This is the new place to leave your story. The old guestbook has 43 pages and you can still sign it, but I think this one is better for telling a story. If you have pictures stored at a image host like Flickr you can post a picture here too, or even a link. Every hint of porno will be deleted. This is for the history of the battalion.
About The Website
On July 4, 2002 I tried to find something about the 79th on the web. I found almost nothing. There was a website about the battalion during the Korean War and a Yahoo Group site. That was all. I couldn't believe it.
Then I went to Military.com and Classmates.com and saw a bunch of 79th vets seeking information and leaving their names. Then I looked at my old shoe box full of of pictures. On July 13th, 2002, I published this web site.
Since then several other 79th veterans, as well as others, have made significant contributions by providing information and pictures.
Thank you all for sharing those memories!
The complete history of the 79th from 1942 to 1992 is now here for anybody who cares to know about it.
I hope you enjoy the site. - Webmaster
Click The Picture Sp4 Mageechi, Sp4 Joe Mendenhall, Pfc Todd Hill 1975 Speyer, Rhein River Bridge Training
Andres Martinez American Threater Campaign Medal Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with 2 Bronze Stars Phillipine Liberation Medal with 1 Bronze Star Victory Ribbon Overseas Service Bars
"The performance of the 79th Engineer Combat Battalion in the operation contributed in large measure to the success of that operation. In particular, the close support furnished by your unit to troops in the assault, the rapid improvement of the track from the beach, the improvement and maintenance of the road, and the dilligent prosecution of all assigned engineer missions ably demonstrated the initiative, resoursefullness, skill and determination of the personel of the 79th Engineer Combat Battalion. The conduct by your men under enemy fire was exemplary, and their accomplishments in the assault and later phases of the operation redounds to their credit."
"The Battalion was reactivated as the 79th Engineer Construction Battalion on 28 February, 1949, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. We remained at Fort Sill, attached to the 17th Field Artilley Group, until February, 1950. The Battalion was then notified that it had been chosen as part of Task Force 3, which was to take part in "Operation Greenhouse." Our misssion was to destroy existing buildings on Eniwetok Atoll and erect new installations for a garrison of a permanent nature." - Bobby Thompson
"I was in Japan Jan. 1949 to Nov. 1951 During that time Gen. Mark Clark declared the 79th Engr. Bn. to be the BEST Engr. Bn. in the Far East. They had just returned to Japan from Eniwetok" - Clyde Keene
Mystery Photos; 1940s or 1950s By John Mcconaghy If you recognize any of these pictures send me a e-mail. They must have been taken during this time frame. My current hunch is Japan.
M/Sgt Cupit with the B-Co 79th Engineer Battalion. This was written on the back of the picture that my wife's uncle took. My wife's uncle was LTC Louis D. Calarco, he was with the 43rd Inf and KMAG. - Bob DeGuise
The 79th Engineer Battalion was activated by the transfer of the battalion colors from Korea to Neureut Kaserne, Karlsruhe Germany and on 22 February 1955, the battalion started its construction work in that location.
PFC Bruce Gearhart Bruce has the first recollection so far of the 79th in Germany
On 14 February 1956 orders were received for a permanent change of station for the Battalion. Preparations were made by Headquarters and Service Company and Company A to move to Pirmasens, Germany. Companies B and C made preparations to move on a temporary change of station basis to Mannheim for the summer construction season.
Part 1
Part 2
These great videos were made by Dave Presley who sent them to me as a DVD set in 2006. You might need to click pause and let it load for a while if you have a slow internet connection. Enjoy your journey back in time. Very well done! Fait Accompli!
Great pictures of Husterhöhe, Pirmasens & Kleber Kasernes With a great link about American History in the 1950s John Clifford, 1951 (He wasn't in the 79th but the pictures are great. I think he is dead now.)
On 15 March 1966, the 79th Engineer Battalion came once again under the control of the 39th Engineer Group. The relocation of the battalion from Pirmasens, Germany, to Neu Ulm, Germany occurred during the period of 10 July 1966 to 1 November 1966.
While digging through my stack-of-stuff I found this corny video. It's the first one I made about Gerszewski Barracks and before YouTube. It tries to tell how the 79th Engineers ended up at the zoo. It does have some pictures that are not posted anywhere else on this site. Click the two history links above for a much better expanded version of the two intersecting histories, and much better videos.
Yahoo! Group Gerszewski Barracks Everybody is Welcome! Everything you could possibly want to know about the kaserne is here.
