The 325th Combat Engineers

This web site honors the men who served in the 325th Combat Engineers, especially Company C, the unit that my father, Gordon Morse, served with overseas. They were part of the 100th Division, the Century, and proud to call themselves the "Sons of Bitche." As the map above shows, the unit formed at Fort Jackson, trained intensively during maneuvers in Tennessee, lost a lot of men at Fort Bragg as replacement troops after D-Day, trained the new recruits, sailed to Marseilles, and entered combat at Raon l'Etape and Baccarat. They were in continuous combat through the Vosges Mountains, through the Maginot and Seigried Lines, through the Citadel of Bitche, over the Rhine, to Heilbronn (the last major battle on the Western Front), and down to Stuttgart for the Occupation, where they waited for the Japanese surrender, and then waited for their turn to get shipped home.

In 2004, my sister and I went on the V-E Day Tour of Bitche for the Century Division. I'm filling in the blanks still. I have photos from others on the tour still to put up and gaps to fill about what happened at these locations. May 5 through May 7 (arrival, Wingen, V-E Day ceremony at Bitche) May 8 (Lemberg, Baerenthal, Dambach-Neunhoffen) May 9 (Raon l'Etape) May 10 (Saint Avold Cemetary, Bitche) updated 6/12 (translation of the newspaper articles) May 11 (Fort Simserhof, tour of Bitche) May 12 (Fort Schiesseck, Freudenberg Farm, College de Bitche, Citadel, Rimling) May 13 (Strasbourg) May 14 (Stuttgart, Ellwangen) May 15 (Heilbronn) Thanks to Bob Hamer for the great picture from our hotel--

For those who haven't been yet, here are some pictures of The WWII Memorial in Washington D.C. in September 2004.

Information, corrections, insight, or advice about the site? Please e-mail! It wouldn't be what it is--and will be--without the help and contributions of others.

Special thanks to

Carl Blanton, T. C. Moore, and John P. Wallis of Company C

Richard Ding and Wendy Smith

Laura Smith

Scott Zederbaum

and especially my mother, Margaret Youngs Morse

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