Edward Lawrence Spamer (1909-1955) had a fascination for aviation. In 1941 he enlisted in the Pennsylvania National Guard, serving with the 103rd Engineers at Fort Indiantown Gap. His unit was temporarily assigned to building runways for the Millville Army Air Station, New Jersey. At the start of WWII the unit was incorporated into the Regular Army and he served as a Staff Sgt. In 1942 he went to Officers Candidate School, Fort Belvoir, Virginia. As a 2nd Lt. he was sent to the Spokane Army Depot, Washington and Hamilton Army Air Field, Novato, California. On 5 Jan 1943 his unit was sent to England, joining the 816th Engineer Aviation Battalion, building aerodromes and airfields and experimented with a runway matting that would prove useful during the campaign on the European continent. On D+3 (9 June 1944) the 816th crossed the English Channel to Normandy, landing at Omaha Beach, immediately moving inland where airstrips were made at Cardonville (10-14 June), Deux Jumeaux (14-30 June), and Colleville sur Mer (14 June-13 July). A commemorative marker to the 816th exists today at the site of the Cardonville field. Spamer was a platoon leader in “C” Company throughout the war, promoted to 1st Lt. near the war’s end. The photo here shows Lt. Spamer at a wire-mesh airfield under construction (date and location unknown). While the 816th built and repaired airfields even under forward combat conditions, he wrote to his sister from Belgium on Thanksgiving, 1944, “The first time I saw Paris I was traveling to a new destination with a convoy and ‘inadvertently’ took the wrong road. The first thing I knew I was at Versailles and then Paris. So I took my convoy, heavy equipment and everything, around L’Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Elys?©es to the Place de la Concorde. The F.F.I. put us up for the night in an old Chateau and the next day managed to find my way out. While trying to get out of Paris I believe I found every blown up bridge on the Seine.” At Cormeilles-en-Vexin, France they rehabilitated two concrete runways at the first captured enemy concrete aerodrome (6-15 Sept). Proceeding farther onto the continent they built and repaired airfields in Belgium, Holland (The Netherlands), and Germany, halting at Schleissheim, near Munich in August 1945. In Germany, eight Supply and Evacuation strips were built in three days. V-E Day (8 May 1945) marked the end of the conflict, but not the end of work for the engineer aviation battalions. The 816th remained as an active unit in Germany with the Army of Occupation, rebuilding and enlarging damaged airfields, including the Schleissheim Airfield that went on to support many U.S. military aviation units, and which is still in use today. Lt. Spamer remained with the 816th for five more months, returning to the U.S. on 10 Oct 1945, nearly two months after V-J Day (15 Aug). His service was terminated by Honorable Relief From Active Duty on 8 Jan 1946.