Description

5th Engineer Training Battalion
Engineer Replacement Training Center • World War II (Home Front Training, Fort Belvoir) •
84 pages scanned. Instant PDF download.

Document Overview

Produced by the officers and cadre of the Fifth Engineer Training Battalion at the Engineer Replacement Training Center, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, this 1942 historical and pictorial review documents a class of newly inducted trainees moving through basic engineer instruction. It covers the history of Fort Belvoir itself, the Center’s command and staff, and the battalion’s own companies as they trained in ponton and trestle bridge building, demolitions, rigging, and road construction, illustrated throughout with training photographs and a farewell address from the battalion commander. This digital download is a scanned copy of the original commemorative volume, delivered as an instant PDF.

Training: Rifle marksmanship, demolitions, ponton and trestle bridge construction, rigging, and road building.

Commanders: Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Marks (Fort Belvoir post commander); Maj. Ralph C. Bailey (Commanding Officer, Fifth Engineer Training Battalion, from March 1942).

Fort Belvoir newspaper: Belvoir Castle

Table of Contents

Fort Belvoir and the Engineer Replacement Training Center
Center Command and Staff
Fifth Battalion Headquarters
Bridge and Ponton Training
Company A
Company B
Company C
Company D
Roster of Trainees

“America must win this war. Therefore I will work; I will save; I will sacrifice; I will endure; I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the whole struggle depended on me alone.”
— quoted by Maj. Ralph C. Bailey, Commanding Officer, in his farewell letter to the battalion