My name is Wim Hendriks, nationality Dutch, age 84 years. I am a member of BOBA, and live in the township Simpelveld (Netherlands, South Limburg), close to the point where the borders of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands come together.
As a boy of 10 years old, I can still remember December 16, 1944, the day that “The Battle of Bulge” (Ardennes offensive) started. Day and night the cannon roar could be heard, and the lightening of the night sky above the Ardennes was intense. My place of residence, Simpelveld, was later (January, February 1945) a recovery and resting place for the GIs.
My question now is: Are there any veterans or relatives who remember or known the name “ Simpelveld”? Or the places Vaals, Heerlen, Kerkrade (and Aachen in Germany)? Perhaps, they may still have information about that time, such as pictures or documents.
If you have any information, please contact me by email: ahwhendriks@yahoo.de;
or mailing address below:
Wim Hendriks
Diddenstraat 23
6369 CR Simpelveld
Nederland
Thank you in advance. With kind regards, Wim Hendriks, Member
Battle of Bulge Veteran Hap Baldwin (left) with Jim Mockford portraying his grandfather, Rev. AJ Mockford.
On March 9, 2019 I stepped on to the stage of The Ralph Radio Theatre’s presentation of “Variety for Victory” a vintage radio experience of “1944 Mirth, Music and Memories” created by Producer Kimberly Poe for the charity benefit dinner program of Al Kader Shriner’s in Portland, Oregon. Ralph Radio Theatre presents an annual “Christmas from Home” holiday musical with talented actors, singers and the Dreamfire Express Band. I am not a member of the theatre troupe, but I was invited to join as a special guest, to read selected excerpts from my father Private Roger Mockford WWII letters home in 1944. I also prepared an exhibit of some of the letters and V-Mail that Dad sent to his parents, Rev. A.J. Mockford, Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Oregon City and his mother, Frances, and family. My appearance on stage was in the role of my grandfather, and I wore a clerical collar to portray him. He would have been about my age at the time he received those letters from his son from ASTP at the University of Oregon and Camp Cooke in 1944, before shipping out to England, France and finally to the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944.
After Dad passed away in 2015, I found a collection of about 200 letters and V-Mail that he had written home during WWII. I began an inventory in preparation to sent them to the Veterans History Project, but as I read them, I decided to delay the submission until I could draft a manuscript about his experience in the Battle of the Bulge. In 2016, we toured Bastogne and the Ardennes battlefields, thanks to the wonderful Belgian historian and guide Roger Marquet and his wife Monique, who drove us along the trail of the 11th Armored Division’s 55th Armored Infantry Battalion C Company that my father had traveled in 1944-45. He was on foot and in combat from Margarotte to Acul, and in the snow covered-fields and forests. We traveled on country roads to many of these sites, towards Bois Jacques and back to Bastogne. I knew of some of these places from Dad’s stories told at home and at the reunions of the 11th Armored Division and Battle of the Bulge Association meetings, but after finding the treasure trove of his written letters, I had a chronology with details that corresponded to the stories he had told, and some new stories to share.
When I talked about this opportunity to travel through the letters, back into the time before Dad and his generation turned 20 years old, with Kimberly Poe, she was not only interested in the content to include in Ralph Radio Theatre, but surprised me with an invitation to play a role in the “Variety for Victory” program. It was a meaningful way for me to share a short part of Dad’s story with an audience who loved the vintage radio format with its period advertisements, radio host jokes and banter, and comedy sketches, as well as the classic songs and tunes from the 1940s. “Variety for Victory” traveled back in time for ninety-minutes, but it is too much to try to describe the entire show here. Visit Ralph Radio Theatre online to get an idea of the annual Christmas From Home musical at: ralphradiotheatre.com.
