Wednesday, November 13, 2002
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Wednesday, November 13, 2002 |
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Wanting to lean about grandfather's service leads to book on combat engineers in WWII By MICHAEL
BOYLAN
Steve Dixon was a military brat, moving all over the world from Washington, D.C. to Okinawa, Japan. His father served in the military, as did his grandfather, who served in World War II. Though Dixon recalls many great memories of his grandfather, including how he enjoyed taking him to demolition derbies, he was young and his interest in World War II was not what it is today. Dixon's grandfather passed away before he could ask him about his experiences, but in 1995, the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, Dixon began searching for some of the answers. The result is a book, "The 270th Combat Engineer Battallion in World War II: From Camp Adair to Germany." Dixon, a Peachtree City resident since 1998, began conducting long-distance interviews, sending out surveys and questionaires and requesting things from the National Archives that would help him find out about what his grandfather and his colleagues did in the war. Dixon did all of the research and writing of the book on top of raising his three childen with his wife and producing hunting and fishing shows for Outdoor Life Network. He finished the book six years after he began and got it published by Merriam Press the following year. Dixon's grandfather was a member of the Trailblazers, the combat engineers for the 70th Infantry Division. Some of the jobs of combat engineers included building bridges, placing and removing of mine fields and detection and deactivation of booby traps. Dixon's grandfather was a demolitions expert, one of the oldest men drafted into the group at 31 and, according to some of his surviving colleagues, "a good soldier who was proud to serve." The book follows the combat engineers from Camp Adair in Oregon all the way to France and then Germany. Some of the more interesting things that Dixon found out about the Trailblazers include guarding an ex-POW camp that still housed Polish and Russian soldiers who were in serious need of medical attention and several engineers from Company A had to rebuild the city of Frankfurt both before the war ended and after. The streets, sewers and water system needed to be completely rebuilt after being bombed incessantly. "I wrote this book so that others related to the combat engineers would have a history," said Dixon, who is already planning a revision for the book in what he calls an ongoing process. If you are interested in purchasing the book, visit www.merriam-press.com/mono_075/m_068.htm. For more information on the 70th Infantry Division, visit www.trailblazersww2.org. |
