I was looking through some scans of my grandfather's documents from the war and found his LoM citation. I have rewritten it because the original is nearly illegible. It gives and interesting look into the kinds of things that were problems that people faced (lack of materials in this case) and how people overcame them.
John C. O’Brien, 0351761, Captain, Corps of Engineers,
540th Engineer Regiment, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the
performance of outstanding service in Italy from 1 March to 30 April
1944. Although no available equipment had been designed for this purpose
of making bituminous cold patch, Captain O’Brien, through ingenious
conversions, alterations, and engineering skill, has been able to construct
a plant which was capable of producing 100 cubic yards of cold patching
material per day, for the repair and maintenance of roads in the Anzio
Beachhead. Working under hazardous conditions he trained personnel to
operate the plant, and constantly inspected the roads which were being
repaired with the materials in order to further improve his product.
Captain O’Brien’s plant was also able to supply other engineer units
on the beachhead with sufficient cold patching material so that they
could repair and maintain their individual road nets and the plant
proved so successful that a [edited 9/8] duplicate had ordered to be constructed
by higher authorities. The initiative, skill, and outstanding engineering
ability displayed by Captain O’Brien is worthyof praise. Entered service
from Dayton, Ohio.
*These two words are difficult to make out on the scanned copy. “That
its” seems to be the best fit contextually.
