Scully, Rees Townsend

Rees Townsend Scully was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, on May 17, 1884, to Mary M. and Henry Rees Scully. Scully graduated from Princeton University in 1908 and began his career as a civil engineer in Allgheny, Pennsylvania, that same year. He took positions with Empire Engineering Corporation of New York and Petroleum Properties Corporation, working for two years in Haiti and Trinidad in the British West Indies. He then worked for the architectural firm MacClure and Spahr between 1912 and 1917.

Scully volunteered as an American Field Service (AFS) camion, or truck, driver with Transport Matériel [Etats-] Unis (TMU) 133 from April to October 1917. TMU 133 was part of the Réserve Mallet of the French Automobile Service, created as a Franco-American transportation unit to help replenish the seriously depleted ranks of the French Automobile Service. Scully served as commander, or chef, of Section F of TMU 133, which was composed mostly of Princeton graduates.  Scully and other members of TMU 133 served on the Western Front at Aisne in France in the fall and summer of 1917, delivering munitions and troops in the territory between Soissons to a few kilometers west of Reims.

Scully transferred to the civilian division of the United States Aviation Service of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) after AFS was absorbed into the military in late 1917. He later served as a second lieutenant in the Engineering Corps of the AEF. After the war ended Reese served for three months in Poland and on October 31, 1919, was honorably discharged from United States military service. He then returned to Pittsburgh and later organized the Pittsburgh Electro Galvanizing Company.

Reese Townsend Scully passed away on August 8, 1961.

[Bio courtesy of AFS Archives, New York]