The Gerszewski Barracks Movie
Clips from the movie Buffalo Soldiers (Watch The Trailer), which was filmed at Gerszewski Barracks in the 79th's end of the kaserne. You will see every building that the 79th occupied. All of the scenes filmed in the Colonel's office were in the 79th's headquarters building. Here are clips from the movie with the music from the end of the movie.
Note: The webmaster was in the 24th Engineer Group attached to the 79th as a Soil Analyst during this period. By the middle of 1973 he was transfered to the 79th. The webmaster was flown from K-Town (Kaiserslautern) to the Zoo (Gerszewski Barracks) in Karlsruhe in a small helicopter, then he boarded a Chinook with a platoon from Co C 79th and a barf bucket and was flown to Graf.
C Company's project at Tank Ranges 12 and 80 was a whopper in its own right. They had significant support from HHC in the form of surveying control and soils lab work. The folks from A Company operated a quarry near the range, providing gravel for C Company's new tank trails. C Company occupied both their vertical construction platoons, and all the earthmoving assets in the battalion. A pretty big job for a group of young fellows, and they did it safely, taking care of each other. (But they built the Range Tower backwards - Webmaster) Tragically, we lost a B Company earthmoving soldier who drowned swimming in an old quarry near Graf after an especially hot day on the range. - LT John McConaghy, Co. B, 1st Platoon
AWOL from Graf, 1973
Italian hitch hiker we picked up in Milano. She stayed with us for 3-days. The answer to your question is no way. It's a great story though. Here's a small taste of the story.
The Maintenance Complex
Note: After Kogut and Earle went back to the world the 79th only had one surveyor left. But the Maintenance Complex was way over his head. So the webmaster was given the responsibility of both Soil & Survey until SSG Pelfrey finally arrived near the end of 1973 to head up the new survey team. When the time came to draw the As-Built plans the 79th did not have enough draftsmen either, so the webmaster drew the As-Built plans for the project too.
The Maintenance Complex was the biggest project B Company had taken on in a long time. Planning started in the winter of 1972-1973 with LT Kenneth Clow as the Project Officer. By the time B Company moved to Graf in the spring of 1973, CPT William Gay (Read Biography) had assumed command of the company, and LT Sidney Allison took over as the Project Officer. LT Allison was promoted to CPT and reassigned, and in the fall of 1973, LT Lee Davis took over as Project Officer and finished the job.
Just about nobody from B Company (or the rest of the 79th, for that matter) was left in Karlsruhe. Both B Company vertical construction platoons were involved at the Maintenance Complex site, and the earthmoving platoon was working with C Company on the upgrade of Tank Ranges 12 and 80. The early work on the Maintenance Complex involved getting the building foundations and structure in place, and a whole pile of grading and paving. The paving equipment came from the 24th Engineer Group's Equipment Platoon, and labor was provided by the 79th. Concrete paving went on dusk-to-dawn for months. There were also hundreds of yards of concrete-paved drainage ditches, sludge traps, and oil separators that had to go in, as well.
I'll leave it to the Webmaster to tell the story of how the Maintenance Complex project turned out, since he was there. In response to the observation that the NCOs were not very visible on the jobsite, I can only recall that there were not many there in the first place. In the post-Vietnam draw-down, the Army was having a hard time convincing career soldiers that they should stay in, especially after twenty years. Europe came lower in priority than Asian assignments, or apparently than stateside duty for that matter. B Company had First Sergeant Givens, a number of earthmoving NCOs, and several experienced vertical construction leaders like 1st Platoon's SFC Crawford out on the line. They were good NCOs, but they were spread plenty thin. In general, things got done because some special young fellows like Mike Bridge and Gary Burdett got picked to be acting NCOs. They took the challenge, and stepped up and got more done with fewer resources than anyone could reasonably have expected of them. - LT John McConaghy, Co. B, 1st Platoon
!!! Thanks Red !!!
The webmaster wants to acknowledge SP/4 "Red" Gridley from Boston, Mass. After Earle & Kogut went back to the world it was up to me to survey the Maintenance Complex. I could not have done it without Red from Co B Earthmoving Platoon. It was just way over the head of the other guy they had with me from S-3 who was supposed to be a surveyor. You see Red's picture many times in the Maintenance Complex video. Let me just say that when you absolutely NEED to get something done - find a guy from Boston. This video is dedicated to Red:
In Memorium
The webmaster needs to acknowledge the memory of SP4 Thomas (Moose) Sherer from Syracuse, NY. He was in Co. B Earthmoving Platoon and died in 1974 (probably January) at the Zoo (Gerszewski Barracks) after falling out of the back of a duce-and-a-half and hitting his head on a curb. Red and Me and Mooose all took Christmas leave together in 73 and we booked the same flight to Boston from Frankfurt. I remember that when we landed in Boston the plane right behind us skid off the runway in the snowstorm. Anyway Red stayed in Boston. Moose and Me took a bus to Albany, NY, where I got off, and then Moose went on to Syracuse. We had only recently returned from the world when the tragic event that killed Moose occured at the Zoo. There was a memorial for him at the Gerszewski Chapel. Rest in peace Moose -- I haven't forgotten you.