In one of the letters was a poem that Dad liked, and it captured the spirit of families at home, with loved ones afar, so I read it as part of my script in the program: We’ll keep thumbs up with pride in you Though there’s tough time to weather So on to Victory, Old Pal! We’re in this fight together
Among the Shriners in the audience enjoying the program and dinner was 93-year-old Hap Baldwin, whom I was surprised and most delighted to find out was a Battle of the Bulge Veteran in the 76th Infantry Division, and we talked about the war years that my Dad and Hap had experienced 75 years ago. I am still working on the manuscript about the letters, but I am so happy to have had the chance to share a small part of that story with Ralph Radio Theater to a local audience, and find in that audience someone who knew was it was really like to be in the Battle of the Bulge!
Jim Mockford’s father Roger J. Mockford (born December 7, 1924) was a member of Patton’s 3rd Army 11th Armored Division 55th Armored Infantry Battalion C Company 2nd Platoon 2nd Squad in the Battle of the Bulge. He was the last President of the Northwest Chapter of the 11th Armored Division Association and attended the last national convention of the 11th Armored Division at Louisville in 2010. Roger and Jim travelled on the Honor Flight to Washington D.C. in May 2015, just six months before Roger passed away, a few days before his 91st birthday in December 2015.
The U.S. Memorial Wereth Association takes care of the monument erected by Hermann Langer in 1994 to immortalize the destiny of eleven African-American soldiers killed in WWII in Wereth/Amel. Our goal is to honor them and increase awareness of their story.
We are trying to get in contact with some family members to research more information, especially on their lives before they entered the Army. (We are already in contact with the families of Robert Green and James Aubrey Stewart.) We are also looking for someone who can help us locate photos of the other soldiers, as we only have 5 to date.
The soldiers pictured are:
PVT Curtis Adams, South Carolina, buried in Henri-Chapelle
PFC George Davis, Alabama, buried in Henri-Chapelle
TCPL Robert Green, Mississippi, buried in Highland Park, Cleveland
TSGT William Edward Pritchett, Alabama, buried in McCastar Cemetery, Wilcox
TSGT James Aubrey Stewart, Piedmont, buried in Henri-Chapelle
The soldiers of whom we need photos are:
CPL Mager Bradley, Mississippi, buried in Fort Gibson
SSGT Thomas J Forte, Mississippi, buried in Henri-Chapelle
PFC Jimmie Lee Leatherwood, Mississippi, buried in College Hill Pontotoc
PVT Nathaniel Moss, Texas, buried in Henri-Chapelle
PFC George W Moten, Texas, buried in Henri-Chapelle
PFC Due W Turner, Arkansas, buried in Henri-Chapelle
On this 75th Anniversary, our vigil of remembrance will focus on the personal stories of our eleven heroes who died for our freedom. Our idea is to have eleven students taking their identities and relating the stories of their lives until the fateful day of December 17th, 1944. We want to give a special honor to these soldiers, thank all the guests for their loyalty, and maybe have coins made—in short: to make it special! We will have the ceremony on Saturday, May 18th, 2019 at 11AM.
If you can be of any assistance in locating the families or additional photos of the Wereth Eleven, please contact Solange DeKeyser at: dekeyser.solange@gmail.com,
0032 498/427959.
To learn more about the Wereth Memorial, go to: www.wereth.org
Next year is the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Here in Belgium, we are preparing for this event in different ways to celebrate those who liberated our country from the Nazis 75 years ago.
In my association [Belgian Aviation Preservation Association], we are restoring a North American B-25 Bomber that we hope to exhibit in the Bastogne War Museum. But the reason why I’m contacting you concerns 3 liaison airplanes that we keep airworthy. Those are Piper L-4 serial 44-80464, 44-80653 and 44-80758. All of them were operated in the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) during WWII. We want to put them back in their 1944-45 colors and fly them over the Ardennes to commemorates the 75th anniversary.
We have excellent contacts with the USAAF archives and the Washington Smithsonian Air Museum, who provided us with the Individual Aircraft Record Card (IARC), and we know that end of 1944, those planes were assigned to the 8th and 9th Air Forces, who were in charge of delivering them to Army Ground Force (AGF), but the IARCs don’t specify which ground units.
We know, thanks to extended historical research done by Capt. K. Wakefields, that they were 3 units of the 9th AF (50th, 43rd and 23rd MR&R) in charge of 3rd and 4th echelons of maintenance of those planes. Today, only archives of the 50th MR&R, in charge of the liaison airplanes of the 9th US Army, are still available. Unfortunately, our planes are not in those archives.
