By April 18th the battalion was bivouacked at Flynn’s Lick, Tennesse. All pontoon units in the maneuver area were formed into a Bridge Group under the command of Lt. Colonel Fitch.
The battalion took part in all river crossing problems during the maneuver and received special commendation for the crossing at Rome, Tennessee, on 15 June 1943.
On 30 May 1943. Lt. Colonel James C. Fitch was transferred from the battalion to the 1 134th Engineer Combat Group and assumed command of that organization. Major Clarence F. Martin assumed command of the battalion.
As usual rumors floated here and there about the battalion —either we were going overseas or else that units of our type had been declared obsolete and were going to be deactivated. November decided that question. Alert orders were received for overseas movement and speculation became fact, Our advance detail, consisting of Lt. Thomas F. Meagher, Lt. Walter E. Smith, S/Sgt Thomas R. Burns and Tec 4 Michael E. Dundon left on 24 November for the POE,
Last minute preparations finally ended on 18 December when the Battalion pulled out of Camp Forrest for Camp Shanks, New York. Our next destination was unknown to us.
All the information to this point is purely background. It is true that an organization becomes a close knit unit during its training days but it becomes a battalion or a company or a platoon after it goes overseas. Our battalion was a good battalion but it had its faults and deficiencies as does every comparable unit. From here on our job was searching intensively for these deficiencies and remedying them — all this took us many days and nights of work and conference and more work.
Who of us who were at Camp Shanks will ever forget it? The hustle, the bustle, our first taste — and how we disliked it — of censorship… inspections… repetitious movies… abandon ship drill… shots in the arm… packing… repacking… and at night, visits to New York which ended when the last bus left for Camp in the wee hours of the morning. Everyone was trying to pack everything possible into those last few days. Who can ever forget that it was Christmas Day that our final alert instructions were received and that guards were placed around our barracks. Remember how we were dressed to go out to New York when they arrived?
Then the trip to the harbor, first by truck and then by harbor craft. We moved down the Hudson River passing up ship after ship until finally we pulled up opposite a pier and were told to clamber aboard a small grey Navy Ship — the USS Thurston. Our quarters were luxurious —- if you moved an arm you poked someone else in the ribs — they had us stacked seven high in the holds.
Finally on 29 December early in the morning they raised the hook and we stood out to sea. Some of us were on deck that morning as we passed the lady x, straining our eyes for a last glimpse of her — our last for we knew not how long.
Sweepers, man your brooms: clean sweep down fore and aft — that was our first initiation to being sailors. Then the head and finally Mal de Mer only we called it plain seasickness. At last almost all of us had our sea legs and could get around on what little deck space there was and speculate on submarines, bombers, our escort vessels, our destination and of anything else that could pass the time. They passed out little books to us finally and we knew we were headed for England.
The books explained pounds and pence, little personal matters, and the language differences. England seemed like such a romantic place what with its Blitz and of course the conversation drifted into the Invasion and we wondered when it would be but it was such a remote thought that not much attention was paid to it.
We had an epidemic of scarlet fever and measles aboard ship, and when at last we arrived at Liverpool on 8 January 1944, they almost didn’t let us off.
Finally on 10 January at 0001 we debarked and walked to a waiting train and took off for Pangborne, Berkshire, England — where it was we didn’t know and never found out until we arrived there.
It was our first experience with English trains — and with the lovely Red Cross girls that passed out coffee and doughnuts to us — but not our last.
