289th Engineer Combat Battalion (United States)

rdf:langString 289th Engineer Combat Battalion (United States)

rdf:langString 289th Engineer Combat Battalion

rdf:langString Shoulder sleeve insignia

rdf:langString United States

rdf:langString Lt. Col. Linnel Wallace

rdf:langString The 289th Engineer Combat Battalion was a combat engineer battalion of the United States Army during World War II. It served under XXI Corps of the Seventh Army in action mainly in France and Germany in 1944 and 1945. It received campaign credit for participation in the Ardennes-Alsace campaign (Battle of the Bulge),Rhineland campaign,and the Invasion of Germany. The 289th's principal combat assignments in the Alsace and Rhineland included serving as infantry to protect an important road junction near Saint-Avold, France, deployment under the command of the French First Army in clearing German troops from the Colmar Pocket during the Nazi Operation Nordwind offensive; ferrying assault troops across the Saar River near Saarbrücken Germany; escorting an ambulance corps across the Rhine at Worms near Mannheim; and ferrying troops and equipment across the Neckar River near Heidelberg. Following these the battalion moved east towards Würzburg to support the assault of that city. In the latter stages of the War it campaigned south and southeast through communities straddling the states of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. Company B continued on assisting rapidly moving armor in the Seventh Army's race to head off German entrenchment in a feared National Redoubt and seal off Alpine passes to Nazi escape. By early May forward elements of the battalion were spread as far afield as Austria and northern Italy. VE-Day found the Headquarters & Supply company and remaining components of the 289th in Göppingen near Stuttgart. The 289th served occupation duty in three locations in southwest Germany before beginning its return to the United States via Antwerp, Belgium in August 1945.