Those planes were organic to ground force units, mainly used for field artillery support. So, we think that to obtain more information, we should contact Army Ground Forces associations (not Air Force.)
Could you help us in finding more info on those real “warbirds”?
It would be so great to have those planes flying over the Bastogne Memorial, on next year Christmas Day, in the colors they had in 24 Dec. 1944, to commemorates those who lost their lives 75 years ago for our liberty today!
We are looking for any information, documents, and photos, about pilots, technicians and liaison airplanes, mainly Piper L-4, that were organic to the First, Third and Fifteenth US Armies. Please contact me at: yves@cartilier.eu if you have any information. —Yves Cartilier, Belgian Aviation Preservation Association
Joe C. Watson, SC Chapter, BOBA 291st Reg., 75th Inf. Division was recognized at the Clemson-Carolina game in November 2018.
Joe Watson was surprised when he received a call from his alma mater that he was going to be the veteran recognized during half time at the Clemson-Carolina game on November 24, 2018. (He had been nominated by his brother’s great niece, who is a freshman this year, to receive this honor.)
Joe was in the class of 1944 but at the end of his Sophomore year, Uncle Sam had other plans for him. He went to advanced ROTC training and during the remainder of his junior year, there was an opening in the tank destroyers. He and his friends heard that in North Africa the casualty rate in tank destroyers was very high, so they saw this as an opportunity to quick advancement! The Army needed infantry soldiers, so they sent him to Ft. McLellan in Alabama where he took his training, and then on to Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning, where he graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was assigned to the 75th Infantry Division at Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky and then went on to ASTP for a year of schooling for leaders. Joe said they received the nickname “Diaper Division” because they were all so young! There he was assigned to Company D, 291st Regiment of the 75th Infantry as a platoon leader for an 81mm Mortar Platoon.
Early in the fall of 1944, he went to Pembroke, Wales and crossed the Channel to head to Belgium in 40 X 8 boxcars. On his first night in the cold, he was told to change his socks every night. He put them outside of his flimsy sleeping bag, and as you might expect, the socks froze solid. Because he was fortunate enough to have a jeep, he thawed them out on the jeep manifold and did not make that mistake again! Just as a side note, Joe said his jeep driver had been a student at Princeton.
Then the Battle of the Bulge began. Joe said his company commander called him to a high hill. He could see a house below where the commander had sent some men, and the Germans inside the house shot the men, as well as the medics sent to provide aid. Joe was to reestablish firepower from the forward observers and the mortar units as the Germans had cut the communications wiring. Joe said his company commander was “spitting mad,” but his platoon was able to string more wire and reconnect communications. Of course, the mortar fire caused the Germans to retaliate with artillery fire, so all of Joe’s men dove into pre-existing foxholes (it had previously been occupied by the Germans). Joe looked out and saw his runner did not have a foxhole to dive into, so he got out of his to give it to the runner.
As the war progressed, Joe’s platoon’s job during advancing was to leapfrog the mortar positions to be sure one was able to fire at all times. He saw men come out of the woods with their overcoats draped around them completely frozen.
It was in January 1945 when Joe was hit with artillery fire in his thigh. He was taken to an aid station where they cut out the bullet and he was given the new drug of penicillin as he was transported to Paris to the hospital. In Paris, they sewed up his thigh and sent him to another hospital in France to recover. At that hospital, he was moved around on a stretcher carried by German prisoners in German uniforms. Upon recovery, he returned to his unit in Holland. When the war ended, he went to Camp New York in France and then processed out at Camp Phillip Morris in Le Havre, France.
Joe went home to the States in June 1945, returned to his beloved Clemson College in September 1945, and graduated in February 1947. When asked about the recognition bestowed on him at the largest football rivalry game in South Carolina each year, he said, “I felt a little guilty really. There had been other people that had done more than me, but I gratefully appreciated it.” As a person who held season tickets for a long, long time, he was “flabbergasted” that he was recognized at such an important game.
