October 2009

	News From The 508 OCTOBER 2009
ROLL OF HONOR ADDITIONS – Thanks to data supported by Morning Reports, two men of the 508th have been added to our most revered list. PVT FRANK N. HOHLER was long suspected to have been a member of the 508th when he was killed in action on D-Day. While his family possessed an official document stating that he had been killed on that date, it did not record his unit. The family contacted us as Frank’s name appeared on our website as the recipient of the Good Conduct Medal while in Service Company at Camp Mackall. A search of Morning Reports proved that he had been transferred to Company “I” in late May 1944 and was initially recorded as being MIA as of June 6, 1944. It was recently learned that JAMES T. MILAM was killed in action in Korea. The fact first surfaced when JEFF COMBS, son of REX COMBS (Co A) wrote to say that he had found a photo of a Lt MILAM and a small notation in his dad’s “officer’s book” that read: “Capt. J. T. MILAM KIA Korea.” While Capt ROBERT L. MILAM was well known to us, J. T. MILAM was not. Apparently Lt. MILAM was an Assistant Platoon Leader in REX COMBS’ HQ 3rd Platoon and another notation read: “The Bulge 11-44” which seemed to document some aspect of MILAM’S duty with the 508th. Sure enough, a search of the Co A Morning Reports revealed an entry that a 2nd Lt JAMES T. MILAM was “assigned to and joined Co A in Staevlot, Belgium on Feb 2, 1945 from the XVIII Corps (Abn)”. Additional Internet research determined that a Capt JAMES T. MILAM, with the same ASN, had been killed in action in South Korea on 5 September 1950. Rock Merritt recalled that Lt. MILAM was a close friend of then Lt. BARRY ALBRIGHT (Co E) and that they were both members of West Point, Class of 1944. Tragically, ALBRIGHT, then a Major, was killed in action on November 5, 1950 - two months after Capt MILAM. SPECIAL SEARCH STORY – A recent e-mail tells a poignant story: “My mother was an 11 year old girl in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in 1944. The 82nd Airborne Division was of course instrumental in liberating the city. One of the stories she just the other day told me again is of how she, her Dad and Mom, and some other people, were hiding in the basement of a house that was burning (I’m not sure if they were aware it was on fire). Suddenly the basement window opened and an American soldier stuck his head in and said, ‘we thought there might be some people in here, let’s get you out.’ My grandfather and my mother both had leg injuries because of a previous grenade explosion and my grandfather received some of the first penicillin available, also from the 82nd Airborne Division, thereby saving his leg. There were about three or four soldiers and they carried my grandfather and my mother on their backs, while my grandmother walked along. They asked where they wanted to go and took them to a friend’s house somewhere. My mother and her family’s lives (and a few other people that were hiding with them) were saved that day by these selfless American soldiers, and she was hoping to somehow connect with any of them. I know this is probably like trying to find a needle in a haystack, but I would be ever so grateful if you had any thoughts that would assist me in trying to find any of these men. Yours sincerely, RENATE SCHOEP, Victoria, BC Canada” SOUND FAMILIAR? - RENATE and her family are unsure whether the 82nd men that helped them that day were from the 508th but there is a good chance that they were. If you were one of them, or know someone who was, please contact RENATE at rschoep@shaw.ca as the family would be extremely grateful GET WELL WISHES– We mentioned last month that SYLVIA HAMBLIN had fallen and broken her hip. At the time we did not have any contact information but can now report that Get Well wishes can be sent to SYLVIA at 756 Gherty Lane, Hudson, WI 54016. GROWTH CONTINUES – The 508th web site continues to grow on a near daily basis with almost 3600 individual pages now being in place. The site also contains thousands of photos. Visitations to the home page at www.508pir.org now exceed 125,000.
SEND NEWS FOR THE COLUMN TO: Dick O’Donnell 760 Conestee Drive Melbourne, FL 32904 PH: (321) 759-6174 e-mail: Jumpmaster@508PIR.org
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