just got back from veterans museum.......
was going through some of moms old junk, she was big into ancestry/geneology and we have dozens of boxes of newspapers and other stuff, she saved obituaries from paper for anyone she knew, we have boxes of clippings. My sister went through most of this and brought me a half dozen boxes her last visit, she said she didn't want anything in it and wonderred if I did. I found a black plastic folder with rolled up newspapers from van dorn miss. they were his bootcamp newspapers, from the checkerboard division still rolled up that he had sent to his sister back here in WV. they had 1 and one and half cent stamps on them from around feb 1943. also had a big scrapbook his sister had kept with clippings from paper with anyone from the local area, killed, missing, captured, promoted, ect. I looked through the scrapbook and while a lot of the last names were familiar I didn't actually know anyone in any of the articles.
I called my sister and she didn't want them and neither of my kids cared so I went over town to a local veterans museum, it is nothing fancy just set up in an old house, and ask them if they wanted them. the two ladies said sure, made me sign a form saying I willingly donated them, they were very much interested in the scrapbook and were leafing through it as I left looking for any of there relatives. just for what it is worth the 383 checkerboard division is what my dad started in as they got to europe it changed to the 99th infantry division, was in battle of bulge, argone? forest, and my dad was a medic he was involved in the liberation of a few pow camps and Dacua? one of the concentration camps, he never spoke about the war and I allways guessed he saw his share of gruesome in Dacua and on the battlefield during the bulge. there was a photo of him sitting in the grass with the barracks in mississippi in the background, the ladies made a copy of the photo and was gonna display it with the scrapbook and papers. the 2 photos were the only thing I wanted to keep, there was also a photo of him in london on leave.
I called my sister and she didn't want them and neither of my kids cared so I went over town to a local veterans museum, it is nothing fancy just set up in an old house, and ask them if they wanted them. the two ladies said sure, made me sign a form saying I willingly donated them, they were very much interested in the scrapbook and were leafing through it as I left looking for any of there relatives. just for what it is worth the 383 checkerboard division is what my dad started in as they got to europe it changed to the 99th infantry division, was in battle of bulge, argone? forest, and my dad was a medic he was involved in the liberation of a few pow camps and Dacua? one of the concentration camps, he never spoke about the war and I allways guessed he saw his share of gruesome in Dacua and on the battlefield during the bulge. there was a photo of him sitting in the grass with the barracks in mississippi in the background, the ladies made a copy of the photo and was gonna display it with the scrapbook and papers. the 2 photos were the only thing I wanted to keep, there was also a photo of him in london on leave.
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Thank You Sir, on behalf all of who have served, for your Dad's Service.
Battle of the Bulge, Argonne Forest, Dachau? Serious stuff. Medic? He was a BA.
My Dad never spoke of much of what he saw, (WWII, Korea, Vietnam.) unless with other Veterans. (And) He was unaware, my Brother and I were listening in.0 -
The Battle Babies 99th Div
I had an Uncle in that Division during WW2. He was a Bazooka Gunner then was on a 37mm AT gun for a while and got moved to the Heavy Machinegun Plt.0 -
would have offered you the papers if I had know sam,
on a side note one of the few stories my mom used to tell about dad was on saturday morning after the war, they would go downtown park the car and ride the streetcar up and down market street, mom came to find out the street car conductor never charged dad for the ride, mom found out he had been in one of the camps dad helped to liberate, she never knew if he was a jew from the concentration side of dachau or a pow or from one of the other labor camps. she said he would sit behind the driver and talk for 20 minutes to half hour then say their goodbyes and he and mom would go home.0
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