Dear Ronald:

A mistake was made on Woodie's (Robert Woodhull's) stone; he was never in the 101st.  Woodie and the 460th became part of the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team after Tennessee maneuvers in early 1944.  This took place in Camp Mackall, NC.  We were never part of the 101st.  All of our fighting in Europe was as a separate Regimental Combat Team.  As 5th Army troops we fought in Italy in the Rome Arno campaign, but were pulled out of 5th Army after a sweep up the Italian "boot" to near the Po Valley.  We were the largest element in the First Airborne Task Force, under General Frederick, which was formed to invade Southern France on August 15, 1944, in Operation Dragoon.  Although widely scattered in the night jump, we formed a cover for the seaborne invasion which landed without opposition due to our efforts.  As the ground forces drove North, The Task Force was assigned the mission of holding the right flank and driving the axis forces back into Italy.  Although there was heavy fighting for each mountain ridge, we had the pleasant task of liberating the Riviera and some newsmen called it the "Champaign Campaign".  We completed this mission in early November 1944 ending up in Sospel, France and then went to northern France by rail in 40 and 8s (box cars with straw on the floor) for what was to be the "winter offensive" after Christmas.  As you know the Germans beat us to it attacking in what was called the Bulge on the 16th of December, 1944.

Woodie was promoted from 1st Lt. to Captain in Southern France and was assigned to the 3rd Battalion 517th Parachute Infantry as artillery liaison officer, where I was the S-2 (Intelligence).  He and his radio man, Herb Jeff, (who passed away recently) accompanied us on all our patrols which we performed 2 or 3 times a week during the 90 days we were on the lines in S. France.  We worked as a team and Woodie would call in artillery to take care of targets of opportunity, to slow down enemy forces who were coming after us when we got too deep into enemy territory, and to destroy targets we spotted after we made it back inside our own lines.  He was a graduate of Princeton University and we shared many discussions on the War strategy in general as well as our personal objectives in life.  We were all a band of brothers, but in addition he was a strong personal friend.

After turning the Bulge inside out, the bloodiest combat we faced was in Bergstein, Germany where we were given a diversionary attack order (an attack in one direction to fool the enemy when the main attack is coming from another).  Woodie was killed by a burst of machine gun fire in that attack right beside me as we were directing artillery fire in support of our attacking troops.  Question could be raised as to whether we were too far forward, but that is where we always were so that we could know what was going on in the attack and support the troopers who were taking the ground. 

I remember him frequently, not just on Memorial Day, and am gratified that a good resident of the Netherlands (are there any other kind?) has adopted his grave.  Although I find the name Woodhull as one of the fighters in our Revolution in the Book "1776", Herb Jeff told me that Woodie was the last of his family line, one of the great losses from WWII.

We express out appreciation from the entire 517th Combat Team for honoring one of our finest fallen brothers.  Howard Hensleigh