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

8010 TMRS Dining Card Menu 1952 by Nancy on Scribd

721st History of 721st ROB by Nancy on Scribd

 

 

 A little more from Andy about his dad, Sergeant Henry Espinosa. His Dad's "War chest" is picture below and a photo after liberation.

He writes ..

Here’s an excerpt from a letter about his baseball playing to my grandmother, the letters all written in Spanish had to be translated. 

Aug 6th, 1945 Brussel Belgium …

Mom, right now I’m in the capital Brussels and I’ve been here for 2 days. We came to play ball. Possibly today at 2pm I will leave to go to Charleroi. All of our games went very well - we didn’t lose a single game - we played 7 games and won them all. The colonel brought us a pallet of beer as thanks for having won all of the games"

 

 

744th abdill history by Nancy on Scribd

https://www.angelfire.com/va2/worldwar2family/744.html