Hi Dwayne, welcome to the forum. We`ll sure try to help you solve your research puzzle. It may take awhile so stick with us, you have a lot of good clues and there will tons of sources & records to check.A couple of things i would suggest is go to a local Library & search newspapers of the time frame, newspapers usualy had some mention of the local boys in WWII.
Another is to contact the local VA Hospital, they may have a copy of his records.
I dont have much time to do a lot of research at the moment, but i found a few things that will help.
The 434th AAF Base Unit was located in Santa Rosa, California, & i think Hamilton Field was close to there.
I wondered why a 23 yr old would be sent back to the States in Dec of `44 unless he was a casualty, but in a Nov `44 report of the 818th EAB there appears to have been a normal rotation back to the States of men that had served in Iceland.
The 21st Engineers was a full regiment in `41, The Reg went from the US direct to the Invasion of North Africa in Nov `42 & serve in NoAf, & Italy for the war.
2 Companies of this Regiment did go to Iceland in `41
I find nothing on a 21st Eng Const BN (separate).
Now for Iceland:
On & July `41, 2 Companies of the 21st Eng Aviation Regiment landed at Rykjavik, Iceland with the first group of Task Force 4 of the 33 Pursuit Squadron.
These 2 Companies were soon redesignated as the 824th EAB.
The second group of Task Force 4 landed 16 Sept `41 and include 2 Battalions of the 5th Eng Combat Regiment.
The 7th Eng Combat Battalion, organic to the 5th Infantry Div. landed in May `42.
Any part of the above units could have landed in Jan when your granddad did.
for now, here is a website for the IX Engineer Command that has a tremendous amount of information on Eng Aviation units including monthly operation reports & histories:
Thanks Larry, You have a lot of good ideas, Ill have to look into the Library one. Everything you explained I have read as for the 21st, but you made more sense out of it. Thanks to this site, I learned what the name of the ship he was on during 15th Jan 1942, I looked on a site and typed in dates from Ny to Icleand and the USS Delta (Cargo) ship and the USS borinquen (troops) ship both went on a Convoy to Iceland and beside them it says 10.1, Im assuming it was Ten days and maybe an hour or two total of time. I didnt see no manifest but hey, Now I know what ship I think he was on. I did look on the site you mentioned above, in fact I looked closely at all the EAB's and their Reports. Some didnt have any or it seems some reports may be missing and some just arent complete yet. You mentioned 818th the clue you mentioned I have seen and Ive been holding on to that possibility thats why I hold on to them. I like to mention on that site, there was a picture of 4 Soldiers doing KP 2 kneeling and 2 standingand holding a trey, I took the one pic of my grandpa standing in Iceland and compared to one of the four soldiers and they look alot alike. It had me scracting my head, they were from the 834th EAB. One thing is my grandfather had a Mole on his forehead that helps identify him in hopes to find some pics online to match. Anyway to explain him coming home early I do know he was collecting a pension from the Government from an Article of him going to court back in the day. It would be awesome to have some of these morning reports I here about. Too bad they dont post them online. I believe I emailed this guy Dave and never got a responce. I do want to say thanks to all of you to the Ladies complitmenting my grandpa, thank you. Ill take that with pride and joy