Editing Forty-and-eights (section)

== History ==

[[File:The British Army in France 1939 O86.jpg|thumb|left|British soldiers in a forty-and-eight in France, 1939]]

Introduced in the 1870s, the boxcars were pressed into military service by the French Army in both world wars. Between 1940 and 1944 occupying German forces used forty-and-eights to transport troops, [[prisoner of war|POWs]], horses, freight, and civilian prisoners to [[concentration camps]]. Following the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] [[Normandy landings|landing at Normandy]] in June, 1944, the Germans were pushed eastward towards the Rhine. Trains of forty-and-eights were frequent [[Target of opportunity|targets of opportunity]] for Allied [[fighter-bomber]]s, with carloads of prisoners occasionally being victimized. As France was liberated forty-and-eights were used to transport Allied soldiers and materials to the shifting front through War's end in 1945.