Subj: MAIL CALL NO. 558 517TH PRCT---OCTOBER 2, 2003
Date: 10/02/2003 7:17:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Ben517
BCC:

Hello

Website---www.517prct. org

Mail Call---Ben517@aol.com

Newsday.com - Author Hopes Book Helps Relatives of WWII

Hi Ben,
After reading this article about her book, it reinforces the wonderful job you are doing in shedding light and bringing forth the activities and heroism of the 517th. It gives all of us a new and heartening perspective on our fathers, uncles, grandfathers, etc. who served our country during its most dangerous time in history. Keep up your great work.

God bless,
Tom Dorman
Son of James T. Dorman Co. "C" 517th

From Boyd Ellis

Hi Ben Just a comment on your statement  "shocking,  RE: the interpreters breaching security at Guantanamo"  I spent 2 years in Saudi, and I learned that a muslim's first and only duty is to his religion and its followers. That comes before all other aspects in life.  I'm only shocked that our own government has  any muslims, in any branch of our military or security services of any kind..  Boyd   Like ...Hey... somebody should shut the barn door.

Hello Ben
Rec'd mail call 557. I have never missed one yet .
Tom Stadler

Entry of Oct 01, 2003 at 23:58 [EST]
Name: tim kelly
Unit:
EMail: tim.c.kelly@or.ngb.army.mil
How I found the 517th page: From a search engine
Comments: My father was in the 517th. His name was Leroy C. Kelly. He was from Niles, Michigan.

Boom Boom sent us this.

Click here: Train Of Life  This is Very good.

Hi Ben,

My dad, Ben Combest, was in G Co, 517.  Since finding this website I have been sharing with him some of the information that I have learned and getting his feedback.  It is interesting to note the differences in perceptions from soldiers that served in different positions and at different levels of responsibility.    Somewhere in this site I read where one of the troopers wrote that some were only aware of what was happening in the ten feet around their position (paraphrase).  Well, that would apply to my dad.  After researching this site and reading "Battling Buzzards" I can relate some of his "funny" war stories to the bigger picture of what was happening. 

For example, he has told me a story about patrolling at night before going to sleep and waking up in the morning right next to a German unit (to everyone's surprise).  After "a little excitement" the Germans surrendered.  When he tells the story he says his whole platoon moved.  I wonder if this is the 3rd btn movement at night through enemy lines that I read about?

I am also confused about G Co during the bulge.  Dad was wounded during the bulge.  I was reading to him about the attack on Manhey and it stirred some memories that he wanted to avoid so we stopped.   According to what I have read since then, G Co. was not at Manhay but was guarding a general, (another story that he has told me about).  I have not been able to view G Co.'s casualty reports to find out the date he was wounded so I can match it to what the company was doing. 

Dad joined the 517 at Ft Benning right after he finished jump school.  He has always thought that he was with the 517 from its beginning.  He was surprised  when I told him how the first and second Btns were formed and about Camp Toccoa.

I read him some names of some of his buddies (Caylor, Johnson, Wangrzynowics)  from the roster on the website.  One was a corporal and one was a sergeant.  Dad laughed and said that it was common for them to move from private to sergeant and back.   He tells a story about making sergeant only to be busted back to PFC after taking some "time off".  The Captain decided that he wasn't sergeant material. 

If anyone from G company can add any information, I would be very interested and grateful.

Joe Combest.

Entry of Oct 01, 2003 at 23:58 [EST]
Name: tim kelly
Unit:
EMail: tim.c.kelly@or.ngb.army.mil
How I found the 517th page: From a search engine
Comments: My father was in the 517th. His name was Leroy C. Kelly. He was from Niles, Michigan.
                                                    **********
Leroy J. Kelly is listed on our 1944 Christmas roster with the 460th A Battery.

