Hi: I'm posting this letter for Dale. Looking forward to chatting with him here too. How wonderful to hear from a member of this unit. A warm, warm welcome.
Mrs. Chard,
A paragraph about myself. I was in 285th Engineer © Battalion. I
joined the 285th in Camp Crowder. At the time I joined the 285th we were
only occupying one barracks. There were only cadre. The day I entered
the unit a Tec/Sgt was latrine orderly.
I give this information to show how few men were in the outfit, they were
only waiting for fillers to start training to be Combat Engineers.
Before we ever got to the ETO we had 2 as I remember or maybe three
battalion commanding officers relieved of their command for inefficiency.
The only time I was not with the 285th was 13 weeks I spent in Ft.
Belvoir radio school. I was with the 285th until it was redeployed to
the US. I did not have enough points to return with them and was
transferred to the 4th Armored Division at that time.
About 1975 I got a mailing asking if I would be interested in a reunion of
the 285th and of course I replied that I would be interested and would
attend any reunion. The first reunion was in 1976(I think). After
several years of reunions I became part of the reunion organizers and
organized and attended reunions until several years ago when only 3 vets
showed an interest in attending. I cancelled the reunion, for 4
attendees hotels would not give reunion rates.
I have a list of all the 285th vets that were located. I looked at the
forum and the questions about 285th vets are about men we could not
locate, with the exception of Capt. Joe Mioux. Capt. Mioux attended a
number of the reunions and I have been in contact with his son.
I hope this explains I have no interest in spamming. I would like to
contact others looking for information. Unhappily I have only a few
mementos of the 285th but I have the original list of the men that were
located. The list is quite old and probably outdated by now and there
are more passed away than there are still living.
I live in the St. Louis, MO area and I am always interested in finding
more information about anyone that had been in the 285th and maybe even
getting old comrades together.
Dale Diller
Proud Daughter of Walter (Monday) Poniedzialek
540th Engineer Combat Regiment, 2833rd Bn, H&S Co, 4th Platoon
There's "No Bridge Too Far"