, glad to do it. I got a lot of my information from work that others found and posted on the internet so if this helps someone else or encourages another 157th engineer or 157th family member to find more information or post information they have, then it is worth it to me.

Not to mention, I cannot tell you how much fun it is to take new information or new photos I find to Mr. Purcell. I mailed a new to me photograph of the 157th building the Seine River Bridge that I got on ebay to Mr. Purcell with his Christmas Card. When I called him a few days later, you could hear the excitement in his voice telling me that he had a lot to say about that photograph! I swear he is like me and goes through each photograph with a magnifying glass looking at every little detail down to what boots they were wearing at the time.

As for the summary of the towns, locations and map, I do have a map showing the travels of the 1109th Engineer Combat Group of which the 157th and 163rd Engineer Combat Battalions were part of. My birthday is coming up next month and my gift from my wife is going to be having it scanned (it is not in the best shape so there are precautions needed for scanning ($)) and then I will have the original professionally framed so it will last. This map shows the location of the headquarters for the 1109th and so not exactly where each battalion and companies were located, but close. Luckily, the available after action reports and such have a lot of this information. I have been working on bringing all the information together and combining it with all the photographs, souvenirs, paperwork and letters that I have to get an as complete as possible account of the 157th. Of course, my wife thinks I am nuts. Oh well!

Brian

Brian, It is so fabulous what you are doing! Wow! I just never knew much about Army Engineers, I am embarrassed to say. But I am learning. Your wife is great!

Jean J

YEAH! That's what I said when I saw this post this morning. This is such cool stuff!

When I saw all the pics, I was drooling. Will have to get these uploaded to the 157th folder in the Engineer's Gallery.

A shout out to Harold Whiting - "Hey, have you seen this post yet?" For those readers out there who don't know, Harold is one of the vets from the 157th, whom I'm had the pleasure to meet.

Yes, cheers to your wife. I can appreciate her help, for my husband has done a lot for me and also been very patient with me during my research.

Thanks for taking the time to do this. I know how much effort goes into something like this.

Brian - I am FINALLY going to copy and upload all the photos you provided above, to the gallery today, if all goes well. Sorry for the long delay, but you would not believe my WWII related backlog for letters, uploads, etc. I swear I need to hire a secretary to assist me, for I really need one.

I will add these to the Frank Altman folder.

YEAH! I got 'er done! Yeah me! :bluejumper:

http://www.6thcorpscombatengineers.com/imagevue/#/WWII%20Engineers/157th%20Engineers/Frank%20Altman%20157th%20Engineer/

Great information! Thanks for posting this. I'm always on the lookout for information regarding the 163rd Engineer Battalion.

We're glad we can do this for you and for many others. It's nice to hear how much you appreciate this.

Hi. I'm new to the forum and was hoping to see some photos of the 163rd. My uncle was in the unit and my cousin and I were just going through is ribbons, medals, uniform and so on. But the photos posted are 'photobucket' and I can't see them. Is there any other way to view them? Thanks much. - Stve

Sorry, those photos don't belong to me, but are Brian's. Evidently he didn't update his PhotoBucket account, so it looks like we are out of luck. Hopefully he will see this and help us out. :-) Sorry about that. 

BTW, welcome to the forum. Glad to have you here! 

I'll send him a private note...