Hello,
Many of you know that Ed Flannery was not able to attend the Kissimmee reunion due to Illness. He would like to hear from his friends in the 517.His address is O.P. Box 780284, Sebastian, Fl. 32978. Email-edflannery@earthlink.net
Ben
Website----prct517.home.attbi.com
Mail Call--Ben517@aol.com
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Subj: Re: MAIL CALL NO. 421 517TH PRCT
Date: 2/11/2003 4:37:36 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: edflannery@earthlink.net
To: Ben517@aol.com
Dear Bob,
I just finished reading the mail call to Ed. He was very moved by it. It touched him deeply to hear that Bill Maudlin passed. I print each mail call and read it to him and it brings him alot of comfort. Col. Piper came to see him this AM and they shared a good visit. The concern and comfort from all of you, keep him going. Thank-you. Sincerely, Ilka ____________________________________________________--_
Subj: Re: MAIL CALL NO. 420 517TH PRCT
Date: 2/9/2003 5:43:19 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: hhensleigh@earthlink.net
Dear Ben: I got carried away reflecting on Mauldin and Gene's contribution. Note to Gene Frice re Bill Mauldin–Mauldin’s cartoons were the first thing everyone looked for when picking up Stars and Stripes. They lightened the load of the day. Our humor in those days was hard to understand by those out of ground combat. Combat engineers, medics and artillery were included with the infantry and many times received special attention from bill Mauldin. Mauldin reached beyond that understanding group and helped some of the rear echelon and civilians to get a handle on how we lived and felt. He had one after the war that I still remember. It showed a vet on a park bench wrapped in a cloth hero banner. Another vet looked on and said that the guy on the park bench was lucky, that his hero banner was paper and disintegrated in the rain. (Not Mauldin’s words, but he got the point across) The vet’s homecoming was not always great and we all faced problems fitting into the civilian world that thought it knew what we had gone through, but didn’t. It is my understanding that Bill had his own special homecoming problems. Although Mauldin had the GI’s disdain for the rankles imposed by officers and expressed that in his cartoons, I believe the top level officers including Ike were behind his efforts and knew that his cartoons were morale builders, not a step towards mutiny. Mauldin took pot shots at officers and even generals such as Patton. We all did. We called him old blood and guts–his guts and our blood. I don’t know what Mauldin really thought of Patton, but most of us loved the guy. He broke through at times when Brits like Montgomery and Dempsey allowed the airborne to get chewed up while they took their good sweet time (as on the Holland jump as opposed to Bastogne). Had we followed his recommended tactics in responding to the bulge, it and the war both would have been over much sooner. I never took umbrage at any of Bill"s swipes at officers. For months on end, we lived with the men 24 hours a day and had a good idea of how they felt about most topics. They respected good officers and we had plenty of them. Some didn’t fare so well and most deserved their reputations. There were a lot of orders that came down form the top that no one cared for. Many, we knew had to be carried out despite the cost. Others, like the one Winters got from Col. Sink on that last patrol, deserved to be carried out as Winters carried it out–the members of the patrol were to get a good night’s sleep and report to him in the morning that they were unable to get another (feather in Sink’s cap) prisoner. The night before they crossed the river and got Sink's prisioner, but lost a beloved, underage Tacoa comrad. Sink was a good officer, but sometimes even good officer’s orders needed to be carried out with a bit of wisdom in implementation at the lower level by an officer who had the wisdom and the guts to use it.
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Subj: Pictures from Russ Brami
Date: 2/9/2003 2:42:09 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: brussel@rcn.com
To: PRCT517@aol.com
Hello,
My name is Russ Brami (Jr). I am shortly about to have a large number of pictures of the 517th from my father, Russ Brami (Sr). I can scan them and send them to you in whatever format is best for you. My father was in E Company, 2nd Bn, 517th and is still alive-and parachuting! He has a very extensive collection of photos, not only of his company but of the entire regiment that he acquired at the end of the war from the 517th public affairs photographer. He entered the 517th at Toccoa and left it at Fort Bragg. He was later sergeant major of the 82nd, then of the 187th in Korea, then got a battlefield commission and retired from the Army in 1962 as a major after losing his right hand in a grenade malfunction. He is currently active in the Florida chapter of the 517th association and belongs to a parachute club called "The Phantom Airborne Brigade" made up of retired former airborne men. They parachute at air shows from a restored C-47, wearing WWll jump suits, using current miltary parachutes and standard Army jump procedures.
Please let me know what your file requirements are for photos. I am a software user interface designer consultant to Scansoft, a company that makes scanning software and am familiar with digital imagery issues.
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Subj: Your link has been approved!
Date: 2/10/2003 12:12:36 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: admin@sfalx.com
To: Ben517@aol.com
Congratulations
Your Web Site has been added to The Special Forces Search Engine, The Best Military Search Engine with Open Directory, Allowing you to ad your on sites, yet having experienced Military and Search Engine Editors on call to validate each new Resource submission.
Title : 517th Parachute Combat Team (WWII) memorial site
URL : http://prct517.home.attbi.com/table_of_contents.htm
Category : Airborne
Description : Memorial site maintained by a member of the "Battling Buzzards" and his son. Many photos provided by members and family.
Contact Name :
Contact Email:
You can see your new resource at: http://www.sfahq.com/
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Dad,
It looks like a nice site, if anyone is doing any research on various military sites. It has a very full list of sites, and now includes us. I don't know how they found us. I will add a cross link to their site from ours.
As it includes such a large list of military sites, I don't know if it will really direct many people to us. Most people can already find us through normal search engines, if they're really looking for us. But maybe there are people doing general history searches that could find this useful.
Bob
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Subj: 517th Paperwork
Date: 2/10/2003 6:18:35 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: frontsoldaten@chartermi.net
To: PRCT517@aol.com
Dear Sir(s),
I have recently picked up a small lot of paper items from the 517th RCT in my collection. I have 2 copies of the 1945 517th RCT Book, or "Blue bok" as your site mentions. Both copies are FULL of autographs on both inside covers. I have counted at least 80 different names, some of which I recognize from your website. I also obtained a large (24 1/2 x 33) large fold out poster of the "cartoon" map of europe/med. showing the path taken by the 517th. All are in very good + condition and I am happy to have them in my collection!
My question is, I need a source for the complete roster or at least some help deciphering some of the names as some of the hand writing is quite hard to read. Many of the names include addresses and home town names. I was wondering if these all belonged to one company or just all of this individuals friends, etc. Sorry to say that I have not been able to find anything on this memorabilia that would point to an original owner.
I would be glad to scan/photograph any of this that I have if you would like it for your site.
Your help in this matter would be greatly appreciated!
Thank You.
Best Regards,
Travis Lowrie
Holland, Michigan
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Subj: Re: 517th Paperwork
Date: 2/11/2003 12:29:07 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: PRCT517
To: frontsoldaten@chartermi.net
Travis,
I have forwarded your email on to my Dad, who runs an email list to current 517th members.
I would expect that most of the autographs would be from close company members of the owner. So if you recognize some of the names, that should tell you what company. With that information, we could let people know. That still might not ever be able to identify the original owner, but it might give some clues.
As you may already know, one of the best sources for the roster is the Christmas 1944 book which is on our web site. Unfortunately, that only lists members at that time, and not those who left or joined the units at other times.
Are you looking to resell the materials, or just to document their history?
We have a couple of photos of the PRCT book on the web site already. However, I would be greatly interested in getting a good scan of that large map for the web site. (I can reference you as the source, of course.) If it is large, I can piece partial scans back together, as long as the scanning is relatively clean.
Thanks,
Bob Barrett
prct517@aol.com