746th Railway Operating Battalion - Bill Sheaffer

Bill writes... 

Just found your wonderful web site on military railways. My dad William Alexander Sheaffer pvt was a member of Co D 746th R.O.B. 1944-45. 

Hopefully he shows up in your records as I’m working, belatedly, on a family history to pass on. I was nine years old when he shipped out on a troop ship in 1944. 

Bottom photo with the “sour puss” captions”these little fishies cost me 50 beans” and his stripes for fishing without permission.

Obit:  William A Sheaffer, Co D 746th Railway Operating Battalion, was born in Mt Union, Pa, in 1910. He became a brakeman on the Pennsylvania RR at Conway Yards, Pennsylvania in 1941. In 1944, at age 34, married with two children, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was trained as a railway operating specialist attaining the rank of T5. He shipped out to the European Theater of Operations later that year. After serving in Europe thru the Rhineland Campaign 1944-45, he mustered out after the war ended. He returned to work at the PRR and retired as a freight conductor in 1973. Upon retiring he and his wife relocated to Newbury Park, California. Enroute to California they attended a reunion of the 746th R.O.B. in Aurora, Illinois. He died in the V.A. Hospital in Los Angeles, in February 1982, while awaiting open heart surgery for a heart valve replacement. He was survived by his wife Gwendolyn M Sheaffer, sons William Alexander, Jr, Robert Charles and daughter Suzanne Ruth Sheaffer. A memorial service was held at the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks Lodge, in Thousand Oaks, Ca, where he had been the lodge chaplain.