2nd Military Railway Service HQ Boyd W. Stone

Thanks to Don Stone for this great indformation on his grandfather, Maj. Boyd W. Stone, Sr., of the 2nd MRS 

 In 1943 our Dad was drafted into the Army. Soon after, Gramps volunteered for the Army (Gram’s reaction to this decision is still echoing off the buildings on Ashland Ave. in St. Louis) and was commissioned a Captain in the 2nd Military Railway Unit, Headquarters Company. The 2nd Military Railway Unit was to be in charge of all railway transportation in northern France after the D-Day invasion. After training at a post that no longer exists outside of New Orleans, the unit went to England to await D-Day. 

On D+11 (eleven days after June 6, 1944) an advance party of 2nd MRS personnel (inlcuding Gramps) went into France through the Normandy beachhead. Some days thereafter Gramps was shot by a sniper, becoming the first casualty in his unit, and was medically evacuated back to England. His wound was the equivalent of his 3rd Purple Heart (I say “equivalent” because he wasn’t awarded “wound stripes” for his injuries in WW I because he didn’t go to a hospital).