About Roland Regan

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oland James Regan was born in Lynn, Massachusetts on December 8, 1922. He was the son of two Irish immigrants, Margaret (Lombard) and Patrick J. Regan from Mallow and Skibbereen respectively in County Cork, Ireland. He was the second of four children (Vincent a. k. a. Pat, Roland, Peg, and Robert). Patrick was a bus driver for the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway Company while Margaret worked at home to raising her children.

"Rollie," as he was known among his family and friends, was raised during the "Roaring Twenties" and the Great Depression. Even though the Regan's were a working-class family, they were able to avoid most of the severe economic and psychological hardships of the Great Depression as Vincent was able to maintain his job during this turbulent economic period. Both his strong Irish roots and the trying economic times shaped Roland's view of the world forever. In January of 1940 Roland's father, Patrick, became ill with tuberculosis and was hospitalized most of that time until his death on 9 January 1942. During this period Roland left Lynn English High School to support his mother and his three siblings. He would soon be joined by his brother Pat in that effort. Initially he worked as many as four different jobs during the course of a week to help his family make ends meet. Between 1940 and 1942 his work included being a railroad fireman and a welder at the Quincy Naval Shipyards in Quincy, Massachusetts.

In January 1943 Roland joined the United States Army. In June 1943 he was assigned to the 1st Army, 348th Engineer Combat Battalion, Company A. During this time his battalion trained and prepared for the inevitable invasion of continental Europe by building pontoon bridges and other structures across lakes and rivers at various military camps on the East Coast. Roland received specialized training in welding and metallurgy while stationed at Camp Pickett, Virginia. On October 30, 1943 the 348th boarded trains from Camp Myles Standish in Massachusetts and headed toward Halifax, Canada. On November 2 the battalion set sail on the refitted luxury liner the HMS Mauritania to England. On Monday, November 8 the battalion arrived in Liverpool, England, among the first American troops to arrive in this part of Great Britain. In early December the 348th moved to the seaport town of Swansea, Wales and continued preparing for the invasion of continental Europe.

It was during this time that Roland further fine-tuned his interest in taking and developing photographs, an interest that allowed him to capture some very unique and personal perspectives on World War II. Many of his collection of some two hundred photos spanning April of 1943 through July of 1945 are on display in this book. Immediately after the war Roland contributed photographs used in the pictorial history of the 348th published by the U. S. Army, for which he was duly recognized.visit their numerous relatives in Cork.

Roland was honorably discharged from the Army, returning to Lynn on October 25, 1945. During his army stint he had sent home three of every four checks to help his mother back in Lynn. When he returned to his pre- war job as a welder at the Quincy naval shipyard he continued to support his mother until her death in the autumn of 1950. Roland attended a reunion of the 150th Engineer Combat Battalion (who combined with the 348th during most of the war) in Boston on May 6, 1947. In July of 1947 he was appointed as a firefighter on the Lynn Fire department where be would spend the next thirty- four years of his life. In June of 1948 Roland took his mother back to Ireland to visit their numerous relatives in Cork.

During this period he met Mary Teresa Hunt from Roscommon, Ireland.

On April 14, 1951, they were married and had three children: Roland, Jr., Paulette, and Sheila; and four grandchildren, Todd, Reaghan, Scott, and Ashley.

Roland returned to Ireland with his young family in June 1965 and visited with his family numerous times during the next twenty years. He retired from the Lynn Fire department as a Lieutenant in July 1981. Roland attended his second, and last, 348th reunion in central Connecticut in September 1988.

Roland passed away after a lengthy illness on November 15, 1989.