OCTOBER 2010 REUNION UPDATE – By the
time that you read this the reunion will have come and gone. If you
missed it, you were missed while we had a great time in Oklahoma City.
See you next year!
BARGER SCORES AGAIN – Service Company had a
Warrant Officer by the name of ROY BARGER who was something of a camera
buff. He made his Final Jump in 2004 and having no descendants, his
extensive photo album somehow found its way into a Flea Market.
To our good fortune, a military collector in Ohio
purchased the album, sought us out on the Internet, and loaned the album
to us for scanning. BARGER’S album now occupies a number of pages on our
web site – www.508pir.org – and can be found via the search engine, just
type in “BARGER ALBUM”
BARGER’S photos have elicited comment on a number of
occasions as he, perhaps unwittingly, managed to capture images of some
rare German equipment. One example was a tank turret, including the
cannon, mounted on a rail car. There may have been but four such
railcars ever produced. Where and why ROY photographed it is unknown.
Recently his album has evoked more interest.
Included amongst his many shots are three taken at Brunnthal airfield
beside the Munich-Salzburg motorway in Bavaria. The field served as a
holding area for German aircraft following the war. Some were derelict,
others not. A German author, MATHIAS HUNDT, recently requested
permission to use the shots in a book he is co-producing along with
NORBERT LOY, who lives near the old airfield. We put MATHIAS in contact
with KIM FIELDS, current owner of the BARGER album, and permission has
been granted.
HUNDT indicates that photos taken at Brunnthal airfield
are rare and thus far he has located only 80. Most were taken by
American soldiers.
The book is due to be out in Summer-Autumn 2011. The title is yet to be
determined but when we get our copy it will be announced here.
TAPS – The following
casualties in Afghanistan were recently announced:
1st Lt CHRISTOPHER S. GOEKE [C Co, 1/508], of
Apple Valley, MN. KIA, July 13, 2010.
SPC BRENDAN P. NEENAN [4th BCT], of Enterprise, AL. KIA, June 7,
2010.
SGT JESSE TILTON [Hq Hq, 1st BCT], of Decatur, IL. Died of wounds at
Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, July 16, 2010.
FINAL JUMPS - JAMES E. SWINDLER
[508 ARCT, 1955-56], June 29, 2010, Sperryville, VA,
JOHN T. WILLIAMS [G Co, 508 ARCT, 1955-56], July
26, 2010, Buffalo, NY
Late notices were also received for a few men, including:
JOHN E. AUSTIN [Svc Co], February 1982, Salisbury, MD
CARL G. GULIKSON [Co A], November 1993, Eau Claire, WI
ROBERT D. SLAWSON [Co H], November 2009, Bristow, OK
THOMAS M. SURRENCY [Co Unknown], May 1981, Jacksonville, FL
GRAVES REGISTRATION MAP LOCATED – PFC GEORGE M.
LOVELADY [Co G] was listed MIA in Holland during the early days of
Operation Market-Garden.
LOVELADY was later
determined to have been KIA on 20 September 1944. He had been buried in
an isolated field grave with a crude wooden cross that was simply marked
"U.S.A.". It went undiscovered for quite some time until it was found by
a local farmer, Wyers Jonssen, who reported it.
Graves Registration
created a hand drawn map to facilitate the collection of LOVELADY’S
remains along with those of two other casualties in the vicinity. They
were not men of the 508th. LOVELADY was marked as site number 2 on the
map which can be viewed on the web site, click on TAPS, ROLL OF HONOR,
L, LOVELADY.
The three bodies were
apparently collected on the same day as they were interred side-by-side
in the temporary U.S. Military Cemetery, Margraten. LOVELADY’S remains
were reinterred in the permanent Margraten cemetery following the war.
DIDJA KNOW – that the
SEARCH ENGINE on our web site is used extensively? Typical activity
ranges from 20 to 50 searches every day as researchers take advantage of
the information we present memorializing the 508th.
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