716th Tank Battalion

Discussion in 'US Units' started by 716_Grandson, Aug 1, 2008.

  1. 4jonboy

    4jonboy Daughter of a 56 Recce

    Hello Evan and welcome to the forum.
    Thank you for posting information and photos of your relative and I am sure they will be of interest to members.

    Lesley
     
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  2. 716thresearcher

    716thresearcher Junior Member

    All,
    I thought I would post some pictures related to this discussion in the hope that this thread is still active. I located some pictures related to my uncle Ed (see previous discussions above) and some of his buddies. With luck some of the others here will see the photos and find some of their relatives. I have been able to visually cross reference some of the men in these attached photos to other photos posted elsewhere in this thread. It would be great to have some of the members here be able to identify the men shown in the pictures so that they can be known and appreciated for posterity.

    I located several pictures in the public domain, i.e., online, that are identifiable with some, but not absolute, certainty to be related to the 716th. In some cases, there are photos that can even be narrowed down (if the original annotations about location are correct), to my uncle's company (Co. C). There is a some confidence here due to the appearance in some photos of the distinctive Wolf Pack logo on the tanks. Combined with that logo, and the photos' annotations (again, if these are correct), some pretty good guesses about geographic locations and date ranges can be made. If any members are interested, I'll post these.

    I've also attached a photo from a visit I made to the Philippines about two years ago. At the time I was under itinerary and time constraints, but where I could I looked for and found some relevant things. I am looking at the possibility of returning there with the specific goal of digging up more information.
    At any rate, please have a look. I welcome your comments.
     

    Attached Files:

  3. 716_Grandson

    716_Grandson 716th Tank Battalion Fact Finder

    Awesome contributions by everyone. I search for 716th Tank Battalion on ebay today and came back with several photos. They are pretty decent quality for saving to your computer if you want to snag them before they are sold and disappear. 716th tank battalion | eBay
     
  4. 716thresearcher

    716thresearcher Junior Member

    716th grandson,

    Thanks very much for posting these. I had seen a few of these before, but it looks like the owner has released more for auction. A funny thing to mention here in passing: These photos are mostly from Alliance, Ohio. I grew up about 10-12 miles from there (in Salem, OH). My wife taught at the high school and junior high in Alliance for several years. Interesting to consider, these photos were essentially in my neighborhood when I lived in Ohio!

    Also, here's a link to a site that has a ton of photos. There are four subfolders of M4 Sherman photos, many of which are doubtless from the 716th owing to the appearance of the Wolf Pack insignia on them. I was going to post some of them, but I'll insert the link instead so everyone can choose which if any they'd like to download. As noted in my earlier post above, some of these tanks can be attributed to specific companies in the 716th, and one can even make a pretty fair guess about membership at the platoon level by consulting other sources. This assumes that the annotations of the pictures are correct, of course. Anyway, this continues to be an interesting project. Thanks to all for their contributions!

    M4 Sherman tank | World War Photos
     
  5. 716_Grandson

    716_Grandson 716th Tank Battalion Fact Finder

    Does anyone know if a single tank of the 716th exists? Possibly, there could be, in theory, in Louisiana from the Manouvers, or a knocked out one in the Philippines I’ve combed hundreds of pacific wreck photos but have nothing. What happened to all the tanks?
     
  6. 716_Grandson

    716_Grandson 716th Tank Battalion Fact Finder

    I’m not sure how I missed this post, but would you be willing to share any photo or your letter? These things give us dates, location, photos offer geographic info. It would be wonderful to se.
     
  7. 716_Grandson

    716_Grandson 716th Tank Battalion Fact Finder

    Company C 716 TK BN mess hall in New Guinea, August 1944. After rereading DaveFe's father's diary, I felt it would be helpful as a visual for everyone, especially DaveFe to see a place he may have served a meal. The text on the back of the image with the men says "the back of the mess hall washing them mess kits." The other image says "a picture of our mess hall."
     

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  8. 716thresearcher

    716thresearcher Junior Member

    Hi 716th grandson,
    It would probably be very difficult to track these tanks down. After the war many were sold off to other nations, and those nations sold them off as well when other more modern tanks became available. Some were sold to Israel and Egypt, and could even have faced each other over the years.

    There is a local air museum here in the Seattle area (The Flying Heritage and Combat Armor Museum) with a working Sherman that comes out to play during the summer during a special event called Tankfest Northwest. It's a different variant Sherman, but it's interesting to see it put through its paces. Here's a link:
    FHCAM - Home

    I was also interested in your comment about possible wrecks in the U.S. Accidents definitely did happen. Attached are photos of one such accident that involved my uncle's tank. If you rotate the one pic 180 degrees you can see the tank's name, Crumbs Coffin, which was his tank. I mistakenly thought it was called Crimes Coffin, but clearly the photo shows otherwise. It must have been an interesting day!

    It appears also from the attached photos and others attached above that the 716th received a later variant of tank in time for the Philippines invasion.

    Finally, I also added a photo here that I forgot to add earlier. I can't identify the person, but maybe another member can.
    Hi 716th Grandson,
    What identifies the men as belonging to Company C?
     

