733rd Railroad Operating Battalion

If you can help Rob in his search for these locos get in touch with me.

Rob writes ... My WWII railway interests focus on motive power and rolling stock, particularly ambulance trains aka hospital trains. 

Gathering drawings and photos, I endeavour to produce compilations which are deposited in the Archives section of the Military Railway Study Group https://www.mrsg.org.uk/ 

At the moment, I am searching for photos of (British) WD 2-8-0s lent to the USATC bearing Transportation Corps USA on their tenders and RGD branding on the lower cabside. 

The image Pictorial Handbook of Military Transportation Operational Photog_00009.jpg LINK shows an RGD branding. This comes from a better copy of the book held by Bangor Public Library,

The library also holds some ROB histories. Ft Eustis was able to furnish a photo of WD 2-8-0s in USATC use in Belgium. I attach it together with a crop, enlargement, and colour inversion of the locomotive in the middle of the view showing USA on the tender side. (below)

Photo 50876 of the attached .pdf 50875 - 50889 SPARE PARTS LINK TRAIN being photos from Library and Archives Canada shows an ROB brading on the lower cabside. 

Note the apparent repainting of the tender side to obliterate any USA markings which simply wouldn't do for an official 1st Canadian Army photo! Attached is a compilation regarding these locomotives. 

Of particular interest is 79189 which was exchanged for S160 3257 which was acquired for training purposes on the (British) Longmoor Military Railway. LINK

Knowledge of this was scarce and only recently has a photograph of something else with 79189 came to light in a German article Eisenbahn Kurier 12_2020 seiten 48 - 52 - mit Übersetzung ins Englische, also attached. LINK

Richard writes about his uncle Fred  ... I started my search for my uncle's history before I received this Veteran's archive document from St Louis. 

I knew he was at Normandy and he crossed the Rhine at Wesel to the north of the famous railroad bridge at Remagen (Ludendorff Bridge). I visited that site as an LT in 1972. I pieced together the 729th because the NY, New Haven & Long Island RR was where he worked prior to entering service in the CT NG 1932 then called up in 1942. 

He shipped out to England arriving 18 Jul 1943. Landed at Normandy 3 days afterwards (though I found a piece of camo parachute silk in this cigar box which had in ink that he landed. I don't think it was his). Day 3 would be the LST landing ships bringing in the prefabricated rail cars along a long pre-fabricated ramp the engineers pieced together from the beach. 

My uncle had "engineer castle insignia's which confuses me as they were also part of the 729 but he didn't go to engineer school, He went to Atlantic Coast Transportation and Chemical Warfare school. 

Fred worked on Railway Signals Maintenance for 729th ROB

William writes... Hi my Dad Paul T. Hines Served in the US Army from Dec.30 1943-May 6 1946 DOB October 11, 1918 Army serial #31427521 Rank Cpl Served with the 743rd Railway Operating Battalion Belgium,Germany,and France for about 18 months (My Dad Capt Bill Griffin served in B company 743rd) Thanks William for great docs and photos ... 

 

 

 Interested in trains used in WWI ? ( many were still in use when we got to France in '44) Pick up a used copy or check you library 

The Men, Locomotives and Tracks That Took the Armies to War 1914-18
by Roden, Andrew 

Without the railways for the Great Powers, the most terrible conflict the world has ever known would have taken a very different form - if it had happened at all. In a remarkable historical railway journey through Britain and Europe, author Andrew Roden tells the story of the men and women who manned the tracks and the trains, and who relied on them to get them to battle and back home again. Drawing on diaries, memoirs and archive material he reveals the personal stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and pays tribute to their overlooked contribution.  He looks at defining moments of railway history on both sides of the Great War.

