Hi everyone Wow! This place is a great collection of information. My name is KB, I'm 35, and located in Oregon. Both of my Grandpas (along with a few other Uncles) served in WWII. Unfortuantly neither of them really discussed their times while in the service with me; with the expection of my Grampa Holcomb spoke once about it with me, and my Grampa Kaber only seem to discuss his time in serve with his grandsons (I'm not sure why). I have starting to research both of their's history in the service. My hope is I can at the very lest a good point in the right direction for my researching. With my Grandpa Kaber I have the following information on him. Harvey N Kaber served in the 303rd Bomb Group (H) famously known as the Hell’s Angels with the 360 crew. On most of his missions he was a Ball Turret Gunner, though sometimes he was assigned to be a Wing Gunner. I’ve just started to go over the mission reports. On my Grandpa Holcomb the information is not so easily to be found. Possibly he served with the 734th Rail Operation Battalion A company, but am not sure on this(?), as he was an engineer during his service time. He was injured on D-Day or within days after when checking out an abandon German barracks/bunker. After a few days in the hospital he then went on to fight in the Battle of Paris, and after this was in the Bastogne. Through the one discussion with my late grandpa he stated he built bridges, drove trucks, worked on different equipment, but right before or after the Battle of Paris was mainly on the front lines. Any suggestions on reserching would be greatly appreciated. As this point I’m just plain ole stuck. Other then researching into my grandpa’s service history is enjoying time with my family, photography, baking, and ect. I’ve also have slowly started to look into my Great Grandpa’s service history during the Spanish-American War. Any how, I’ve rambled on enough for now. It’s great to meet y’all and I look forward on hearing more from everyone.
Welcome KB, good to see you lurking about the joint. As you have discovered, finding info on the 303rd BG will present few issues. The 743rd, that is going to be far more problematic Support units of that type are very difficult to research. Contact NARA and see what they might have. It will cost about 75¢ a page. Here is what I see in the Unit Citation and Campaign Participation Register, 1961: 743rd Railway Operations Battalion: Credited with Central Europe and Rhineland Campaigns and Occupation Duty 20 May to 5 July 1945 in Germany. They probably supported the 12th Army Group. I found these pages: http://www.griffincunningham.net/Griffin/MAIN/743rdmain1.htm <---I highly recommend you contact the webmaster of this website. http://www.griffincunningham.net/Griffin/MAIN/743organizes.htm http://militaryrailwayservice.blogspot.com/ http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~emmonsfamily1/BCompany.html <---This person may also be able to help
