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.

LoM citation.pdf