In Memorium
"I'm doing fine, my liver on the other hand has cancer in both lobes, quit drinkin'and smokin - life is very tame right now -- I've had to have veins in the bottom of my esophagus banded {feel like I'm the object of some catch and release study}, without banding they leak and I vomit blood, trust me, you never want to do that."
Note that there is a profound difference between the sun and a stinking woodchuck. I won't even mention that the sun is inside a upside down blood red pyramid. Furthermore, by connecting the points of the sun you can make a swastika. It's unreal symbolism ain't it? They gave up that for a stinking woodchuck? And when you consider that the city wappen for Knielingen is a pentagram of all things ... hey, I'm surprised that --- errr, maybe I'll just leave it there before I get suicided or abducted by a alien spacecraft.
Notice that the pretty song is just an illusion. The reality is that the rat goes for the cheese. And if the cheese was set on a trap the rat would still go for it, even though the wood, wire and springs of the trap are easier to see. Right? That's why Amerikans are in a little crisis right now. They went for the cheese and ignored the wood, wires and springs. Don't worry though. President Obama will fix everything. (Does anybody from Switzerland want to trade their citizenship with me? If so send me a e-mail right away. I'll even throw in my 1985 F-250 Diesel Pickup Truck.)
Anyway, this is now a DEAD link, just like a dead woodchuck caught in a trap:
"Following Operation Desert Storm and the fall of the Soviet Union, the battalion was reassigned to the 130th Engineer Brigade, V Corps, and then reorganized in 1992 to become the only Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy) in the European theater. Newly designated Companies A and B moved from Karlsruhe, Germany, to Hohenfels and Wildflecken, Germany, while Headquarters and Support Company and Company C moved to Vilseck, Germany." THAT was the 79th !!!
Read it again like this:
Newly designated as the 94th Companies A and B of the 79th moved from Karlsruhe, Germany, to Hohenfels and Wildflecken, Germany, while Headquarters and Support Company and Company C of the 79th moved to Vilseck, Germany."
Now this:
I was in the 79th when they disbanded, and everyone went to the 94th in 1993. HSC and Charlie were re-deployed to Vilseck (I HATED Vilseck!), Alpha went to Hohenfels (I was assigned as one of Alpha's medics for 6 months, Loved it in Hohenfels, but then again, I spent every possible amount of time in Nuremberg, not Hohenfels), and Bravo went to Wildflicken. I have a bunch of pictures from Karlsruhe and from Hohenfels and Vilseck, if you guys want to copy them.
Robert L. Welch (YES Robert, Send Pictures)
It was further confirmed in these two biographies. NOTE: CSM Landy's link is dead but I was able to coorespond with him a couple of years ago and he confirmed it. The problem is I lost it or misplaced it:
The Command Sergeant Major of the NEW 94th ENG BN had two tours with the 79th ENG BN in Karlsruhe, Germany.
In 1982 ... he was the Battalion Logistics Officer and then the Battalion Maintenance Officer for the 79th Engineer Battalion in Karlsruhe. He next became the Brigade Maintenance Officer for the 18th Engineer Brigade .... then (became) Company Commander, B Company, 94th Engineer Battalion in Darmstadt.
The 79th Engineer Battalion BECAME the NEW (and now inactivated) 94th.
So .....
The elite version of the 94th Engineers (now inactivated) was born out of the old 79th. For those of you who are interested, now you know. When you study the history of the 79th, you will notice that there is a link with the 94th that pops up now and then. It must have been some kind of sister battalion. For example, besides Colonel Houck, you see a 94th link in the Colonel Stokes story, and again in the biography of Colonel Thayer way back yonder.
Why the brass dumped the 79th instead of the 94th is beyond me. After all, just look at the unit crests again. Why would anybody choose a woodchuck over the power of the sun? The thinking behind that move can best be summed up, in my opinion, with this picture:
Obviously this website is my personal tribute to the history of the 79th Engineer Battalion. It is not endorsed by the American military in any regard. Take it for what it is.
It's free for you.
Just like your freedom used to be .... and still can be.
"Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."
Translation: To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. - Tacitus, The Agricola
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