December 27 | This Day in U.S. Military History
My great grandfather was involved with moving stuff via railroad in WWII. He was a railroad lawyer and had been in the service and they needed his talents.
Was doing this work in his 50s or so for the U.S. Army
I often would visit his wife in the late 1960s and 1970s in Apache Junction, AZ either alone or with other family members along at some times.
Quote:
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1943 – The threat of a paralyzing railroad strike loomed over the United States during the 1943 holiday season. President Franklin Roosevelt stepped in to serve as a negotiator, imploring the rail unions to give America a “Christmas present” and settle the smoldering wage dispute. But, as Christmas came and went, only two of the five railroad brotherhoods agreed to let Roosevelt arbitrate the situation. So, on December 27, just three days before the scheduled walk-out, the President shelved his nice-guy rhetoric and seized the railroads. Lest the move look too aggressive, Roosevelt assured that the railroads would only be temporarily placed under the “supervision” of the War Department; he also pledged that the situation would not alter daily rail operations. The gambit worked, as officials for the recalcitrant brotherhoods made an eleventh-hour decision to avert the strike. The action was taken under the wartime Labor Disputes Act. The railroads were returned to private management on January 18, 1944.
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