From: Ben517@aol.com
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 8:42 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: MAIL CALL NO. 1541- 517TH PRCT- MAY 12, 2008
 
 70 Pleasant St. Cohasset, MA. 02025 ,781 383 0215 * Mail Call : Ben Barrett  Ben517@aol.com 
 
Hello,
 
Sign up today for National Reunion. Only 44 days until we will be in St, Louis. This could be the last Hurrah.
  
Please let me know if you want to receive Mail Calls or if you have a problem receiving them. You can always read Mail Calls  by clicking www.517prct.org/archives 
 
Ben
 
Please try to send in donations to Keep the 517 PRCT Association viable. Suggested amount $30.00 to  include Thunderbolt.  Auxiliary members $20.00 Plus $10.00 if you want to receive the  Thunderbolt.  Send donations to  Leo Dean, 14 Stonehenge Lane, Albany, NY  12203.  Make checks payable to 517prct.  Donations for the Auxiliary should be sent to  Karen Frice Wallace   66295 Highway 20  Bend, OR 97701

Website                                   www.517prct.org                                                        
Mail Call                                  Ben517@aol.com
Mail Call Archives                 www.517prct.org/archives
Roster                                     www.517prct.org/roster.pdf


 
 517TH ST. LOUIS REUNION BEGINS:
 
THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 2008 THRU MONDAY, JUNE 30, 2008
THE BANQUET WILL BE ON SUNDAY JUNE 29

Information and Registration Forms:
 formatted pdf forms simple Web Page format
Sheraton Westport Registration Form
Reunion schedule of Events
517th Reunion Registration Form
Sheraton Westport Registration Form
Reunion schedule of Events
517th Reunion Registration Form

Recent website additions:

Major John "Boom Boom" Alicki, Reg. HQ

Leo Dean's 109th jump at the Palm Springs Reunion

Blue Book Magazine articles - 1947-1948

Paras en Provence: Le 517th PRCT Dans Les Alpes Maritime
       from Armes Militaria Magazine (cover, article)


Darrell Egner

 

Hi Folks
 
Just received some alarmingly news from Donna Lee with the AFR.  As of May 12 only 49 rooms have been reserved and 65 people have registered.  Last year in Washington at this time 117 Rooms were booked.
 
It would be a tremendous help to all of the people involved to have the proper numbers so the plans can be finalized.  I know that you are all busy and plan to register later but we would really appreciate it if you would please send your registrations in ASAP.  If you have been reading Mail Calls Ben has been counting down the days until the reunion.  Last count was 45 days.  THE CUT OFF DATE FOR THE HOTEL AND REGISTRATION IS MAY 23, 2008.  Please help all the people that are working so hard to make this Reunion a big success by signing up today.
 
As most of you know this Reunion was located in Mid America to make travel easier and closer to many of you.  St. Louis is a great city and Chris Lindner and her sister Bev have really put together a  great plan.  If you read Ben Barrett's comments in the last Mail Call he eluded to the fact this may be our last National Reunion.  Needless to say Ben may be right if we don't generate the numbers in St. Louis.
 
This isn't the type of letter I like to write but as your President I would not be doing my job without sounding off.
 
Regards,
 
Darrell Egner

Tom McAvoy
 
Think or Thwim » How To Hide An Airplane Factory

Friend
 
YouTube - WHEN GOD DROPPED HIS PAINT BOX
517- 1944
 
Manhay Is a Town of Ruins,
Another Victim of the War
By Russ Jones
Stars and Stripes Staff Writer
WITH AMERICAN FORCES IN BELGIUM, Dec. 31—The little Belgian town of Manhay, vital junction on the Liege-Bastogne and Malmedy-Dinant roads, which fell to American troops Friday, is mute witness to the fierceness of the German attempts at breakthrough and the stubborn courage of the Americans in beating them off. No other town along this front shows more clearly the effects of the Gentian ail-out offensive. After TOT—time-on-target, Saturday.
—A fire mission by American artillery, a lank, light in the streets, two infantry battles and bornbing and strafing by P38s. Manhay is a heap of rubble inhabited by troops, cows with gaping wounds and swollen udders from lack of milking, sheep with the wool burned from their backs baahing mournfully, and a three-month-old puppy who frolics among the wreckage, pausing to whine at a crevice in the wall where he can smell rabbit being roasted by men in the basement. On the roads leading to the town, leaning against its buildings and littering its streets are the wrecks of jeeps. Shermans, six-by-sixes and Tigers, Panthers
and Volkswagons. Ammunition in one Sherman still explodes while smoke comes from the turret and the muzzle of its gun glows hot from the fire inside. Although there are scores
of German and American vehicles and many large guns in the town, not one tank, jeep or truck will run and no gun larger than a machine-gun can fire.
No part of Manhay has escaped. Trees are stripped of their branches and their trunks are shattered and even the twigs of the hedges, which murk off the lots, have been ripped and torn. Scattered throughout the town are the bodies of German, American and civilian dead,
lying as they fell.
H and I Companies of the battalion led by Lt. Col. Forest Paxton, of San Francisco, movea into the town after tanks and two battalions of i n f a n t r y had tried and failed. 1 Company, commanded by Capt. James Birder, of South Bend, Ind., led the attack without faltering, even alter a platoon leader and ten men had been killed and 33 wounded by their own artillery falling short. H " Company, under 1/Lt. Richard Jackson, of St. Paul, Minn., moved in alongside. Because the Germans had used American tanks and other U.S. equipment—they even brought in six-by-sixes loaded with American ammunition—Col. Paxton's men attacked and destroyed Shermans and Tigers alike. The Germans added to the destruction by sweeping the town with fjh-mm. fire. They gave the Yanks a helping hand by scoring  three direct hits on a Tiger which had resisted a bazooka.