39165 Col Leslie Edgar Alfred GWYNNE, RE - Italy: bridges location help from aerial photos

682 Squadrons O.R.B's for October 1943 AIR 27/2203/24
Squadron Number: 682 Records of Events: Y | The National Archives

 

Thank you all for your help. Can anyone advise me where Burghetto Bridge might be located (across the River Tiber)?

I attach some extracts form the CRE's report which give a grid referernce which may help.

 

rA730174
Google Maps

Borghetto not Burghetto

 

Tony

Thank you. My mistake in reading the orders wrong.

My last mystery i cannot seem to locate this bridge, see attached photos, in Sicily and a search on Google Maps has yielded no obvious candidates as to its location. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Julian

 

Is there a possibility that your photo is this one?:
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205083968

If so, you are obviously looking for a railway bridge and a river. West of Catania is a town called Motta Sant Anastasia and its railway station is some way south:
Station

You will see this is close to the River Simeto, the major river in these parts, just guessing but somewhere around here? This bridge is close by but a different style to the one in your photo. Will keep looking!

 

Tony

This may well be the same place.

it looks similar and I presume that they would not still be using the same WW2 box structure and the local authorities might have replaced the bridge during the last 75 years.

 

Julian
Reference your images in your post #15, the last one, 24.10.43, is the River Trigno, location is here:-
Trigno

Period map below:-

 

Agree with Frank's previous comment that the first bridge (your post #15) is on the River Po at Santa Maria Maddalena, except I think the the first image is the road bridge and the second is the adjacent railway bridge:-
River Po

 

Tony

Thank you for your work on these photographs. In his notes that I have he does mention working on two bridges over the River Po.

We will enjoy visiting these sites when we are allowed to.

We have engineers plans of all the bridges showing sections, support details etc as well as reports on the lessons learnt etc. Do you have any idea on the best place for these documents in due course?.

 

Are you talking original engineering drawings and reports? Fantastic if you are, my first thought would be that they must be preserved and the Royal Engineers museum would seem obvious. If this is what you have in mind, have a word with them when times allow, and get copies for family use.

https://www.re-museum.co.uk/

 

I did indeed speak to them a while a ago and they did not seem interested in what we had which I must admit was a surprise as Ii would have thought they would have least had wanted to look at the material. The questions I have been asking within this forum I raised with them and they said they were unable to help, so I hit a brick wall with the RE Museum.

 

Very surprising indeed. Are you able to scan any for uploading?

 

Hello Julian

I have quickly read your posts.

I am an ex TA sapper who worked on Bailey Bridges during my service.

I am also a model maker and would like to build a model of some of the Bailey Bridges built in Italy.

If you ever manage to scan any of the plans for the bridges I would love to see a copy of them if you ever manage to upload them.

Best regards

Ian

 

Ian.

Have you ever thought about building the Kingsmill Bridge - a Bailey bridge welded to a Sherman tank with a second Sherman pushing the whole thing into the water. Used at the Fourth Battle of Monte Cassino. I can post the drawings.

Regards

Frank

 

Hello Frank.

Yes the Bailey Bridge bring carried by the two Sherman's is of great interest.

I have seen two photos if it in various modelling reference books. There is some confusion as to when it was built and who used it.

I have seen it attributed to the RNZEC. The first tank which carries the bridge may be a M4A2 which may have been one of the Sherman's used a a engineer recce or stores vehicle. Or possibly even a early Kangaroo type APC.

I would really appreciate any help with this.

Cheers
Ian

 

Hi Julian, i'm Daniela, in TBL site they don't allow guides to write private phone number or private email, so i'm writing here my email danielavillari@yahoo.it, there are many things i'd like to discuss with you before you'll arrive in Sicily, write me