717 th Railroad Operations Battalion WWll

I am looking for the history of the 717th Railroad Operations battilion from Oct 1943 to December of 1945.
My father St. Claire A. Sharpe was a member of this group. He past away 3 years ago in April. What I know about him is on the left shoulder he is is wearing the Armed Service Forces patch. He has the rank of staff sargent,he is wearing his overseas cap. In his earlier photos he had sargents stripes with a T for transportation In his staff sargents photo with the staff sargents stripes he has no T. His discharge paper said his last unit was the 197th infantry??. He was picked up from the Aiken Co. South Carolina courthouse inducted at Fort Jackson SC and discharged at Fort Bragg NC. He left from up north somewhere went to England and on to Normandy. He was ingaged at Northern France, Ardeness and maybe Luxemburg.
He was awarded three Bronze Stars. I believe he may of been in the 3rd Army under Patton. He told me he arrived at Normandy June 6 at about 1:30 pm. Any little help would be appreciated. He was always like a wind up toy when it came to the war, he would talk about it for about 3 minutes then stop. If you wanted to hear more, you would have to start him up all over again.
Thank you in advance for your help, this is from a proud son of WWll vet who did his part to keep all Americans FREE!
David S. Sharpe South Carolina