564th Engineer Boat Maintenance Battalion

The brigade’s Boat Maintenance Battalion (564th) and the Boat 
Maintenance and Salvage Sections of the regiments performed expertly 
by keeping over seventy per cent of the Brigade boats in operating 
condition at all times despite marked shortage in critical spare parts 
and the hard usage given the boats. This was climaxed by having 
over ninety per cent of the boats operating for the final division ma- 
neuver even though the boats were old, had been used continually for 
two months, and many critical spare parts were scarce or lacking 
altogether. Many repairs had to be improvisations.

Also, during the troop movements from the east coast to the stag- 
ing area orders were received to organize a heavy shop company within 
the 564th Engineer Boat Maintenance Battalion, for the purpose of 
performing fifth echelon maintenance on boats and engineer equip- 
ment in the theater. Heavy shop equipment was purchased on the 
open market. In June 1944 when the 564th Engineer Boat Mainte- 
nance Battalion arrived at its first overseas base, Oro Bay, New Guinea, 
the Heavy Shop G)mpany was activated and immediately established 
its facilities on the beach at Oro Bay. 

The 564th Boat Maintenance Battalion (4th ESB) , 
just up from Oro Bay, set up its yards on the west side of the Dagupan 
River. In addition to its usual function of maintenance of the Brigade’s 
boats, the 564th Engineer Boat Maintenance Battalion, which had 
landed on D-day, established a boat pool to provide craft for ferries, 
for special tactical missions and for reconnaissance. At its peak 30 
LCVPs and 20 LCMs were available for these special missions.

https://archive.org/stream/DownRamp/DownRamp_djvu.txt
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Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/afc2001001.86974/

LeRoy Joseph Meyers Collection

A wonderful video of Joseph Meyers, which includes memories of training at Camp Gordon Johnston.

• Branch of Service: Army
• Unit of Service: A Company, 564th Engineer Boat Maintenance (EBM) Battalion, 4th Engineer Special Brigade
• Location of Service: New Guinea; New Britain Island (Bismarck Archipelago); Luzon, Philippines; Pacific Theater
• Highest Rank: Private First Class

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ROSTER: Note: Division roster members indicated with a ” * “