Mr. Greenwalt was one of the founding officers of the 35th. He served initially in the Headquarters Company. During reorganization of the regiment at Camp White, Oregon, Mr. Greenwalt became a member of the 145th Engineer (Combat) Battalion. I've also included Mr. Greenwalt's comments about an event he experienced during the Battle of the Bulge with the 145th ECB.
FIRST WEDDING – 35TH ENGINEER REGIMENT
The first major social event of the regiment was my wedding. I met my soon to be wife (Marie Louise Schmidt) in my senior year at Iowa State and we were engaged two months after the first “date”. I graduated on June 8, 1941, also being commissioned from ROTC in the Corps of Engineers at this time. We were immediately ordered to Active Duty to the Engineer School at Ft. Belvoir, VA, and to report on June 13, 1941. Following our course at Belvoir, we were ordered to the newly activated 35th Engineer Regiment at Ft. Snelling, MN, and shortly thereafter transferred to Camp Joseph T. Robinson, AR. Soon after arrival at Robinson, we were ordered to participate in the Louisiana Maneuvers. All of these movements held up our wedding plans, which finally came to be on Saturday, October 11th, 1941.
We were married in the Post Chapel by Post Chaplain Smoot. Marie’s home was Osage, Iowa, and as her parents were not able to attend due to her father’s job responsibilities, our regimental commander, Lt. Col. Ingalls agreed to “give the bride away”. My parents (my father being at the time a Lt. Col. stationed at Camp Claiborne, Louisiana) were able to attend. Several of Marie’s good friends from Osage also came for the wedding, including her best friend and bride’s maid, Hazel Stromley. I chose a very good friend from the Regiment, Lt. Francis Ohmer, as best man (both the bride’s maid and best man are still living and have been very good friends over the past 61 years). We were also to get Pvt. Farhenhorst (Sp?) as pianist and Calvin Campbell as soloist. I believe he sang “Oh Promise Me”. Practically every officer of the regiment as well as their wives attended. Following the service a reception was held in the Regimental Officer’s Club. The ladies did a beautiful job of decorating the place and the baker made a beautifully decorated wedding cake, which we cut with the traditional sabre. We were presented with a very large, heavy sterling silver circular tray inscribed thus:
Lieut. and Mrs. Robert J. Greenwalt
From the Officers and Ladies of the 35th Engineer Regiment
October 11, 1941
We still treasure this platter and used it last fall when we celebrated our 60th anniversary.
I was able to find a nice apartment in North Little Rock which we enjoyed for a couple of months before Pearl Harbor disrupted everyone's lives. We were on our way to Ft. Ord, California, shortly after that event. Being married on a second lieutenant’s $125 monthly salary with a minimal off-post housing and subsistence allowance was challenging but it was a happy time.
As you well know, the “original” 35th Engineer Regiment was reorganized into two combat battalions upon its return from the Alaskan Highway assignment. These battalions were designated as the 35th Engineer Combat Battalion and the 145th Engineer Combat Battalion. At the time, I was assigned to Company “E”, so I ended up in the 145th. From that time on, the 35th and 145th had very little contact with each other. I don’t really know when the 35th was ordered to Camp Shanks but the 145th left Camp White on Easter Sunday 1944, arriving at Gurock, Scotland, on 26 April after an 8 day trip across the Atlantic on the liner "Nieu Amsterdam". We then boarded trains for a camp at Dunham New Park near Manchester, England. Following extensive engineer and combat training, the battalion was alerted for departure to a bivouac area in Somersetshire to await the call for further movement. On 3 July the unit left for a staging area near Bridgport, England. On 6 July, the battlion left for the POE [Port of Embarkation] at Weymouth, boarded two LSTs at 2300 hours and disembarked at daybreak on 8 July. Apparently this was about a month prior to the arrival of the 35th in France.
I won’t go into detail of the 145th's move across France under Patton, but I will mention one little event that took place prior to our arrival at the “Bulge”. My Company “B” was ordered to construct a “permanent” bridge across the Saar River at the village of Saaralbe. The only site through this town was the site of the former bombed out bridge. We were given the task of removing a sufficient amount of the rubble to allow the construction of trestles for the new bridge. We were informed that this had to be accomplished in three days for the passage of the 26th Division into Germany. The company worked day and night for this period of time and completed the bridge just in time for the arrival of the division. The bridge had to be designed to carry the heaviest of the division's loads, so the job had been a bit of a challenge. One little incident occurred that probably shouldn’t even be mentioned, but I will anyway. I had organized the company so that one platoon started construction on one bank and one on the other with the third platoon given the task of “scrounging” up construction materials which was a job in itself. The progress of construction was well underway and the third platoon had just arrived with another load of lumber and were given permission to take a short “break”. At this time our battalion executive officer came on scene and started raising “H” with me for men sitting down on the job. He wouldn’t listen to an explanation and I finally “lost” it for a minute and asked if he would like to build the bridge. When he said “NO”, I told him in plain language to "get the hell off the bridge and let me build it.” That was the end of that and I was able to finish the job on time.
As soon as the bridge was completed, I received word to prepare it for demolition. After the hard work in building the thing, this was disheartening to say the least. We did prepare the demolition and then the 26th Division came roaring back over it. Immediately, we were ordered to head north for an unknown destination, which turned out to be the Ardennes. Fortunately we didn’t have to blow up the bridge and I never heard if this was done or not. This then was our entry into the “Battle of the Bulge”
Robert Greenwalt: Headquarters Company
35th Engineer (Combat) Battalion
Northern France - Rhineland - Ardennes/Alsace - Central Europe
