This is very, very important. As you know I have been painstakingly going through over 2000 pages of documents from the National Archives regarding my father's unit, the 540th Combat Engineers. Today I have spent another 4 hours continuing the process of sorting and filing by month and year during the war.
Within the last hour I uncovered something that caught my eye and I think it will be very good news for those combat engineers WHO WERE ELIGIBLE and who WERE SUPPOSED TO BE AWARDED THE CIB!
As many of you know, it has been argued that combat engineers were not supposed to be eligible to receive the CIB, even though many of them did including my father. If a combat engineer fought as infantryman as many of they certainly did, then they should have been awarded one.
Well I found PROOF that they were issued to combat engineers who were met the criteria, and am presenting that proof to everyone today.
I have already contacted Captain John Fallon of the 36th Engineers, who by the way, did get one, and informed him of the good news. Many of the men who fought alongside him as infantrymen did not get it, while he did. We plan send this info to Washington as proof and to continue fighting for the cause.
I am very excited that I stumbled upon this discovery today and can't wait to share it with others. After all they can't dispute THEIR OWN ORDERS!
08-07-08 Please see updated link for this post. The other one became inoperable
Proud Daughter of Walter (Monday) Poniedzialek
540th Engineer Combat Regiment, 2833rd Bn, H&S Co, 4th Platoon
There's "No Bridge Too Far"