Richard writes ... 

1) I’ve attached the link to a British Army MRS book 'Railway Reconstruction In Italy 1943 - 1946' that a fellow Italian MRS enthusiast, Mr. Alessandro Tuzza, posted on his Italian website. The link to his website is: https://www.trenidicarta.it/reconstruction/contents.html

  2) The book was written and published by the British Royal Engineers in 1946. The majority of the book details the operations of the British Army Railway Construction Units and Operating Railway Units during the entire Italian campaign, but it does include numerous mentions of the US Army MRS Operating Units and Construction Engineer Units that aided the British. 

The website does not include the entire book, unfortunately, and it does have several useful sections missing, but the posted material is both useful and informative, and includes several photos and maps. The listed sections are marked in the normal blue link text on the Introduction Page. 

I suggest you add the link to your website since it will aid USA researchers of the MRS and educate them about the extensive role the British Army MRS and Construction Units played during the Italian campaign.

 

U. S. Army.
	701 Railway Grand Division.
	703 Railway Grand Division.
	704 Railway Grand Division.
	774 Railway Grand Division.
	'A' Company, 713 Railway Operating Bn. [Battalion]
	'A' Company, 715 Railway Operating Bn. [Battalion]
	'A' Company, 719 Railway Operating Bn. [Battalion]
	'A' Company, 727 Railway Operating Bn. [Battalion]
	'A' Company, 759 Railway Operating Bn. [Battalion]
	753rd Railway Shop Battalion

War time editions of N.Y. Central Railroad Headlight are a goldmine and this edition includes mentions of soldiers in the units: 

• 2nd MRS 
• Units in Burma, Italy, India 

 

December 1944 

• 701st RGD France
• 753rd RSB 
• 725th ROB Yoder India
  
• Italy 
• General Ross Cherbourg

 

August 1944 

• MRS Italy Wigginton
• MRS Egypt - McCaughey 
• 722nd Railway Operating Battalion - Przybylski 
• 721st Railway Operating Battalion Burma - Emmanuel 

 

July 1944 

• MRS Africa 
• MRS Italy 
• 759th Railway Operating Battalion 
• Price Snider, Hammer, Champagne, Griffin, Schuarzenholer, Wolf, Wragg, Hansen, Micieli, Felici, Fillinger, Deney, Davidson, Zimmerman, Raver, McDowell, Woods, Collins, Smyers, Hudnall, Wells, Berkshire, Kingdon, Cortrecht, Wyle, Richeson, Dickerson 
• RSB Gambino

 

  

June 1944 

• MRS Italy 
• RSB Italy Wottring, Melek, Trefz 
• India- Photos

 

April 1944 

• MRS Italy Kossuth 
• MRS Iran 
• 718th Railway Operating Battalion 
• Camp Clairborne

 

Jeroen van der Schaaf of Rotterdam, The Netherlands is trying to find out about these locomotives. If you have any information or photos of these locos please contact me, Nancy : militaryrailwayservice@gmail.com

His web page can be found here https://army-whitcombs.info/s/aw/page/about

Thanks to Jeroen for this great photos of  two of these 65-DE-19A Whitcombs in Rome 1944. 

Joroen writes ... this photo shows two of these locos on the 4^th of July 1944, pulling the first train into Rome. It carried a load of coal, which was sorely needed to help boost the output of electricity and gas for the city.

At the end of the war in Europe, about 118 of these locomotives were sent back to the United States during the summer of 1945. They were intended to be refurbished and sent westwards to aid in the war against Japan, but this plan was abandoned because of the rapid conclusion of the war in the Far East. With the war over, the locomotives were disposed of via the War Assets Administration (WAA) at the beginning of 1947. Most of the USATC Whitcombs were sold through dealers to industrial operators and short lines in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Cuba.

 

On five continents the Army's railroad troops are putting the spirit of American railroading to work in supplying the advancing armies of the United Nations

http://win.goticatoscana.eu/EN/Italy_at_war/StoryOfMRS/StoryOf1stMRS.html