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Posted by Ron Carlson
on May 15, 2009, 1:01 pm, in reply to "Department of Veterans Affairs Request for Information"
161.80.10.20
While I cannot verify Mr. Rensch's service, I did find the following information, which may possibly prove useful.
I made a search of the subscription website Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), which lists the names of passengers and crew members who arrived by ship in various U.S. ports of entry between 1820 and 1957. I found a record for a Louis Peter Rensch arriving in New York City on 21 January 1945, having sailed from Southampton, England, on 10 January, aboard the troop transport USAT GENERAL J R BROOKE. Mr. Rensch's DOB is given as 3 December 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. His U.S. address at the time was 5301 43rd Street, [name of city illegible but it is two words, the first word may begin with letter 'L' and the second word may begin with 'H'], Long Island. He was age 24, unmarried and a U.S. citizen. From the record it appears that Mr. Rensch was aboard the ship as a passenger, not as a crew member. There is no occupation noted in the record.
Interestingly, however, many of the other passengers listed on the same page or succeeding or preceding pages have identifying numbers consisting of the letter 'Z' followed by six digits, those possibly being the so-called Z numbers that identify merchant seamen. Others have a notation "Sea PP" followed by six digits, which might also be Z-numbers. Still others have designations beginning "AGO" followed by seven digits. But Mr. Rensch is the only person (of 30) on his page having no identifying number associated with his name.
There is a notation after his name, "ex LT 2" which is similar to notations after the names of other persons on the page or nearby pages. Taking a gigantic leap of logic, I wonder whether LT 2 refers to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers tugboat of that designation (also or later known by the name MAJ RANDOLPH J. HERNANDEZ) built in 1943. If so, the designation may indicate that Mr. Rensch and the others listed on these pages were formerly assigned to tugboat LT 2 and were returning to the United States. Interestingly, tugboat LT 2 (and several other U.S. Army tugboats including LT 4, LT 5, LT 22 and LT 23) was apparently involved in the D-Day landings at Normandy, or later operations connected with the invasion. Southampton, of course, is a British seaport that had a major involvement in the D-Day invasion.
Several of the men listed on the page have the same "ex LT 2" notation. They were:
Paul G. Shipper (or Shippers), DOB 2/9/1926, Catskill, NY; AGO 0824878
Loram Geam Van Sickle, DOB 7/11/1922, Van Buren Township, OH; AGO 0824877
Donald R Harvey, DOB 12/19/1924, Manchester, NH; AGO 0824875
William H Buck, DOB 12/13/1924, Easton, PA; AGO 0825482
William A Bach, DOB 10/26/1925, Jersey City, NJ; AGO 0824867
McLelland Hogue, DOB 10/14/1924, Elmwood City, PA; AGO 0824881
John Henry Stribhei, DOB 9/24/1923, New York, NY; AGO 0824868
John F Fox, DOB 10/8/1923, New Orleans, LA; CD [continuous discharge?] book 042127
Still other men listed on these pages are similarly designated with the other tugboat identifying numbers above, i.e., LT 4, LT 5, LT 22 and LT 23. Possibly a number of tugboat crews were being returned to the U.S. at the same time aboard GENERAL J R BROOKE.
I wonder whether it would be possible to obtain a crew list for the Army tugboat LT 2 / MAJ RANDOLPH J. HERNANDEZ for the period mid-1944 to early 1945, to determine whether the name of Mr. Rensch appears.
My understanding is that civilian crewmen of Army ships (the Army had more vessels during World War II than the Navy) were employees of the U.S. Army Transportation Service, later the U.S. Army Transportation Corps, Water Division, Civilian Branch. (See http://www.usmm.org/atshistory.html.)
My additional understanding is that service records for the U.S. Army Transport Service are available through the National Personnel Records Center-Civilian Records Facility, in St. Louis, MO. The address is:
National Personnel Record Center
111 Winnebago Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63118
Information needed includes:
Full name used during Federal employment
Social Security Number
Date of birth
Name(s) of Federal employing agency(s)
Approximate dates of Federal employment, especially separation
I hope this information may be useful to you and to Mr. Rensch's family.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster
Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website
www.armed-guard.com
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