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All or most of the information on this page came from the contact listed below. If you have comments or can add any information, please send e-mail to the Webmaster, or postal mail to Rodney Young, 251 Pine Mdw, Spring Branch, TX 78070. Or you can contact George Murray directly. Thank you very much.
Nickname: The Lobster (the battalion's code name in Europe)
Newsletter: The Lobster
Web site:www.86thchemical.us
Association: 86th Chemical Mortar Bn Memorial Assoc
Contact: George Murray, Adjutant
Membership: 180 (as of 8 Jan 1999)
Reunions:
Memorial: The Battalion had placed a memorial monument to its men at Fort McClellan, Alabama. The Army closed that post on September 15, 1999, and all six (2nd, 3rd, 81st, 83rd, 86th, 91st) chemical mortar battalion monuments were moved to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, along with other Chemical Corps monuments including that of the 1st Gas Regiment. The monuments are now emplaced in a Memorial Park at Leonard Wood near the Chemical Corps Museum there. See photos of all memorial monuments at FLW.
Activated: 17 May 1943 as 86th Chemical Bn Motorized at Camp Swift, TX
Training: 17 May 1943 - 11 Apr 1944 Cp Swift, TX
Redesignated: 15 Feb 1945 as 86th Chemical Mortar Bn
Inactivated: 1 Nov 1946 at Camp Campbell, KY
Overseas: Arrived NYPE 19 Apr 1944, England 26 Apr 1944, France-ETO 30 Jun 1944; returned NYPE 10 Jul 1945. See note below.
Campaigns: Ardennes-Alsace, Central Europe, Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland
Number of men killed in action: 40
Number of days in combat: 315
Number of rounds fired: 152,257
Note: The battalion departed New York aboard the New Amsterdam, arrived in Scotland 25 Apr 1944, moved by train to Port Sunlight, Cheshire, received two months training, and sailed for France on 29 Jun 1944. The unit was in Bischofteinitz, Czechoslovakia, at war's end, departed there for Le Havre, France (Camp Lucky Strike), on 13 Jun 1945, and sailed for the U.S. aboard the SS Sea Pike on 1 Jul 1945. After 30 days leave, personnel reported to Camp Campbell, KY, for further training and deployment to the Pacific theater on 1 Oct 1945. With the Japanese surrender, the battalion's redeployment orders were canceled and the unit was inactivated.
Unit decorations:
History and other published items
- History of the 86th Cml Mortar Bn - United States Army, "The 86th Chemical Mortar Battalion presents its battle history" (1946).World War Regimental Histories. Book 83.
- History of the 86th Cml Mortar Bn - United States Army, "The 86th Chemical Mortar Battalion presents its battle history" (1946).World War Regimental Histories. Book 83.http://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/83 PDF file with pictures and maps
- Private Art, not a website about visual art but one that is about Arthur Pranger, a soldier who served in Co A of the 86th Cml Mortar Bn. There are accounts he has written in recent years about that service, and there are also reproductions of personal letters to and from him during WWII.
- Co C in the Battle of the Bulge
by Harold Fischgrund, from the Bulge Bugle - Louisiana Soldier: Willis A. Fontenot: 86th Chemical Mortar Battalion, WWII by Dianne Dempsey-Legnon