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Lot 690
[Patton, George] Album of 860 Photographs From Co. F, 1303rd Engineer General Service Regiment. United States Army album, 12½ x 14½ x 4¼ in., with some 860 photos taken by Bill Wolf, who was a member of Co. F, 1303rd Engineer General Service Regiment. The 1303rd was activated on July 15, 1943 at Camp Ellis, Illinois. The Regiment played an important role during World War II, with campaign credit for Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, Central Europe and the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. The Regiment was inactivated on January 31, 1946 in Japan. The 1303rd was attached to George Patton's Third Army and built the bridges Patton needed as he raced across Europe after the retreating Germans. Patton called the engineers of the 1303rd his "Mighty Midgets" because he said that he had never seen so many little men do such a big job. They built pontoon bridges, Bailey bridges (made from prefabricated panels with crossed steel braces) and trestle bridges. Bridges were often built on the debris from bridges the Germans had destroyed as they retreated.
Bill Wolf, who took the majority of the photos in the album, had been deferred from military service because he was employed in defense work at Bell & Howell and he was also married. After three months of working twelve-hour days and dealing with his in-laws, he decided he preferred to be in the Army and he enlisted. The photos he took range in size from 2½ x 3½ in. to 4½ x 6½ in.; some have the white borders removed, and most are affixed to the album pages. Company F's progress is documented in photos, with the cities and rivers identified, as well as numerous men in the unit. The photos begin with Camp Ellis and other locations in Illinois, then go to England, France, Luxembourg, Germany, Manila, and Japan. From the places named, we can track the movement of Patton's Army. In France, Wolf identifies photos from Rennes, Avranches, Paris, Pithivier, Chalons, St. Mihiel, Toul, Pont à Mousson, the Moselle River, Neufchâteau, Pont-Saint-Vincent, Verdun, Nancy, Château-Salins, and Metz.
There are nine photos of General George Patton, four of them standing on a bridge over the Saar River by a sign which says: "Gen. Patton***Bridge Built by the Mighty Midgets. Co. F 1303 Engr." Four other photos show Patton walking amidst rubble; several one and two star generals are visible in one of them. Another photo of Patton is a small copy of a known larger signed photo. Other photos include many destroyed buildings and bridges, new bridges being built by Co. F, dead cows in a mine field, bodies of people in an open trench, beautiful chateaux, a German tank, an American tank turned over in a river, American and German planes, Dragon teeth from the Siegfried Line, the engineers posing and clowning around, a German train in a river on a downed bridge, pictures of the German assault gun (AK47 modeled after it), war trophies, and an effigy of Hitler's head at the Patton bridge opening.
One hundred forty-two of the photos were taken after the 1303rd left the European Theater of war and embarked for the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. When the atomic bombs ended the war, the regiment was sent as an occupation force in Japan, then slowly began to go home. Photos include bombed out Manila, the men landing in Tokyo Bay, the Japanese stacking their arms, six photos of the Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri, Tokyo US GHQ, the Diet, and other landmarks, as well as pictures of damage from the US firebomb air raid on Tokyo. Additionally, there are 41 reunion pictures of the 1303rd from the 1980s, and a copy of Patton's 1944 Christmas greeting to the Third Army, with a prayer asking God to stop the incessant rain so they could defeat the enemy (which they did at the Battle of the Bulge), and a brochure from Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge. The front cover of the album is loose and a small area at the top of the spine is missing. A fascinating up-close-and-personal record of Co. F and the 1303rd's very important contribution to the war.
Estimated Value $3,000 - 5,000.
From the daughter of Bill Wolf, a member of Co. F, 1303rd Engineer General Service Regiment.
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