(The following story by Ron Simon appeared on the News Journal website on January 12.)
MANSFIELD, Ohio — Clifford McGinty, 87, spent World War II working as a railroad brakeman for the U.S. Army in Africa, Italy, France and Germany.
“I was working at Empire Steel when I was drafted in 1942, just nine days after my 21st birthday,” McGinty said.
Because he operated a steam locomotive switch engine for Empire, the Army decided railroading is where McGinty would be assigned.
In September 1942, he was assigned to Camp Claiborne, La., where the 759th Railway Operating Battalion was formed.
“Basic training wasn’t too hard for me. I was just 21,” McGinty said. “But for some of the more experienced railroad men it was pretty hard.”
From Louisiana the new unit moved to Arkansas where the men trained alongside the crews and operators of the Missouri Pacific Railroad. McGinty said the unit consisted of a headquarters company plus A Company, which specialized in bridge building, repairs and line maintenance, and B Company, which rain the repair shops.
“I was in C Company — we were the operating company,” McGin- ty said.
His own job was to work as a brakeman.
The 759th shipped out to North Africa in the spring of 1943 and took over operation of railroads radiating out of the port city of Algiers.
“The war was winding down but the Germans would still come over at night,” McGinty said. “Our searchlights and flak kept them away. Some of the flak would come down on us. Some of it was probably ours.”
McGinty said U.S. railroad workers had to become familiar with European-style locomotives and rolling stock. He said the businesses of braking could be dangerous because of the different mechanical styles of coupling railroad cars together.
“There were some major differences. Their locomotives, for instance, didn’t have air brakes like ours,” he said.
But after several months the trains were rolling when the 759th got orders to ship out for Italy.
“We started out in Naples and moved up to Rome. I spent most of my time working in railroad yards just outside Rome,” McGinty said. “There wasn’t much time for tourism. They kept us pretty busy.”
After three months the unit moved again, this time to Southern France, which the Allies had just invaded. Here, McGinty said he started out working on docks and then moved north as the unit followed the Allied armies toward Germany.
“The damage here wasn’t too bad. We operated on a stretch of railroad about 60 to 70 miles long.”
After seven months in France the unit moved on to Germany where, McGinty said, damaged to the rail lines was heavy.
“We saw a lot of German prisoners of war back then. A lot of them spoke English and they would tell us that Germany would eventually win the war because it had secret weapons. Of course we were sure we were going to win.”
McGinty worked well past the end of the war and was among the last of the men of the 789th to be shipped home.
“I managed to get home in 1945 in time for Christmas,” he said.
At one point he volunteered to join a similar unit that would work in the Pacific Theater.
“I was young and single and so I volunteered,” he said. “Then the A-bomb came along and it was all over.”
By the time he joined his family for Christmas, McGinty’s days in uniform were over.
He said two of his brothers, Burt and Ernest, served in the Army during the war. Burt was in England and Ernest worked in the China-Burma-India Theater.
A native of Mansfield, McGinty grew up on Bowman Street near the Gorman Rupp plant. He dropped out of Mansfield Senior High School to work.
That’s when he picked up his job running a switcher locomotive at Empire.
“After I got home I went right back to Empire. But I didn’t have seniority so I always wound up having to work on Sundays,” he said.
Neither he nor his wife, Rosemary, liked that. So his brother, Bob, got him an interview at Gorman Rupp and he was hired.
“I worked there for the next 34 years. I ran a tow motor and drove truck and just about anything else they needed,” he said.
The McGintys had two sons, Douglas and David, and have two grandsons and several great-grandchildren.
“It’s been 62 years for us in July,” Rosemary McGinty said.
McGinty said his old unit has held close to 60 reunions.
“I’ve been to 22 or maybe 24 of them. Now there’s just only a few of us left, but our children have kept the reunions going,” he said.
McGinty is a member of VFW Post 9943 in Mansfield and the Sons of Herman.