T-4 Gene A.

Bryan Military Rail Service In 2003 while trying to research dads military service, I had a few obstacles. There arent too many men left around who served. From a copy of a map of the units travels, I found that dad was in Company A, 735th Railway Operating Battalion. Dad was not the type to keep a diary. Based on what I remember him telling me and what I can now find, it pretty much makes up this writing. Most of the rest, I found in research. During WW 1, trains were used in transport of supplies and troops. WW 2 saw a massive increase in train transportation to resupply soldiers, and move troops & equipment throughout Europe. Air-Drop supply was in its infancy during WW2 and helicopters werent invented yet. The United States Military Rail Service was started. As I learned, it was set up by 1st M.R.S., 2nd M.R.S., etc. Then came the Railway Grand Divisions, then the Railway Operating Battalions and Railway Shop Battalions. After a company, it is broken down into platoons, then squads. Dad received training at Ft. Snelling, Minnesota. It was a fort during the Civil War. Mom stayed with Dad in an apartment while he was stationed there. Dad was assigned to the 2nd M.R.S., 707th R.G.D., 735th R.O.B., Company A. Many U.S. railroad workers volunteered or were drafted into the M.R.S. U.S. railroads sponsored military counterparts. The AAR (Association of American Railroads) sponsored the 735th, and the Southern Railway Company sponsored the 707th. The 707th was activated on 10 June 1943. The 735th on 10 February 1944. The 735th landed on Utah Beach, 16-17 October 1944. Each company in the R.O.B.s was task specific. Company A was responsible for track and signals. Company B was equipment maintenance, with Company C being the transportation company. Dads primary job was operating a clamshell or dragline type crane. Crushed rock or ballast had to be unloaded for the track bed. Im sure that bomb craters had to be filled in as well. Heavy equipment also had to be unloaded and reloaded on trains for movement. Trains were also used to relocate prisoners of war and displaced persons. Dad sent home two, captured enemy rifles. A K-98 Mauser (his favorite) and a K-43 semi-auto, both 8mm. He told me that the Mauser was a good one, that he was showing it to a bunch of prisoners once. They commented that it was made in 1939 when the quality was still high. I wondered of the rationale of handing a rifle to prisoners? I imagine it was unloaded, and Dad never met a stranger (for long). Dad said the crew on his clamshell had three weapons. One man had a .45 pistol, one a M-1 carbine, and Dad had a 1903-A3 Springfield. The 03-A3 was an improved version of the WW1 bolt-action rifle. Dad said. They only issued me 5 rounds for it. What good was that if anything ever happened? I kept it oiled up for inspections and chained to my bunk. I got the old Mauser and kept it in the cab with me. I could get all the ammo for it that I wanted, because it was everywhere. The infantry had all the Garands, we didnt have those because we were in the rear. After Mom passed away, Dad gave me the K-43 rifle. It was always missing the rear sight, as it didnt make it over when he sent the rifles home pieces at a time. I found a rear sight and installed it. I showed it to Dad and he was really happy to see a

sight on it. That is, until I told him that I paid $25.00 for it. He said, Oh, dammit! Twenty-five bucks? These rifles were stacked from the floor to the ceiling! I could have had 100 of them! I had to remind him that 40 years ago, that could have been the case. But he didnt get 100, that it was worth it to me to have it complete. Had he been thinking of me, he would have sent several home (I wasnt born until 1956). He kind of calmed down then. It seems to me there was a story that he bagged a deer with the Mauser once, and they ate venison for a while. Another piece of Dads WW2 equipment I have, is a flashlight. Mom told me that Uncle John (John Albury Bryan, my great uncle) sent it to Dad in WW2. Flashlights were prohibited due to light discipline. Lighting up areas at night made good targets. Dad kept this light though. Its a small, round, nickel-plated light, made by the Chase Brass Company. It takes two, C cell batteries. The Chase Brass Company is still in business. They named this particular model of flashlight, The Bomb. As it was common for early batteries to leak, there was a little corrosion in the light. I cleaned it up, stopped the corrosion, and got it to work. After the U.S. Army Air Force (no U.S. Air Force until 1947) would go through and bomb enemy territory, artillery and infantry would go through. As they advanced, the R.O.B. would be behind them repairing railroad tracks so the trains could keep the troops supplied with equipment, ammunition, and food. Because re-supply is vital for advancing troops, the R.O.B.s were frequent targets of enemy snipers, saboteurs, and strafing from enemy fighter planes. Anything they could do to slow down the advance was their objective. I remember Dad telling me once that if a sniper shot a soldier, the soldier was just replaced. If a sniper put a bullet through a radiator of a piece of equipment, it shut things down for a long time. Dad did tell of one incident where a sniper shot one of the company cooks. The cook was a black man. Dad said the shot appeared to come from a church steeple. They opened up with everything they had. When the smoke cleared, they found a dead German solider about 16 years old. As the story went, his equipment consisted of a rifle, canteen, and a bag with a loaf of brown bread. In June of 2003, I tracked down a former member of Company C, 735th R.O.B. His name was shown on the Internet as a contact for 735th Reunions. I spoke with Mr. Lester Dahl in Yuma, Arizona. He was then 89 years old. When I asked if he was the Mr. Dahl who was in the 735th R.O.B., he asked. What are you selling? Once I explained what I was after, he became a little less guarded. He said they stopped having reunions in 1995 because only a handful of guys showed up. He said the battalion was split up a lot, working all over Europe. They had to replace members of a unit once as most of them were in jail for looting, toward the end of the war. In civilian life before the war he worked at a steel plant, firing boilers. Because of that experience, he was made a fireman in the M.R.S. (coal fired steam engines, not diesels). He said that he quickly became an engineer. He said their trains were a mix and match of U.S. and European cars. Only U.S. cars were good for hauling tanks and heavy equipment. He said they used captured enemy equipment that was repairable. The only good engines in France, were ones that the U.S. left behind in WW1! he said.

For the most part, the cars had no air brakes. For the train to slow or stop, it then required a man to climb up on each individual car and set the hand brakes. A whistle signal from the engineer was the order for brakes-on and brakes-off. He said it was not an easy job. They often ran trains as night so as to avoid being strafed by German fighters. He said they ran the trains without any headlights and it was a good thing too. When they saw the track in the daylight, they didnt know how their train made it over! They probably wouldnt have gone down the track had they been able to see the condition it was in! Dad had once told me that a lot of G.I.s in the M.R.S. were killed when coupling cars together. The European coupling system was a hook and link affair, requiring a man to be in-between the cars when they were being connected. They did not have automatic couplers like U.S. railroads. Mr. Dahl reiterated that fact. Mr. Dahl said that the ages of the men varied from the early 20s to men in their 40s. They were more railroaders than they were soldiers, according to him. I mentioned a photo of Dad standing next to a statue at a fountain of a little boy peeing. He immediately exclaimed, Mannequin Pisser in Brussels! Further investigation into this found Manneken-Pis a famous Brussels, Belgium statue dating back to 1619. Dad sent a Christmas card home from Brussels in 1944, so he was there during that time frame. He said their unit was in southern Germany close to Austria, after the end of the war. This matches up with a photo Dad took of Hitlers Eagles Nest near Berchtesgaden. Dad took the photo from the rear of the building. I tried to get a photo from the same angle in 1977 when I visited the area while in the Army, stationed in Karlsruhe, Germany. I was only able to locate one other person who had information on the 735th. A Ms. Mary Vernoy, USNR-Retired. Her Dad Carl D. Vernoy, had been in Company B of the 735th R.O.B. She provided information and photos of her Dad. .