730th Railway Operating Battalion

• Costa, Jack H. — Company A, 730th Railway Operating Battalion
• Broadle, John Joseph — Headquarters Company, 730th Railway Operating Battalion

---

732nd Railway Operating Battalion

• Duran, Roberto — 732nd Railway Operating Battalion
• Hodge, Arnold — Company A, 732nd Railway Operating Battalion
• Sutliff, Nelson Harvey — Headquarters Company, 732nd Railway Operating Battalion
• Walker, Harold — Company B, 732nd Railway Operating Battalion

---

733rd Railway Operating Battalion

• Coops, Samuel — Company C, 733rd Railway Operating Battalion
• Coker, Young Dempsey — Company C, 733rd Railway Shop Battalion
• Healy, Ross Edward — Company C, 733rd Railway Operating Battalion
• Kirby, Charles Alfred — 733rd Railway Operating Battalion (Attached Unassigned Detachment Patients, Station Hospital)
• Walding, Orville J. — Company A, 733rd Railway Operating Battalion

---

734th Railway Operating Battalion

• Batchelder, Bertice H. — Headquarters Company, 734th Railway Operating Battalion
• Bing, Howard — Company C, 734th Railway Operating Battalion
• Dutra, Joseph Thomas — 734th Railway Operating Battalion
• Black, James D. — Company B, 734th Railway Shop Battalion
  • (Form corrected in red annotation to Company B, 734th Railway Shop Battalion)

---

735th Railway Operating Battalion

• Gross, Orville C. — Engineers, 735th Railway Operating Battalion

---

737th Railway Operating Battalion

• Hargis, Leo Porter — Company A, 737th Railway Operating Battalion

---

740th Railway Operating Battalion

• Burkett, George R. — 740th Railway Operating Battalion
• Johnson, Walter Alfred — Company A, 740th Railway Operating Battalion
• Petersen, Orville Chris — Company B, 740th Railway Operating Battalion

---

Railway Shop Battalions

733rd Railway Shop Battalion

• Coker, Young Dempsey — Company C, 733rd Railway Shop Battalion

734th Railway Shop Battalion

• Black, James D. — Company B, 734th Railway Shop Battalion 

See the application cards for this group here  

 

Thanks to Katie for reading "Liberation Line" and for sharing this info and photos about her grandfather,  Raymond M. Penhollow

Katie writes ...

Hello! My name is Katie Briggs and I live in the US in the state of Ohio. I finished reading your book "The Liberation Line," recently and I felt the urge to reach out to you. My grandfather, Raymond M. Penhollow was a Tech Sgt. in the 740th Railway Battalion Company A, serving in World War II. My grandfather was a second-generation railway man. My understanding is that he operated heavy equipment in the war. He was my favorite person as I grew up and yet, he was a bit of a mystery. 

 As many veterans of his generation felt, he left the war in Europe and didn't see the need to relive it. He wasn't a hero he felt, because he made it home. My Dad only knew bits and pieces of my grandfather's experience that my grandfather shared. My grandfather came home from the war in 1945 and proceeded to work on the Nickel Plate Railroad which is now Norfolk and Southern. My grandpa was a signalman's assistant and a volunteer fireman. It's easy to see why I loved him so much.

Reading your book was illuminating. The facts and statements you shared from John Livingstone's history of the 740th Railway Battalion were so interesting. I now know when my grandfather landed at Utah Beach and some of where he had served. I have sat and reread passages to my husband about the details shared specific to the 740th, and we both are in awe of what my twenty-year-old grandfather experienced. 

As I said, he came back home and worked the railroad. He married the girl from down the street, had three children, and had eight grandchildren, of which I am proudly one. He passed away in 2000. I plan on sharing your book with my cousins if they are interested. He was such a wonderful grandfather. 

I would really like to find out more about his unit. I want to ask if there are any suggestions you might have for researching this topic. I found your book because I was searching for railroad battalion information on Google. If you could provide some insight into my search, I would greatly appreciate it. Please find attached 2 pictures of my grandfather taken from the war. The motorbike was supposedly confiscated from a German soldier. 