 

J.R. writes ... My father COL Richard Paris Clark, Jr., commanded the 714th between 1968 and 1970. He kept a diary of his Vietnam tour from 1965 to 1966, where he served as chief of Movements Branch, J-4 MACV. You can read it on

A Vietnam War Clerk's Diary. There are lots of mentions of TC officers and inside information regarding the big troop buildup in SVN.

http://vietnamwarclerksdiary.blogspot.com/  

More information here http://militaryrailwayservice.blogspot.com/2014/05/mrs-events-and-update-from-mark-metz.html

Thanks to Tom for sharing these great photos of his dad, Michael Walter Matlosz. 

Obituaries: Michael W Matlosz, 77 Jersey Journal, The (Jersey City, NJ) - Wednesday, July 14, 1999 

Mass for Michael W. Matlosz, 77, a lifelong resident of Bayonne, will be Friday at 9 a.m. at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, Bayonne. He died Monday in St. Barnabas Medical Center, Livingston. Matlosz was an Army veteran of World War II. He was received the Asiatic Pacific Theatre Ribbon with two Campaign Stars, the Philippine Liberation Ribbon with one Battle Star, and the Meritorious Unit Plaque. Matlosz was a chemical operator for Allied Chemical Corp., Elizabeth, for 22 years, retiring 13 years ago. 

He was a member of F.A. Mackenzie American Legion Post 165, Bayonne. Surviving are his wife, Nellie T.; two sons, Michael Mark and Thomas K.; two daughters, Maureen M. and Debbie D. Kocher; a sister, Jean Jadlowski; a brother, John; and five grandchildren. Dworzanski & Son Funeral Home, Bayonne, is in charge.

Men from Company C, 729th Railway Operating Battalion, operate a British War Department made Austerity locomotive in a railyard at Antwerp, Belgium, 1944

An old French steam locomotive is seen being operated by men of the 727th Railway Operating Battalion in Algeria on 17 February 1943

.Just a little less than a year before in March of 1942 the 727th ROB was the first railway battalion activated in World War II. Soldiers of the 727th were established at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, to train on the Southern Railroad between Meridian, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana. 

In September 1942, a detachment of men from the 727th Railway Operating Battalion became the first military railroaders to deploy outside the contiguous United States when they assumed operations of the White Pass and Yukon Railroad in Alaska. Then the 727th was one of the first two battalions to deploy overseas, arriving in North Africa in December 1942. Railroading in North Africa proved to be challenging. Trains were operated by British, French, and American crews assisted by Arab civilians. 

With a variety of languages among the railroaders, the crew often used hand signals, although that was not always a solution. For example, the U.S. signal for “go” in railroad terms meant “stop!” in the French system used in North Africa. Another quirk was that French locomotives in North Africa did not have seats for engineers or firemen as American ones did, so crews had to stand for hours on end while they were underway. 

In spite of the difficulties, the Military Railway Service (MRS) moved about 90,000 tons of freight a week by June 1943. At its peak the MRS operated 1,905 miles of railway in North Africa. After freeing North Africa from German occupation the Allies’ next move was to Sicily, and MRS personnel went with them. Three days after the initial landings on 10 July 1943 the 727th Railway Operating Battalion went ashore at Licata, Sicily, and immediately began work on the Sicilian railway. Thanks Military Railroad Society https://www.facebook.com/usatc5002

 Thanks to Adam Glanzman for sharing some photos of his grandfather Abraham Glanzman who served in the 763rd.

 

 

During World War II, as the number of wounded soldiers in need of transport back to the United States rose, the Army developed and managed a complex network of hospital trains that brought the injured from ports across the country to care facilities near their homes. 

Now largely a remnant of the past (at least in the U.S.), hospital trains were an important element of American military operations for nearly a century. They were first used during the Civil War, then again during World War I. But during World War II, that familiarity didn’t save the Army and the Office of the Surgeon General from needing to undertake a laborious revamp of the system that very nearly stretched to the end of the conflict in 1945. https://bityl.co/KaE4

Thanks so much to his son Eric and other family members for sharing these amazing photos !