The 325th Combat Engineers

After the War

Ding got through the war without a wound, but six months after he got home from the service, he decided to drive from New Jersey to West Virginia to pick up Norval Jones and head on out to Oregon to visit Bagley. He'd just picked up Norval and was going through Tennessee when he lost his headlights. Even though it was after dark, they didn't stop because after all he'd driven thousands of miles in Europe at night in blackout conditions. So he was driving along, leaning out of the window, watching the white line, when a guy came around the corner, doing exactly the same thing. He had no lights and he was hanging out the window following the white line. There was a head on collision. Ding was in horrible shape, and so was the other guy, the same injuries. Broken pelvis, in a body cast for months. He never did get out to Oregon. It was laying in the hospital that made him think about things and decide to settle down. (Wendy Ding Smith, 2003 Florida reunion)

After the war, Ding refused to be in charge of anything. He'd had that in the war. He hated to be in charge. (Wendy Ding Smith, 2003 Florida reunion)

Bob Heller remembered Capt. Goldberg in HQ Company, who was the executive officer. The odd thing was that Heller ended up in Chicago after teh war on a business trip. So he decided to take a walk along the lakefront. As he walked along in December, with few people around, he saw someone who looked familiar walking toward him. It was Goldberg. So Bob introduced himself. Goldberg took him right up to his apartment and poured him some whiskey. Bob wasn't a whiskey drinker, but yet this was the best whiskey he ever had. (Heller, 2004)

Dad got home and he wouldn't talk about the war at all for years. Then he would tell some funny stories, especially after he went to some of the reunions. And finally in the last year of his life, he would tell a little bit more, though he'd say over and over, even then, that he wasn't going to to tell me about the bad parts.

The one thing he said to my mother when he got home about what it was really like, was that he didn't think that they would reach a very high anniversary because of what he'd been through in the war. They made it to their 55th.

Reunions

From the 1987 Florida Association Reunion--T.C. Moore took the photo and identified Sgt. Dano, Dixon, and Carl Blanton.

From the 1987 Florida Association Reunion--Red Ogilvie, J. P. Wallis, Dixon, Bell, Kellett, Omar Fountain (seated).

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