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"Back From France" 17th Ry. Eng. Yard Long Photo


Mitter2k1
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Excellent! Thank you for taking the time to scan them.

 

I think I have an image saved of a 17th Engineers uniform which I will look for, it may have been posted by someone on this forum. Edit - found the pics, they were posted in 2011 by another member in a section which is currently closed for sorting, so I will attach a couple images here.

 

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{style_image_url}/attachicon.gif IMG_0173-3.jpg

 

RC

No problem RC. Feel free to borrow any of the images if they help you with any of your projects and thanks for posting that uniform, it's a looker!

 

Thanks,

Mike

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Hi Mike,

 

Thank you very much, I will see about a post in the future. The 17th is not as well documented as some of the other regiments, which is a shame. All the men in your photo with 3 stripes marched past King George V though! Not every doughboy had that opportunity. B)

 

RC

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I spent some time tonight trying to reassemble all of the scans into one fluid photo. Unfortunately, photoshop was not cooperating, so I resorted to using MS Paint to splice them together. While the picture is not perfect because each scan had its own tone, it is together to give the general idea of what it looks like. So here is my handiwork and enjoy.

 

Mike

 

post-104697-0-06673900-1413536483.jpg

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Great work! That must've taken some patience

Thank you. Actually it wasn't bad. I just had to make sure the picture were the same height before overlapping them. The photo itself is in 5 sections, and that saved a lot of time. Once I get photo shop to work, I will redo the photo and correct the difference in brightness between the sections.

 

Thanks again,

Mike

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So I was able to identify the name on the back on the photo thanks to the assistance of mars&thunder. He verified the name as being Henry W. Bratton of Co. B, 17th Railway Engineers. Mr. Bratton happens to be an Illinois veteran from the town of Keithsburg, IL. I was able to send a request to the IL State Archives earlier this week and received his service record today in the mail. So I will share the details of his service with everyone.

 

Henry W. Bratton

168054 Corporal Co. B 17th Engineers (Ry)

Age at Enlistment-33 3/12 years

Served with the AEF from July 28, 1917 to March 25, 1919 (655 days of service)

 

Here are the scans of his service record to accompany the photo.

 

Thanks,

Mike

 

post-104697-0-58046600-1414091306.jpg

post-104697-0-83218900-1414091329.jpg

post-104697-0-59842800-1414091355.jpg

post-104697-0-85206500-1414091378.jpg

 

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Thank you guys. It really does give the photo more depth now that we can fill in a bit of a soldiers story. One thing I found interesting was the fact he was 33 years old when he enlisted. On page 2, it appears he has a Davenport, IA connection of some sort. I'll take this info and see what else I can further research about him and the other soldiers.

 

Thanks,

Mike

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Excellent research, Mike!

 

A word about these (11th-19th) railway Engineer regiments. A lot of the men recruited into them seem to be in their mid-twenties through early thirties. I think this is because of the manner in which the regiments were recruited. Now the men were actually vetted to a degree when signing up so that certain vocations (which were thought to be useful by such a regiment) were signed up. But the main goal of recruiting was to sign up experienced men who had been working with the railroads for a while. Each of the railway regiments was authorized to recruit from civilian railroads in 1917, and in order to prevent overlapping efforts with other regiments they were fairly specific in which railroad companies (and regional areas) the men came from. The 17th was basically recruited from railroads entering Atlanta, Ga. but which could have lines (and employees) running into neighboring states such as Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, etc.

 

Not to say that younger men weren't recruited, but I think the older men tended to be picked because they had the experience which was needed.

 

RC

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Thank you guys. I need to find out a bit more on Mr. Bratton, but at this time I believe he made his way to California where I think he is buried. This is still a work in progress and maybe I can eventually put together some more service records for the group.

 

Thanks again,

Mike

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Excellent research, Mike!

 

A word about these (11th-19th) railway Engineer regiments. A lot of the men recruited into them seem to be in their mid-twenties through early thirties. I think this is because of the manner in which the regiments were recruited. Now the men were actually vetted to a degree when signing up so that certain vocations (which were thought to be useful by such a regiment) were signed up. But the main goal of recruiting was to sign up experienced men who had been working with the railroads for a while.  Each of the railway regiments was authorized to recruit from civilian railroads in 1917, and in order to prevent overlapping efforts with other regiments they were fairly specific in which railroad companies (and regional areas) the men came from. The 17th was basically recruited from railroads entering Atlanta, Ga. but which could have lines (and employees) running into neighboring states such as Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, etc.

 

Not to say that younger men weren't recruited, but I think the older men tended to be picked because they had the experience which was needed.

 

RC

Thanks for that info RC! That makes sense for the time as a lot of guys received minimal training in order to grow the number of soldiers and get them overseas. I wish I could see his enlistment date and see how long it was before he was officially a part of the AEF. According to his last prophylaxis date, he was overseas 2 weeks later, correct? It is quite interesting and I'm still learning about the units as I go. This is actually an area I wish I hadn't skipped when I started collecting. No time like the present to learn.

 

Thanks again,

Mike

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Hi Mike!

 

 

These regiments were authorized in early May 1917, and recruiting started very swiftly! I would say that most of them had their recruiting done by the first week of June. I guess the men were eager to join in the war, or get away from their lives for a while. Whatever the case, it seems that they joined with gusto, quickly filling the ranks. I will have to check, but I think the 17th sailed on the 26th or 28th of July aboard the RMS Adriatic. When they sailed, most of the units had only trained for about a month and a half.

 

Regards,

RC

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think this preferential enlistment approach applied greatly to the engineers in general also. I saw in some reference that the AEF was about 1/6 engineers , again the thinking being that these men could be deployed rapidly in their professional capacity to tilt the war in favor of the Allies as rapidly as possible! This is a great thread on the Railway Engineers!! Thanks for the input and the personalization of this soldier's story!

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I think this preferential enlistment approach applied greatly to the engineers in general also. I saw in some reference that the AEF was about 1/6 engineers

 

That wouldn't surprise me. In college, I remember a professor telling us that one of the greatest engineering projects in human history was the western front in WW1, where more earth was moved, almost all by hand, than in any other earthmoving project ever, including the ancient world.

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This is a great thread on the Railway Engineers!!  Thanks for the input and the personalization of this soldier's story! 

Yes RC has done an excellent job providing this information for us. I'm still scrounging around trying to find where the soldier ended up and if I can locate a photo of his grave. I need to see if I can get a few more names for this photo and do some further research on these interesting gentlemen.

 

Thanks,

Mike

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