Joe went on to say that he was very fortunate—as a platoon commander, he had a jeep and was not always in a foxhole as so many men were. He appreciated the privilege of doing his job for liberty, and the loyalty and efficiency of the men in his platoon. He wants to be remembered as a Lieutenant who got out of his foxhole to give it to one of his men during enemy fire.
The South Carolina Chapter is very proud of Joe and thankful that he received this recognition in such a prestigious way.
—Submitted by Barbara Mooneyhan, Executive VP of BOBA
The Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.
The United States Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000. The authorizing legislation (Public Law 106-380), sponsored by Representatives Ron Kind, Amo Houghton, and Steny Hoyer in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senators Max Cleland and Chuck Hagel in the U.S. Senate, received unanimous support and was signed into law by President William Jefferson Clinton on October 27, 2000.
A participant may be a veteran, an inter- viewer, or person donating a veteran’s collection. The Project collects first-hand accounts of U.S. Veterans from World War I through the Iraq War. There are special resources available for educators and students.
Stories can be told through:
Personal Narratives: audio and video-taped interviews, written memoirs.
Correspondence: letters, postcards, v-mail, personal diaries
Visual Materials: photographs, drawings, scrapbooks.
To learn more about the Veterans History Project and donating a collection, go to their website: www.loc.gov/vets/vets-home
The Battle of the Bulge Association, Inc. is co-sponsoring the Battle of the Bulge exhibit at the National Army Museum, along with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Luxembourg has already pledged $125,000 for half of the cost of the exhibit. BOBA is raising the other half, so that our name will be on the exhibit and will create more awareness about BOBA.
The Campaign for the National Museum of the U.S. Army is being run by the Army Historical Foundation. For those who are not aware, the museum is under construction at Fort Belvoir, Virginia near Washington, DC. Completion is expected sometime in 2019. We expect that BOBA will tour the museum once open, as part of our December Commemoration, probably in 2020 (we will be in Belgium for the 75th Anniversary in 2019).
As the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge, we have already contributed $2,500 to the Army Historical Foundation for the Museum. They have set up an account for BOBA for members, chapters, and friends who want to contribute to the Battle of the Bulge exhibit in our name, so we can meet the goal of $125,000.
There are several methods of making contributions. 1. Make checks payable to the National Army Museum Fund and use the memo line to write “BOBA – Acct #3601720” Mailing address for checks:
National Army Museum Campaign
Attn: Beth Seaman
2425 Wilson Blvd
Arlington, VA 22201
2. If you prefer making a donation via credit card, you can call Beth Seaman at (703) 879-0006. At the time of the call, you can let her know you’d like your donation to be put towards the Battle of the Bulge Association Fund.
The Remember Museum 39-45, Thimister-Clermont Belgium, will be commemorating the 75th anniversary of the B-17 “Picklepuss” crash, with the presence of USAF soldiers from the Ramstein base, on August 17, 2018. For more information, go to their website:www.remembermuseum.be/
The WWII 83rd Infantry Division Association will hold their 72nd Reunion on August 1-5, 2018 at: Verve Crowne Plaza, 1360 Worcester St., Natick, MA 01760. Veterans, friends, and families of veterans are welcome. Contact Judy Breen, (603) 569-3263, walkgirl250@yahoo.com for more information. Reservations and payment due by 6/29/18.
French Consul General Louis de Corail awarding the Legion of Honor to Paul Willis, 83 INFD 329 REG CO G.Paul Willis, 83 INFD 329 REG CO G
On October 23, 2017, Paul Willis, 97, from Canton, NC, was awarded the French Legion of Honor by the French Consul General, Louis de Corail, at a ceremony in Knoxville, Tennessee. Willis, a Technical Sergeant in Company G, 329th Infantry, 83rd Division, landed in Normandy two weeks after D-Day. During his three years of service, he saw action in Normandy, Brittany, Luxembourg, the Hurtgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, and the Rhine River. Although he received a Purple Heart for injuries sustained in the Battle of the Bulge, Willis says the hedgerows of Normandy were his most horrendous experience.
