Seventy Years Ago: Overseas Movement

By 1942, America's total miles of railroad had declined slightly from the peak of 1910, but still there were nearly 250,000 miles of rail.

By late August, the soldiers making up the 27th Air Depot Group thought their troop train had covered most of that distance as they wound back and forth, north to south and east to west from Mobile, Alabama to the West Coast.

The rail cars lacked air conditioning. To get a breath of ventilation, the soldiers had to lower the windows. What they breathed in was not fresh air, but air mingled with the sulphurous smell of either coal or barely processed fuel oil that burned in the locomotives. From time to time the troop train pulled into a siding to make way for a freight train with high priority munitions or other machines of war to pass them by.

The soldiers passed their time as soldiers do, with talk of home and wives and girlfriends. For entertainment they played poker and rolled dice, hiding their chips or piles of money any time an officer was spotted walking through the cars. They were seldom interrupted. By the time the train huffed its way down the western side of the High Sierra, there was little mystery about the cards that were dealt. They had all memorized the irregular spots on the backs.

No officer had yet disclosed the group's ultimate destination, but it wasn't hard to guess. The Philippines had fallen, as had Guam. None had heard of New Caledonia, but they knew of Australia. Guadalcanal was in the news, but that was a navy and marine corps show. None had heard of New Guinea, but they knew of the Coral Sea and Midway.

It must be Australia.