Thank you for writing this book, it was fascinating. Please take care and again, thank you. 

This great photo album was passed around through various unit members many years ago, see the little note at end of photos for more informtion. https://photos.app.goo.gl/te3g9XkR5W1Ckq9fA

https://photos.app.goo.gl/te3g9XkR5W1Ckq9fA

The 740th Railway Operating Battalion in France & Belgium Charles W. Heffner

 U. writes... 

Grandpa Karl worked as a locomotive fitter for the German State Railway until 1. April 1941 , then he had to move to the army.

Till end of war in 1945 , he worked at the " Atlantikwall " in Belgium and France and drove trains at different places in Europe .

Due to his profession,  he got his certificate of discharge in June 1945 and than he started to work for/with  the 740th railway op bat. at Bonn /Germany  , where a railhead was build. The permit on the photo is from this time.

Later , till he retired in the late sixties,  he still worked in repairing ( steam )  locomotives for the new build German State railway in Cologne.

Thanks U glad to see Grabdpa Karl's IS card

 

Army Transportation Journal Vol 1 No 8 September 1945 pp. 68

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

Impact: The History Of Germany's V-weapons In World War II 1998 by Benjamin King During World War II, when the V1s and V2s soared in their thousands against London, Antwerp and other targets, they were launched by Germans who had made a technological leap over their Allied scientific counterparts. Ultimately, as the German front fell back, the V launch-sites and factories were overrun. Nevertheless, for a time, the Germans had wielded a revolutionary new weapon that we now know pointed to the future of warfare. This intensely researched book overturns many of the myths about the V-weapons by tracing their development under pressure, their employment in combat, and the massive effect their existence had on operations.


743rd Railway Operating Battalion pg 278 
709th Railway Grand Division pg 279
740th Railway Battalion pg 284
708th Railway Grand Division pg 283-285

History Of Germany's V-... by Nancy on Scribd

History Of Germany's V-weapons 283-286 by Nancy on Scribd

The Trains That Fueled the ... by Nancy on Scribd

Anyone know who's these photos might be ?

Photos of "Cliff"

https://www.scribd.com/document/465009003/740th-ROB-Cliff-Cliff-Photos

https://www.scribd.com/document/465008985/740th-ROB-Cliff-Cliff-Photos-2

Photos of war damage, rails and other soldiers (marked) :

https://www.scribd.com/document/465009010/740th-ROB-Cliff-Marked-No2 

Photos of war damage, rails and other soldiers (unmarked) :

https://www.scribd.com/document/465009017/740th-ROB-Cliff-Unmarked-No1 https://www.scribd.com/document/465009023/740th-ROB-Cliff-Unmarked-No2

**Thanks to Lewis for working on this if you know email me militaryrailwayservice@gmail.com and I will get you in touch with Lewis.

Do you know the numbers, names and ranks of the eighteen locomotives named in Belgium during February 1945 after 708 RGD soldiers and are there any photographs of these named locomotives?

During the WW2 USA supplied 2120 S160 locomotive The United States Army Transportation Corps S160 Class is a class of 2-8-0 Consolidation steam locomotive designed for use in Europe during World War II for heavy freight work. They worked on railroads across the world, including Africa, Asia, all of Europe and South America.
During February 1945 eighteen S160 were named after Military personnel who lost their lives during the aerial and V1 bombardment of Liege and environs, Belgium. The locomotives were named after servicemen from 740th and 741th railway operations battalions and 755th railway shop battalion. Torret (1995) list 15 of the locomotive numbers and the names of three of the locomotives.

