Thanks so much to author, Michael Heinzel for providing to the blog an English translation of a chapter pertaining to MRS units from his new book, Buch Eisenbahn in Ostbelgien nach dem 2. Weltkrieg: Besetzung - Befreiung - Wiederaufbau (Railway in East Belgium after World War II: Occupation - Liberation - Reconstruction) 

Reports from a German, American and Belgian perspective The railways in the Belgian-German border area served as deployment lines for the German invasion of Belgium in the First and Second World Wars. 

During the First World War they were only slightly destroyed, but then mostly ceded to the kingdom. During the Second World War, the destruction was serious. The local events of the years 1940-59 can be reconstructed using original documents from the Federal Archives, diary reports by American railway pioneers and official SNCB files from the Belgian train station Weywertz, and interesting insights into the political upheavals of that time can be gained. 

You can purchase in German here you can purchase in German here: Softcover 14.7 x 21cm 103 pages : https://bityl.co/B7jj 

 

If you can't see image click here : https://drive.google.com/file/d/165mOKwCNngH8q7hrAjwgEaQJGOWIOzK9/view?usp=sharing

 A Tragic Truck Train accident in Palestine kills 3 members of unit on their way home from leave to visit Jerusalem.

Sam Reed has a wooden desk plaque of his grandad's,(759th Railway Operating Battalion T/Sgt. George A. Akers) who he thought had been given to him by a soldier he knew in training who later died during service. I did some snooping in old newspapers and contacted a few families of these soldiers through Ancestry. 

Sam thinks the "Bill" might be PFC William Evans - he writes ...  "he was with the 711th and was killed in action Oct 31 1944 in Carthage, Tunisia. The 711th and 759th overlapped at Camp Claiborne for nearly two months in Sept. and Oct. 1942, and they did some training at the Southern Railroad shops in Meridian MS."

Some articles from his local paper and his internment record.

other from the unit were Eric Fall:

Sam writes about his grandfather, T/Sgt. George A. Akers.. 

I'm also attaching his formal Army photo in dress uniform, along with a snapshot of himself in a regular duty uniform and one of his wife, Mary Elizabeth (King) Akers that he carried throughout the war in a small brass envelope-shaped photo holder with two photo windows. He's wearing corporal's stripes in the snapshot, which would date it somewhere between May 2, 1941 and June 2, 1942. Outside of Army service, Grandpa worked for the Missouri Pacific in the DeSoto, MO
shops his whole life (other than a short stint when the DeSoto shops were closed and they were all commuting by train to Dupo, IL). He was a reservist, and called up to active duty with the 140th Infantry in late 1940. When the 727th ROB was formed, he was transferred there, and then was one of the core members of the 759th when that unit and others were activated and some soldiers from the 727th were transferred
to the new units. 

After the 759th was transferred from Italy to France, he was temporarily transferred to the 756th, HQ company, at Marseilles. In the last month of the war, he was returned to the 759th.

I'm attaching a much better scan of the 759th group photo if you would like to upload it. My grandfather, T/Sgt. George A. Akers, Company B, is in the fourth row, just left of the leftmost officer. When I had his copy of the photo professionally unrolled and mounted after 70+ years rolled up, I also had a high-quality scan and several duplicates made by a local photo shop.

 

 

thanks Richard