On one foggy morning last week, a troop train from Wilkes-Barre jerked to a stop in Ohio, between Newcomerstown and West Lafayette.  In the rear coaches, while brakemen fixed a broken air hose, men of the 109th Field Artillery Battalion stirred an uncomfortable sleep, thinking of the rugged training that lay ahead of the, at Camp Atterbury, Ind.  Members of the 28th National Guard Division, federalized as part of the country's mobilization, they were in an outfit whose history went back to the Revolution.  Behind their train, running late, was the Pennsylvania Railroad's 'Sprit of St. Louis'.  In the cab of its twin diesel locomotive Engineer William Eller, 68, ran through two warning signals and then, as the flagman of the stalled train frantically tossed a lighted fuse at his windshield, jammed on his emergency brake.  His engine ripped through three coaches of the troop train, and 33 soldiers were killed as effectively as if the train had been bombed.  Three days later they were taken home.  The 109's Battery B, which had lost only one man in all of World War II, has lost 21 before it even got into this one.

AT FAREWELL DINNER on the eve of the battalion's departure from Wilkes-Barre, Battery B of the 109th had this group picture taken just after sitting down in O'Connell's Kingston House, a local restaurant.  In the picture, identified by numbers, are 16 of the 21 men of the battery who were shortly to die in the troop train wreck. 1- Sgt William C. Edwards, 2 - Recruit Hugh L. Fargus, 3 - Pfc Leonard Balonis, 4 - Pfc Harold Handlos, 5 - Pfc Donald C. Zieker, 6 - Recruit William J. Doughtery, 7 - Corporal Larry Luzenski, 8 - Pfc Raymond Pudloski, 9 - Recruit Frank C. Martinez. 10 - Pfc Clyde P. Harding, 11 - Recruit Richard A. Royer, 12 - Recruit William F. Sobers, 13 - Recruit Charles Norton, 14 - Sgt Lester Kuehn, 15 - Sgt John W. Cox, and 16 - Pfc Martin Hornlein.

AT WRECK ambulances cluster beside track.  Impact doubled back forward unit of 'Spirit' twin diesel locomotive, tossed last troop train car into air and athwart track.  The diesel plowed into next to last car, inflicted heaviest damage there.

IN SMASHED COACH a soldier bows his head in pain (left) as comrade tries to free his arm, pinioned to the wall of the car.  Sgt Joseph Warhola of Simpson, Pa., grabbed his camera and ran fro the middle of the train to take picture.

Engineer Eller testifies that he didn't heed approach signal warning.

Part of sad crowd of 50,000 that watched victim's homecoming

In Kingston Armory, across the Susquehanna River from Wilkes-Barre, mourners view 33 flag-draped coffins borne on weapon carriers.