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  9. 716_Grandson

    716_Grandson 716th Tank Battalion Fact Finder

    716thresearcher and all,
    Great question! I know this image to be Company C because it was part of a series of images that came from sequential negatives printed by my grandfather. I have quite a few sets of prints, but I’ve identified these images as being from the same batch. There are 6 total images (including mess hall pics above) that have the same cut marks and printer stamp (kodak) marks that set them apart as unique to each other. In this series of 6 images, there is a one very rough image of my grandfather standing beside his tent that was carried around in a wallet. The back of this image reads “Me by my tent, New Guinea, August 1944” As I compared that image to the other 5, I realized that the next image was a much more clearer picture of my grandfather by his tent, with another man (yet to be identified, but I am working on it.) The back of this image read; “A picture of our tent, me in the doorway” This image is very clear and you can clearly read the name of the soldiers living in this tent, they are “Lt. Lehman, S.SGT. Passannte, T4 (William F.) Osman (My grandfather), CPL. Divito, PFC. LaCroix, Pvt. Casale, and Pvt. Duffy. After checking the rosters posted above in this forum, I am certain these men were all in Company C. The next image is of my grandfather boxing. On the back of the image is written “cuck LaCroix & me.” Chuck was Co. C. The other image was a nice shot of the row of tents. On the back of this image reads “the company street.” Oh, how I would love to find the exact location of this encampment! Now, My grandfather was officially with Co. A. All of his awards and citations list him as Co. A. However, he told us one time that he was moved from Co. A to Co. C for the majority of the war. I have other images of him in Luzon with men of Co. C, that I hope to post later. I also have images of him later in 1945 that has him with Co. A again. I believe he considered himself part of both A and C, as I also have invitation papers from 1977 for the 1978 reunion, and a follow-up letter recapping the reunion held in Illinois. The reunion was a C. Company reunion. Enjoy these images for now. I hope to post more soon. I am also currently working with facial recognition tagging to perhaps put some name with faces. Buckle up boys, let's put this together this year!
     

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  10. 716_Grandson

    716_Grandson 716th Tank Battalion Fact Finder

    Edit from my above post: I have two images in the previous post that I tried to removed because of spelling errors in the file name. Unfortunately it seems there is a time limit on editing your posts. I've reuploaded them here. Also, in my haste to post my previous message, I see another transcription error. The reverse of the boxing photo says "Chuck LaCroix & me." I wish this forum let us edit posts.
     

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  11. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    see Adam's post here for editing limits.
    Editing older posts...
     
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  12. 716thresearcher

    716thresearcher Junior Member

    716th_Grandson,

    Great work on this! I'm looking forward to seeing the other images in your collection. As to your grandfather's switching around from one company to another, it wasn't unusual then, and isn't now, to be re-assigned from one unit to another for various reasons, i.e., to replace people and equipment casualties, to balance occupational specialties lacking in one unit by reallocating from surpluses in another unit, etc. I recall experiencing the latter situation myself more than once while serving in the navy.

    In your grandfather's case, this would have been a little complicated, but certainly likely, inasmuch as the military will move heaven and earth to get any item from point A to point B if they feel it's necessary. Based on available information, it would seem that he was re-assigned at some point in his New Guinea tenure to Company C, which would have been interesting, given that Company C was sent to Aitape to join with the 43d Infantry Division, while Company A was sent to Sansapor to join the 6th Division, and B, D, Headquarters, and Service Companies were sent to Hollandia.

    Thanks for the interesting pix and background info. It's fascinating to piece all of this information after 70+ years.


     
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  13. 716_Grandson

    716_Grandson 716th Tank Battalion Fact Finder

    This article from 2013 was written by a native of Cebu. It is interesting that he claims when he was a kid in the 1950s they used to play on a knocked out Sherman that was part of the 716 tk bn. He even gives the exact location but claims he believes the tank was sent to scrap. I wonder if there is any way to find out what actually happened to it. The Liberation of Cebu: 68 years ago! | The Freeman
     
  14. 716_Grandson

    716_Grandson 716th Tank Battalion Fact Finder

  15. 716thresearcher

    716thresearcher Junior Member

     
  16. 716thresearcher

    716thresearcher Junior Member

    Three friends - Uncle Ed and two buddies, probably at Camp Chaffee AR ~1943.jpg All,

    Just writing here to post another photo from a negative I discovered in an old (paper) folder. It appears from the background to be from Camp Chaffee AR and would most likely date from 1943 or possibly early 1944, before the 716th decamped for Camp Howze, TX and thereafter divided up and sent to New Guinea.

    The man in the middle, clowning around with eyes closed, is my uncle Ed. On either side are two buddies, whom I'm interested in identifying. The man on the right appears, as far as I can tell, in a few of the pictures I posted and also in the group photos posted elsewhere in this 716th string. The two men on either side can hopefully be identified, as their faces can clearly be seen.

    I am uploading the hi-res version of the photo to aid anyone who needs to enlarge it to enable identification of the people
     
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  17. 3yes

    3yes Member

    Good day sir...im from Bacolod ,Philippines,...my father was a ww2 veteran and im fascinated with ww2 history and avid modeler...just want to ask if some members here have some more pictures of 716 tank unit in Bacolod or Negros Island...tanks that landed and operated here are from the 716th tank battalion thanks
     
  18. 3yes

    3yes Member

  19. 3yes

    3yes Member

    262AFE6C-B9E1-465E-B88B-3E71FD925DF1.jpeg Another intresting picture although no tanks present...tank tracks can been seen...
     
  20. 3yes

    3yes Member

    Another picture of the area ..then and now....
     

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