 Locomotive No    Name    Battalion
1    1609    ?   
2    2039    ?   
3    2052    ?   
4    2171    ?   
5    2174    Pvt J. A. Auriemma    741
6    2181    Pvt H.B.Lindsey    741
7    2182    ?   
8    2208    ?   
9    2327    ?   
10    2360    ?   
11    2582    Pvt H. J. O'Brien    741
12    2603    T/5 A.A. Van Kleeck    740
13    2615    ?   
14    2792    Pvt J. M. McGillis    755
15    2913    Pvt C J Anderson    741
16           
17             
18             


Gregory (1947) includes a photo of 2582 Pvt H. J. O’Brien being names by Major Gen. Frank S. Ross at Kinkempois Yard on 28th February 1945, also present were Lt. Col. S. Pulliam, Brig. Gen. C. Gray and Col. W. S. Carr. T/4 E. H. Welborn and T/Sgt A. R. MacDonald crewed the locomotive.
Recently I came across the photo of locomotive 2181 Pvt H. B. Lindsey on the internet and 2174 Pvt.  J. A. Auriemma.
Livingstone (1981)  list the eight 740th servicemen are the following T/4 D. R. Gnovese, T/5 J. L. Mullin, Corp S. J. Belcastro, T/5 F. Rallo, Pvt R. J. Greco, Pvt O. L. Lance, Pvt A. G. Lewis, and T/5 A. A. Van Kleeck.
Livingstone (1981) states 8 were named after servicemen from the 740th, 8 after servicemen from the 741st and one from 755th.
Ross (1945) states “On Dec. 24, a lone German plane bombed the joint billet of the 740th and 741st Railway Operating Battalions, six blocks from the Guillemins yard. Nine soldiers were killed, several injured. Three days later, a V-1 exploded in the Kinkempois yard in Liege. The 740th lost eight men this time, had twenty injured.”
Tourret (1995) states eighteen locomotives were name in February, the other references list seventeen, but are referring specifically to incidents in the 740th history.

Pictorial Handbook of Military Transportation: Operational Photographs of the U.S. Army
Transportation Corps European Theater of Operations 1945, list the eighteen men dedicated:
     Rank    Name    Battalion    Died    Locomotive No.   
1    Corp    S. J. Belcastro     740    27/12/1944    2171 ?   
2    T/4    D. R. Genovese     740    27/12/1944       
3    Pvt    R. J. Greco    740    27/12/1944       
4    Pvt    A. G. Lewis     740    27/12/1944       
5    Pvt    O. L. Lance     740    27/12/1944       
6    T/5    J. L. Mullin     740    27/12/1944       
7    T/5    F.    Rallo     740    27/12/1944       
8    T/5    A. A. Van Kleech    740    27/12/1944    2603   
9    Pvt    C. J. Anderson     741    24/12/1944       
10    Pvt    C. H. Creamer     741    24/12/1944       
11    T/5    R. D. Gugger     741    24/12/1944       
12    Pvt    H. B. Linsey     741    24/12/1944    2181   
13    Pvt    M.H.  Massaro     741    24/12/1944       
14    Pvt    B.    Reiss     741    24/12/1944       
15    Pvt    E. H. Wiese     741    24/12/1944    1609 ?   
16    Pvt    J. A. Auriemma     741    12/12/1944    2174   
17    Pvt    H. J. O'Brien     741    24/12/1944    2582   
18    Pvt    J. M. McGillis     755    25/12/1944    2792   

Unfortunately the scanned image of the locomotives around edge of the dedication is illegible, does anybody have a copy of Pictorial Handbook of Military Transportation: Operational Photographs of the U.S. Army Transportation Corps European Theater of Operations 1945. It shows 17 of the 17 locomotives.
               
 


References
Ross I. (1945) Combat Railroading VFW Bulletin Sept 1945 p33-35.
Gregory A. G. (1947) The saga of the 708 Railway Grand Division

Tourret R. (1995) Allied Military Locomotives of the Second World War

Livingstone J. (1981) 740th Railway Operating Battalion History

Pictorial Handbook of Military Transportation: Operational Photographs of the U.S. Army Transportation Corps European Theater of Operations August 1945, Technical Information Office
Office of the Chief of Transportation.














           

740th reunoin roster.pdf by Nancy on Scribd

740th Railway Operating Battalion Photos by Nancy on Scribd

740.pdf by Nancy

thanks tim

740 741st Combat Railroading by Nancy

Thanks to Mr G.Roggen of Belgium for sharing these !