Ben: This is a note to Jerrie and Dallas Long. It may bring back memories of some of the other Buzzards. Jerrie, you mentioned that we came home from Tennessee Maneuvers with dirty faces blackened by burning pine cones to keep warm. We came home with dirty faces alright, but I think it was from that one week maneuver in January 1944. We got rained on so much in February in Tennessee that we should have come home soaked, but fairly clean. All such exercises began with a "poop sheet" from the S-3. This one was detailed. It told us exactly what to wear–Jump suits (nothing else) and what we could carry–100 sheets of toilet paper. We were to go light–except for the base plates and other loads of combat equipment we were to carry. The "poop sheet" was written on a sunny, warm winter day. We had a lot of them in North Carolina. The exercise started January 3, a warn sunny day. We took off from that small Air Corps field in nearby S. Carolina and flew 300 miles to the maneuver drop zone. I had two gliders being pulled along by our C-47. We had the door off. I stuck my head out to see how the glider riders were faring somewhere over the Pee Dee River. What I saw was two long nylon tow cables flapping in the prop blast, but no gliders. I feared for the worst, but learned after the exercise that all of a sudden they found themselves being released from the plane, but were able to land safely. We hit the right drop zone and assembled the 3rd platoon of G Company without incident. Then the weather hit. It snowed, rained, sleeted and was bitter cold. I had been taught as an infantrymen that every doughboy should take measures in the field to protect his health as well as his life. In violation of the "poop sheet" I rolled up my alligator rain coat and stuffed it into one of the pockets of my jump suit. I couldn’t wear it in the day time, but I snuck it on through the night. SOP (Standing Operating Procedure) forbad any fires during an exercise. It would attract enemy artillery. The umpires would say and write nasty things about any unit who tried it. The weather was so bad that fires broke out all over the place. The umpires appreciated them too and tried to warm themselves by standing close as we all did. The troops not only burned pine cones, they burned everything they could get their hands on. Most of the stuff available contained pine tar. That’s where the dirty, black faces came from. We all survived the weather and, Jerrie, you did find Dallas, but there was a sad footnote to that exercise. I am sure Dallas will remember Reinhardt who delivered the mail to the troops at our WWII Mail Call. He was killed by a train on the railroad tracks while on patrol one of those nights. We also lost another on this exercise. Sgt. Brownlow "fainted" two minutes before the green light came on. I had to drag him to the back of the plane re-hookup and toss out the equipment bundles on my own. I think I was able to yell, "Let’s go" and went out with the stick right behind me. There were days ahead, some better some worse. Howard Hensleigh Hi Ben

I can help you with one of the hotmail address failures.  I am on AOL and have almost always had trouble accessing hotmail accounts.  My son has a new address as he is in Afghanistan.  He is the maintenance officer in Dragonhawk and lives in a box in their hanger.  I received pictures via the Internet and it really is a box.

Anyhow his new address is frank.m.black@us.army.mil  He will probably be there another six months.

Keep up the good work,

Darrell Egner
Hi Ben; As you are aware, for many months, off and on I have been trying to contact John Lissner, my old company commander and a man for whom I have a great deal of affection. I mentioned this to Brian Behrens when he interviewed me for his project about the 517th. Some weeks later he sent me information as to John's rehabing at his daughters home in Virginia, and how to contact him. ..Yesterday I reached him and we had a very good visit. I pray he will be fully recovered soon. During our talk we recalled various situations and incidents from1943-1945. I will speak of one of them here, and if I don't have an MP at my door following the orders of General  Seitz, or Tom Cross to have me thrown in the brig, I will discuss some others in subsequent mail..... You will recall we were pulled out of the lines after an eternity and a visit to Sospel. During our R&R just outside Nice, we camped prior to our departurre for Rheims.  One evening John Lissner, Company Commander of F Co, Murray Jones , our Exec. Officer, and I went to Nice for an evening out.  Our destination was the Officer's Club which I believe was in the Negresco Hotel. The only strange thing about this was we weren't all qualified to go to an Officers Club. I did not have to advise Lissner of this, he had already thought of it. He solved the issue by pinning on my collar, Lt's bars. What a quick promotion (and well deserved,  I might add). Upon arriving at the club, we went into a very dark, and crowded room. We were seated at a table with someone else. When our eyes got accustomed to the dark, we noticed we knew our table partner. It was John McKinley, our former Co. Commander, now with I believe, Regimental HQ. I knew I was to be court-martialed, but he merely congratulated me on my promotion, and ordered us a round of drinks. NOW, unless I get a knock on my door by someone asking me to return my Good Conduct Medal, I'm a winner. Next time I may report on my motor poll of three jeeps and a motorcycle, and describe what a dungeon, (Roman, that is) looks like from the inside as a result of aforementioned motor pool. Nuff for now..Randolph Coleman  F.Co