Also present at the Knoxville ceremony, which was held at the Sherrill Hills Retirement Community Theater, were Amelie De Gaulle, grand niece of the late President of France, Charles De Gaulle, and members of the Alliance Francaise Knoxville. Consul General Louis de Corail, who represents France in six Southeastern states and is based in Atlanta, presented the award on behalf of French President Emmanuel Macron. The Legion of Honor, established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, is awarded for service to France and is its most prestigious honor. Willis and one other WWII Veteran, James Mynatt, US Army Air Force 490th Bomb Group, were presented the Knight’s Badge as a pledge of France’s eternal gratitude for their courage and fight, after risking their lives for the freedom of France and Europe during the war.
The U.S. Memorial Wereth committee wishes that the year 2018 will fulfill your dearest wishes and keep you very healthy.
Students from Morehouse College in Atlanta followed by Belgian students, marching to the Wereth 11 Memorial at the 2017 ceremony.
Thanks to the student exchange program initiated by the American Embassy in Brussels, the 2017 Wereth 11 ceremony was memorable. The students from Morehouse College made presentations that may easily be described as extraordinary. Hermann Langer’s memorial and the Wereth Eleven are no longer unknown in Atlanta, GA.
We were very happy to welcome almost 400 guests. The precious support from the Municipality of Amel, the Belgian Army and guests’ presence have made from this day a great success. We heartily thank all who attended.
Because of the many commemorations of the 100 years of the WWI, our next ceremony will take place on Saturday, April 28th, 2018 at 11AM.
Four of the Morehouse students, Christopher, David, Gary and Luka, who were our best ambassadors in Atlanta, have expressed their desire to go on working with our association. This makes us very happy, and will lead to a few small changes in the course of the next ceremony.
Your presence reinforces us in our efforts to honor the memorial, the Wereth Eleven as well as all African-American soldiers. It helps us keep sight of Hermann Langer’s goal. Without him, the event of 1944 would have been forgotten.
We hope that you will be able to join us in April 2018.
Vet Tix provides tickets to events which can help reduce stress, strengthen family bonds, build life-long memories and encourage service members and veterans to stay engaged with local communities and American life. We support our troops by honoring their service and providing positive family and life experiences, during and after their years of service to our country.
Vet Tix provides tickets to all branches of currently-serving Military and Veterans, including immediate family of troops KIA.
Vet Tix secures tickets to sporting events, concerts, performing arts, educational and family activities across the nation. VetTixers sign up online. We verify their service. VetTixers request tickets to events that interest them, then pay a small delivery fee to receive their free tickets.
Every week thousands of tickets are available to veterans, service members, and family members of those killed in action, enabling them go to major sports games, concerts, and a whole host of other ticketed events.
Vet Tix, a nonprofit that channels more than 95 percent of its revenues directly into programs, is committed to helping put veterans and service members (including Reserve and Guard) in empty seats at games and events across the nation. Since 2008, we have had the pleasure to distribute more than 3.6 million free tickets to over 651,857 Vet Tixers.
To become a Vet Tix member, just complete the application form with the veteran’s information. Once you have created an account and verified the military service, you can review and apply for tickets to hundreds of other upcoming events across the country.
Vet Tix has both donated tickets and discounted ticket offers. Other than a very small delivery fee, all donated tickets are free! With certain partnerships, once donated tickets have been claimed, additional discounted opportunities will be made available.
The 28th Infantry Division Association conducts several annual events that fulfill the purpose of the organization. Their Annual Conference and Reunion is held the Wednesday through Saturday after the Labor Day holiday. Tours of Fort Indiantown Gap, local excursions and a day trip to a place of historical interest are some of the activities available to reunion participants. The week concludes with a memorial service at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery and a Veteran’s Banquet. Details are:
My father, Thomas Rye Hickey, died November 4, 1951, after falling 1,200 feet down a mine shaft. He was working for the Tennessee Copper Company in Copperhill, Tennessee at the time of his death. He was 39 years old; I was 3. My mother, Ollie, was left a widow at 30, with 3 young daughters and no means of support.
