Evening star., 1944-08-27
transportation Corps
Does Big Job Behind
Scenes for u. 5. Army
BY sERGT. ALBERT BUCKBERG
OF 1910 Eighth Street NV.

tIlpS dUOuG ScCliUIlS Ol OUuIllcIIl
England and Wales, reporting OPP
erations to the Office of Technical
Information. On those trips I
learned the immensity Of the corps
and in the Office the background
for the operations unfolded.
Every movement of units of the
United States Army except those
of field armies under combat is
governed by the Transportation
Corps. All supplies and materiel
are moved by the corps or with its
appreciation.
The story of thei corps in this
theater began two years ago with
the establishment of the Office Of
Chief of Transportation under Maj.
Gen. Frank S. Ross. I arrived too
late to see the pre-invasion work, but
I have seen enough since the COM
mencement of the assault on Festung
Europa to understand the scope of
the assignment
Vast Stores Unloaded.
All marine units, prior to the
invasion, worked in landing troops
from the States and in unloading
supplies. They worked with eX-
perienced English stevedores. This
work trained these units for opera
tions on the beaches subsequent to
the breach of the Atlantic Wall.
The port battalions, virtually of
all-Negro personnel, literally worked
"a hours day on the beaches
from D-day on, and they shall
continue to operate on that scale
until our armies open enough sea-
ports to receive the tremendous
flow of equipment and personnel
that lands on the Channel beaches.
Conditions on the beaches have
never been ideal for these boys.
They sleep in foXholes and eat
k-rations. They can't do anything
else for they don't have enough
time. They landed under fire i'm
mediately behind the first assault
waves to start the flood of supplies
inland to where they were needed
most.
Messy weather wrecked the Army's
stevedores' efforts to use ramps and
rollers. but the boys continued to
unload. Their devotion to duty and
job alone is heroic, but tales of
greater achievements continue to
come from the beaches.
Braved Planes to Use Lights.
One crew of men unloaded a
stricken cargo vessel at night with
lights. despite the ominous presence
of bombers of the Luftwaffe. Water
completely filled the hold from which
they had to extract the supplies.
Our boys again and again slipped
into the cold water to slip the hoops
of the winch cables through hooks
in the noses of 500 and 1000 pound
bombs.
The Channel weather was the
worst in 40 years and the beaches
were obstructed and Uttered with
piles of damaged equipment nobody
had found time to remove.
At the same time, in the Channel
ports in England from where the
supplies left for France, other port
battalions loaded the vessels. In one
OF the largest and most important
ports in Southern England 1 saw an
immense line of men and equipment
tnronging into LISTS and cargo YES
sells that loaded alongside of other
boats that discharged bewildered,
ragged prisoners and weary men
painfully wounded.
The lines of men and trucks
waiting for shipping space never
shortened, nor did the lines remain
still for more than two or three
hours.
Trucks Take a Beating.
Before D-day thousands of con-
voys streamed along narrow Eng
lish roads with loads destined for
Army camps hidden in the green
hills. So many trucks were engaged
that the highway department of the
Office of the Chief of Transportation
developed return loads plan to cut
consumption of gas and oil in half.
Those units landed on D-dav.
too. One company, during it's trans
Channel voyage, was attacked by a
German plane. The men on the
TOP deck fired their rifles at the
plane along with the antiaircraft
batteries of the ship. The plane
fell into the Channel waters.
The truck conveys in Normandy
faced the same obstacles that the
tank crews faced They had to move
within yards of the front with am
munition and shells. They faced
the same danger from mines. The
engineers had not had sufficient
time to clear the areas.
They faced artillery fire from
Nazi batteries that had zeroed in
on crossroads and curves. One
driver from a truck outfit faced di-
rect fire from a German scoutcar.
He was driving on a newly cap
tured road near ST. Lo when he
observed two German prisoners
walking in the opposite direction.
He passed them but soon wondered
why they had no escorts. Suddenly
a scoutcar came out of some woods
and began to fire its machine gun
at him. The American sped back
with over 40 holes in the rear of
his truck
Rail Units Build Cars.
The rail units did not run trains
in preparation for the invasion
They spent their time constructing
boxcars, gondolas, fiat cars, refrig-
orators, cabooses and locomotives for
use in France from prefabricateo
knocked-down parts sent from the
States. Members of the railway op-
Grating battalions ran engines in
switching operations around the ter
minals and railroads. but almost all
the rail soldiers did construction
and assembly work.
Early in the spring of this year
detachments from several of the
railway shop battalions were sent to
British shipyards to aid in the con-
struction of steel barges that would
carry supplies for the invasion. One
detachment entered a shipyard
where the English, using hand tools
were building barges in 10 days
The soldiers came in, absolutely un-
tutored in ship assembly, with some
of the latest machine tools, and
turned out their first barge in 1c