718th ROB Discussion on Flickr around the unit photo

718th Railway Operating Battalion,

Headquarters Company, Camp Claiborne,
1944

My grandfather William J. Ricketson (4th row from bottom,

2nd from right) of Cornelia, Georgia, pictured with his unit -
the 718th Railway Operating Battalion, Headquarters Unit,
at Camp Claiborne, Alexandria, Louisiana, 1944.
 
The 718th would deploy to the European Theater in July of
1944 and move from England, to France, to Luxembourg,
and into Germany. The 718th Railway Operating Battalion
took part in The Battle of The Bulge, moving troops and
supplies back and forth to the front.
 
Historical notes follow:
 
One railroad historian, Carl Gray, notes of this Christmas
that "the most noteworthy action was the Battle of the
Bulge, when Von Rundstedt counterattacked the Third
Army. In the thick of this action the troops of the 706th
R.G.D. . . . Among those operating battalions directly
involved in this action were the 718, 722 and 732 R.O.B."
The Yankee Boomer elaborated, saying "Assigned to the
task of a railhead battalion in support of the Third Army,
the 718th operated the advanced line in Patton's territory,
moving as close to the front as possible." Gray writes that
"During the period of the [Battle] the 718 R.O.B.
accomplished a rather remarkable feat in that they moved
within forty-eight hours four divisions, including supply, of
the Third Army laterally across the front into the south
flank of the Bulge." The Boomer agreed, asserting that "this
movement was so successful that units withdrawing from the
line in the south received their supplies at railheads and
were returned to combat without delay. Third Army
spokesmen consider this a primary factor in the repulse of
the Bulge." This was not all, for, as the unit's own historian
indicates, there was the additional problem "of moving the
Seventh Army, which was replacing the Third Army, and
this was accomplished [by the 718th] also without halt."


 James Crouch 1y

Hello! I am the great grandson of VV Crouch. I have "more to the story" information I
am trying to confirm. I would like to ask you some questions.

Red Clay Dawg 1y

James Crouch Hello, James. Nice to make your acquaintance. How can I be of assistance
to you?

Red Clay Dawg 1y

James Crouch Did you forget about me? You can't just leave a guy hanging and not tell
grand pappy war stories, bro. C'mon.

James Crouch 4mo

My apologies. I forgot about you. I recently starting looking around again.

www.scribd.com/document/24227500/718th-Railway-Operating-...

Page 43 mentions Verdun and Lt Crouch. and on page 99 the story is mentioned. The
REST of the story as told to me by his son:
There was problem with comm and HQ, delayed orders and keeping the rail line open.
There was a problem getting spare parts. To assemble this nice comfy train required a
special night time glider flight to bring specific parts for locomotive and perhaps track.
Rather than wait for HQ. This locomotive was repaired, train assembled forces sent out to
repel saboteurs and repair the line. At dawn the train took off down the line and made it
through.

James Crouch 4mo

I have an actual hard bound book like the one scanned.



James Crouch 4mo

It says specifically Florenville during the BOB.

Red Clay Dawg 3mo

James Crouch Thank you, James. I enjoy hearing stories and reading things about 718th
ROB HQ Company because I never met my grandfather. He was killed by a drunk driver
about a year before I was born so I never heard any of the stories. He also didn't like to
talk about this stuff apparently, and didn't really spin any yarns about his time there to
many of my family members. The closest thing I have to anything like this is a letter he
wrote home to his sister and it doesn't really say a whole lot. I'm assuming this was due in
part to the censors and partly because he didn't want her to be too worried. It's just
standard "How is everyone doing? I love you guys, be home soon" type of stuff. He did
mention he was driving a Jeep in the dark with some high-ranking officer down a muddy
road at night with the lights turned off to avoid getting bombed and that he was close to
the front - closer than he liked being.

Thanks for the link to that book. I had read some excerpts from it but I didn't have it
bookmarked. I do now, though.

The letter censorship stuff can be frustrating, but I was lucky enough to find a website
last year with scans and transcripts of letters written home from over there by the actual
censor of the 718th ROB. These letters were much more detailed about what was actually
going on because since this guy was the censor, there was no one around to censor the
stuff he was writing. His letters are much more detailed and forthcoming due to this. He
talks about how most of the French children were completely filthy, covered in lice, and
constantly begging for food and other items. He also relays personal stories from the
French about what they had endured during the fighting and occupation. I believe he also
relayed a story about some older French lady who said that she wanted to personally "kill
every last German in Europe", or something to that effect. I think she said they had killed
some of her family members and either blown up her house or crushed it with a tank. I
believe that there is another one where he describes working with the German RR
employees and former soldiers during the very early days of the occupation and states
that the general consensus of the GI's was that they liked the Germans and got along with
them far better than they did their Russian and French allies. I'll try and find this website
with the censor's letters and post a link here, if you like,

I was also contacted recently by a French student studying at Georgia Tech down the
road from me in Atlanta. He is putting together a book about French POW's returning
home after the war. He saw the pic my grandfather took of a bombed out bridge and the
new one right next to it that was built by Army engineers and men of the 718th ROB. He
is using my photo in his book. Too bad it's going to be published in French LOL. The
photo is here in this same album if you are interested.

Again, thanks for getting back in touch with me with this info. It's very much
appreciated, and if you have any more links or information I would be happy if you could
share it.

Barclay