On Sep 6, 2011, at 18:28 , Doug Franklin wrote: > Yep, those are B-24s, if you're talking about the seventh image from the top > on page two. I'm kinda partial to the second one from the top of page 2, > just because I've always been somewhat entranced by "train artillery" (the > original form of rail gun).
My father, R.G. McAllister, was a Sergeant in the 723rd Railway Operating Battalion in WW II. After 10 months of training after he was called up, he embarked for England Aug 11, 1944. They docked in Liverpool on the 22nd, disembarked on the 24th, then 30 hours later boarded a British ship in Southampton. Two days later (a slow sailing waiting for the beach to be ready) at 1600 hrs on the 26th they loaded up into L.C.I.'s and headed for Utah beach in France, where they gathered up their equipment and personal gear then headed inland. They caught a convoy on the 28th and made it to Le Mans by 1330 hrs on the 29th. On September 9th, after working for a week under the command of the 708th Railway Grand Division repairing the rails and getting under steam, they moved on to Surdon where the Battalion Headquarters was established. When the Battalion arrived in Surdon, there was much to be done. Most of the buildings had been damaged by air attack. The railroad yards were in poor condition and there were no facilities for handling other than a mere trickle of traffic. On September 14th, the "Advance" party with it's hundreds of tons of heavy equipment, prime movers to picks and shovels, arrived. What his Battalion was responsible for in essence was repairing damaged track and rail yards as fast as possible to allow the locomotives my father worked with to carry supplies to the front line(s). They had to keep up with the forward movement of the troops as they liberated France, turning the lines and equipment over to the French crews as they became available. My father was a yard locomotive engineer, a keeper of records and maps for the Battalion, and when not busy doing that, he had to crawl into and repair or overhaul with new pipe the boilers, clean and repair the fireboxes, grease the parts that needed it, oil those that did not, fire them up and take them out for testing before they were turned over to the long haul engineers and crews. The Battalion moved to Dreux France to re-establish it's headquarters on October 25th. They had by now established 70.4 miles of good track through to Argentan. They kept enough locomotives and tenders operable to work that trackage 24 hours a day. Leaving Dreux they were treated to a parade, flowers, bands, food (women?) by the residents returning from wherever they hid to avoid capture by the Germans. By Christmas, they had 110 miles operating to the front beyond Versailles. On March 12 of 1945 the entire remaining rail system was turned over to the French. The 723rd left on four trains to re-establish themselves in - Germany! - at Munchen-Gladbach by 1200 noon on the 15th. One year to the day and hour they started their training in Lincoln, Nebraska, plus someplace in Texas where they had a European railway system and rolling stock set up to play with. The main line of operation was from Herzogenrath to Geldern in priority movement support of the Ninth Army. They operated under decent amount of shell fire, though no lives were lost, just track needing repair. The Ninth soon broke through the German Rhine defenses. The day was taken off on the 14th of April to honor the death of President Roosevelt. In the month of April an estimated 125,000 prisoners of war and 29,000 French and Belgium repatriates, in addition to the constant movement of supplies foreword to the lightening advances of the troops. The 723rd's most important and exacting task was the repair and rebuilding of the Gouldin Bridge at Wesel - first railroad span constructed across the Rhine River. The 723rd got the responsibility of that span from completion until VE-Day. A daily average of 16 Eastbound trains crossed the bridge every day, about one per hour. The same was true of the empties or troop trains heading West. What was significant was that it was a single track bridge in support of the American 1st, 9th, and 15th Armies, as well as the British 2nd Army. A self-imposed bottleneck that took careful tending and control to make everything work trouble free. Thank Company "A", the signal, track, and bridge platoon, my father's in "B" company, the car, shop, and roundhouse platoon. The war ended on the 9th of May, but wasn't over for the 723rd. They still maintained control and responsibility of the road from the border of Germany over the Victory Bridge at Duisberg on to the city of Hamm, plus all associated spur track. The Allies hired former German railroad employees before the end of the war to rebuild the circuits of the electrically operated switches and control towers in the various yards. Once the war ended, we utilized all former German railroad employees, the goal being to turn control of operation to them, only maintaining supervisional control by the occupying forces. In fact, even that was soon turned over to the British. By the 3rd of July 1945, the Battalion was declared a Category IV Unit. The downside was that no one had made any plans to get them back to the USA right away. They were stuck doing the usual idle Army things like calisthenics and close order drill, and a bit of sightseeing. In all that time in Europe, the Battalion only lost four men, one in an accident in France, two in a train wreck in Germany, and one by his own hand long after VE day. My father made it home and mustered out in February of 1946 in Chicago (they always take you back to where you raised your hand and swore) where mother and I had been living with my grandmother in Evanston. The family soon headed to Glendale, Arizona to visit with fathers brothers and sisters and parents. If you are on Facebook and a friend, the photo of me on horseback and being wheeled around in a wheelbarrow on top of a bale of Arizona hay was that time. I was 3, turned 4 in July. Factual events are from a book written by the Battalion, and printed while they were still in Germany, of which I have my father's copy, along with a large 10 x 24 print of the men upon graduation from training, and his medals, along with some but not all of the images he took or his friends took of him as they trudged around France and Germany. Little tiny deckled edge 2 x 3" things, I've yet to copy. Back in the 50s and 60s my father made several trips back on business at the Hague, but took the time to visit with some very close friends he made in both countries. Thank you for reading. DId me good to put it down. It all started when I saw that rail gun. My dad had a photo of one too. Don't know if I still have that, but it was impressive. If it doesn’t excite you, This thing that you see, Why in the world, Would it excite me? —Jay Maisel Joseph McAllister pentax...@mac.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
