556th Engineer Battalion

I'm brand new to this forum and I'm hoping you guys can help me out! My grandfather passed before I was born so I unfortunately never got a chance to ask him about any of this and my grandmother developed alzheimers and later passed before I had a chance to ask her about any of this stuff either. My dad remembers very little about my grandfather's military service, so please forgive me for my lack of information. My grandfather's name was Raymond Russell Wright. I know he served in World War II, and from what I can tell, I *believe* he was in the Pacific Theater. He has a military marker in the cemetery that states his rank as a TEC 4. My dad believes that he helped build bridges in the war. I attempted to get his military records, however, due to the 1973 fire, the only thing they could provide was his final pay voucher. Based on pictures that I recently found, he may have possibly been in what I believe to be the 556th Engineer Battalion. His army serial number is 32742596.

I have uploaded some of the pictures that I have found in hopes that it would help determine information about it. I'm looking to find out hopefully what he did overseas and where his battalion was stationed and where they went. Some of the pictures have some captions including some names and dates that were written on the back of the pictures. In the Dropbox folder is also the final payment voucher scanned in, if that helps at all.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xhuap342ofqacq6/AAAKyM71vmRwa-Xafm_BpzBra?dl=0

As a side note, Picture 11 is of interest to me for some reason. It's my grandfather sitting in front of a building which is described as a courthouse on the back of the picture and was said to be taken on May 22nd, 1943. Any ideas where that was taken?

I really appreciate any assistance you can provide to me!

 

Well, based on photos 7 & 8, he may have served with the Headquarters & Service Company (H&S Co.) of the 556th Engineer Heavy Ponton Battalion. The 556th is mentioned briefly in the Green Book volume, Triumph in the Philippines on pages 232-233. They are also mentioned in Vol. 6 of the SIXTH Army Report on Luzon. You may also be interested in another of the Green Books, The Corps of Engineers: The War Against Japan (PDF) which references the 556th several times.

As far as the photos, some are clearly in the States, others are clearly overseas (possibly Occupation duty?), while others are more ambiguous. Perhaps someone else will be more helpful in discerning the specific locales.