Good Evening Gentlemen:

I thought it might be time for another update. It is attached. The mailing tab is not fully updated, but the main roster and the sort by company/unit is.

I hope you are all well. I am enjoying Mail Call and all of the recent website updates.

Regards,

Tom Reber

Hal Beddow

Marissa Comintti

The Savannah, GA 517th Reunion dates are, 15 August - 19 August, 2005. Hope to see you and all here.

As time marches on, we will be putting out information to keep everyone up to date.

Airborne - All The Way

Hal Beddow

Morris McDowell

This is for Howard Hensleigh,
Mr Hensleigh, I am the Cousin of Pvt Layton Pippin of 'H' Company, & he was in Fred Harmons platoon. I talk to Fred regularly, & I down loaded the last Mail call that you spoke of Fred in. I will send the copy to him. Respectfully Morris McDowell. garandaddy@cs.com

Denny Compton

----- Original Message -----

From: LTCCompton@aol.com

To: hhensleigh@earthlink.net

Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 10:33 AM

Subject: (no subject)

Dear Howard: I can't believe that a year has passed by since i received your message concerning the death of my boyhood friend Willis Woodcock. I thought you might like to know that I visited his grave this past Memorial Day and made sure there was a flag on it. I also cleaned off the marker has the grass had started to overgow it.

Willis and I grew up in a low income area on Niagara Ave., Niagara Falls, NY. His father worked at the Niagara Mohawk Power Company and mine at Carborundum. They made about $30.00 a week, which was good in those days. Willis lived across the street from the Firehall and we frequently played catch with the fireman, in the middle of the street. No great playgrounds in those days. Willis and I frequently sneaked off to swim beneath the Whirlpool Bridge, in the Niagara River. It was dangerous and forbidden, but we really had no concept of danger, although at least one kid drowned every year, being swept away by the currents and into the rapids.

Willis was a little over a year older than me and I believe he enlisted in 1942. A year later, as soon as I turned 17 I enlisted in the U. S. Navy and after putting a submarine in commission at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard left for the SW Pacific. I switched from the Navy to the Army in 1951 and served until my retirement, after service in Vietnam. I often think of Willis and what might have been.... I just re-read your message and was overcome by nostalgia and had to write you. I hope this finds you in good health.

Sincerely,

Denny Compton

LTC, USA (Ret.)

Judith Eugene

Hi Ben

Are there any planned reunions of the 517th PRCT coming up? I have enjoyed seeing the photos from past ones.

Thanks,

Judith Eugene

Daughter of Don Eugene

S-2 Section

Howard Hensleigh

Ben:

With gratitude we acknowledge the honor shown one of our I Company troopers, Willis Woodcook. Willis fell with Capt. Joe McGeever in an attack near Col de Braus in the fall of 1944. Ellis’s platoon leader, Reed "Stinky" Terrell was critically wounded in that burst of fire.

The name of Willis Woodcook again is clearly visible in that upstate New York cemetery. His boyhood friend, Denny Compton, LTC, USA (Ret) made sure again this year that his grave marker was respected with a grass trim and flag for Memorial Day. Our thanks to you LTC Compton for your respect for your friend and for giving us some of the details of your boyhood with Willis in and around Niagara Falls. We all grew up in the depression with hard working parents who "put the beans on the table". That might have made us better soldiers. . HH

Claire Giblin

Hello Ben -

I wanted to report on our plans for the south of France in August. My dad (Allan Johnson 596), Leo Dean Reg. HQ, and myself and husband and my two teenagers are all going to the south of France for the 60th anniversary of your jump. We depart Newark, NJ on August 12 and arrive August 13 in Nice. We will spend time down in the south, then head up to the Burgundy region where you all were stationed (most of you in Auxerre, Dad tells me, but the engineers were in Chablis, which no one can find. The small village they knew as Chablis turned out not to be Chablis....we'll keep looking this year). We then will head over to the Normandy area, and finish up in Paris, where we'll fly out on August 26.

Leo has told me he won't pack his parachute. I am figuring that means he'll rent one.

Anyone else going to come and play with us?

Our best to all -

Claire Johnson Giblin

daughter of Allan Johnson, 596

Gene Brissey

I have written two items about best friends and best buddies, C. B. Jones and Roger Bender. I had intended to write about my very best buddy but my energy level has been low. Howard's writing in Mail Call 712 about the season to be jolly and Fred Harmon's Christmas cards energized me a bit so I would like to go back to Mackall and Christmas 1943. The 517th was informed that those who could make a "turnaround" trip home for Christmas, could do so. There was no way that I could so I was sitting on my bunk thinking about my first Christmas away from home when Ray Helms came to me and invited me to come home with him for Christmas. I gladly accepted and was nearly adopted by his family. They were great. Ray and I made many other week end trips to his home in Landis, North Carolina. Ray became my best buddy. He was my squad leader and I was his assistant. We were together until the battle of La Roquette. Company E was sent across the Var River, in total darkness, and attacked the quaint little village, overlooking the Var, which was loaded with Germans. To make a long story short, we liberated La Roquette and captured approximately 80 Germans and killed about 17. We had only two casualties when a mortar shell landed among my squad wounding the two. The most seriously wounded was Ray Helms. We were reunited several weeks later and remain close buddies, with an occasional visit and cards at Christmas.

Gene Brissey