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Highway Recollections of Bob Grout
by Reagan, John
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Note: Hiss and noise as on original tapes.
Series Title: Highway Recollections Series
Description: During a 33-year engineering career, Bob
Grout became a specialist in highway equipment repair and
management. He advanced from Assistant Highway Engineer
in road construction maintenance to Supervising Equipment
Engineer, and finally to Chief, Equipment Resources
Branch. He retired from Caltrans in 1980. In this oral
history for Caltrans, he mentions briefly his Air Force
career,one year of fighter pilot training in Santa Ana,
California, one year as an instructor in Bakersfield, and
then to Pocatello, Idaho for gunnery training. After
completion of gunnery training he was assigned to a
fighter group,404 Squadron, 506 Group and was transported
to England on the Columbia, a French luxury liner. Once
arriving in Britain, his first assignment was flights
patrolling the British Coastline. After the Beach was
taken on "D" day, he took a transport to Omaha Beach, to
fly missions with the 404 Squadron. He flew in the
mission to liberate Paris, was court marshalled for
flying underneath the Eiffel Tower, earned the
Distinguished Flying Cross for bombing Nazi rail cars
under fire. He also received a Purple Heart for injuries
he sustained when his plane was shot down during the
Battle of the Bulge. After his service with the Air
Force, he worked for the Division of Highways as Street
Inspector in Marysville. One of his first assignments
included first sign crews when the Division of Highways
took over signing from the Auto Club in 1947. As an
Assistant Maintenance Engineer, he supervised the
construction of Maintenance Stations of Pine Grove,
Manteca, and Coulterville. Grout had to negotiate a
strike/union problems, which was a major factor in
eliminating maintenance forces from doing construction;
and he was responsible first diesel truck bought.
Rights: Copyrighted. Rights are owned by Caltrans Library
& History Center. Transmission or reproduction of
materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by
fair use requires the written permission of the copyright
owner. In addition, the reproduction of some materials
may be restricted by terms of gift or purchase
agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity
rights, licensing and trademarks. Works not in the public
domain cannot be commercially exploited without
permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any
use rests exclusively with the user.
Digitized by the California Audiovisual Preservation
Project (CAVPP)[1].
References
1. californialightandsound
Date Published: 2016-08-11 20:38:24
Identifier: casadt_000080
Item Size: 179896100
Language: eng
Media Type: audio
# Topics
californialightandsound; Oral history...
# Collections
caldotemployeesaudiocollection
caltrans
californiarevealed
americana
# Uploaded by
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