The 51st Again!: An Engineer Combat Battalion in World War II by Barry W. Fowle, Floyd D. Wright - 1992

White Mane Publishing Company, Inc, 1992. Hardback. Like New. LIKE NEW - Dust jacket in protective mylar. Gently read if at all. No marks. Binding is sound and square. . . . . . . . The 51st Again! is the story of a hard-working successful engineer combat battalion that was formed in Texas and trained in New York and England. Landing on Normandy in June 1944, the men had reached Belgium by November. There, they began sawmill operations. Then the Germans struck in the Battle of the Bulge. The 51st, called on to help stop the enemy, soon found itself holding a 40-mile front, with numerous strategic roadblocks to defend. Fighting as infantry as well as engineers in several pitched battles, elements of five divisions relieved the battalion as the Battle of the Bulge came to an end. When the American counter-offensive began, the 51st was in the forefront clearing roads and mines and bridging the Roer, the Rhine, and the Danube, among other natural obstacles to the American advance. When the war ended in May the 51st had just finished several bridges of the Isar Canal. The 51st then turned to helping the Germans rebuild their country. By Fall it was preparing to go home. The 51st Engineer Combat Battalion was inactivated on October 27, 1945, at Camp Patrick Henry, Virginia. Few of its original members remained.