Since mother seldom talked about him, and there were few photos of him, he somehow never seemed quite real to me. But as I was nearing retirement age, I became interested in knowing more about him and their life together. And I wanted to put my family mementos in order, to pass on to my sons and granddaughter. When I began, I never dreamed what the end result would be.
I started by sorting the 182 letters, postcards, and v-mail he had written to my mother during World War II into chronological order. As I sorted, scanned, and copied the fragile pages, I read them. I was fortunate that he had dated each letter and written his location on it. After a while, I started a spreadsheet to keep track of his location and what was happening to him.
These letters enabled me to know him better in some ways than many people who have lived decades with their fathers. Through his letters, I followed his service from draft notice, through basic training, sleeping outside in Kansas in February without a tent, to a 26 mile march in the Mojave Desert. There were gaps in the letters when mother was able to join him for a few months. I was fascinated to hear him “talk” about his ambivalence at qualifying on the machine gun or about the time he almost sat on a rattlesnake in the Mojave Desert. He wrote that 10-11 men went “over the hill” every day, but that he never
would, no matter how bad it got.
I quickly became obsessed and began researching about the places he was stationed. He served with the 9th Armored Infantry Battalion. When he mentioned in an October 1944 letter that he had sailed to England on the Queen Mary, I began to suspect the extent of his service.
Early in my research I wrote to the NPRC to obtain a copy of his military records. That’s when I learned that 10-16 million military records were destroyed in a warehouse fire in 1973. My father’s records, along with those of his 3 brothers, were among those destroyed. I was able to get a copy of his discharge document, which showed he fought in the Ardennes. There was the proof of what I had begun suspecting from his letters. My father fought in the Battle of the Bulge and no one in the family was aware of it! He called the Battle of the Bulge “the storm” in his letters. He was awarded a Purple Heart for a shrapnel wound he received while he was driving a half-track in Luxembourg. He mentioned it briefly in one letter, but said he “kept going.”
My parents had been married less than two years when he was drafted into service in August 1942. Every letter home reflected his homesickness and love for my mother. When my sister was born in 1943, he talked of his love for her as well. He smoked Camels, liked chicken and chocolate cake, and had a weakness for shooting craps. He never mentioned the hardships he endured. He worried about his brothers Joe and Dick, who were also fighting in Europe. Dick was wounded in Sicily and Joe was a German POW in Stalag VII in Moosburg, Germany.
In his letter dated April 26, 1945 he wrote that his outfit was the first to cross into Germany. That would have been across the Remagen Bridge. On May 8, he was in Czechoslovakia when word came that the war was over. The Army had been massing in Czechoslovakia for the next front. He returned to the States in early October, 1945. I inherited my father’s Purple Heart and Army Good Conduct Medal from my mother. I spent a lot of time researching the other awards and medals he was entitled to and spent a full year corresponding with the NPRC before I received them all.
This is the full list: Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Army Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign – WWII, Europe-Africa-Middle Eastern Campaign with 3 bronze stars, World War II Victory Medal, Combat Infantry Badge 1st Award, Expert Badge with Machine Gun Bar, Sharpshooter Badge with Rifle Bar, Marksman Badge with Carbine Bar.
My son Scott, who served 10 years with the Navy, helped me organize a shadowbox to display them appropriately. I wish my mother was still alive to see it.
In 2014, my son Jeff and I traveled to Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium. For me it was a pilgrimage. We visited Coburg, Germany, which was mentioned many times in his letters. At our hotel, we were fortunate enough to meet a woman who remembered where the American Army had camped and marked it on a map. I have no idea where in Luxembourg he was when wounded, but we did see the American memorial and walked down Franklin D. Roosevelt Boulevard.
Before leaving the U.S., I arranged a tour guide, Roby Clam, for our visit to Bastogne, Belgium. Roby took us to each of the roadside memorials dedicated to American troops, the Mardasson War Memorial, and to the place where the 9th Armored Infantry Battalion fought during the Battle of the Bulge. It was a moving experience to see where my father fought and to realize how grateful the Belgians still are to the Americans who fought and died there.
I am so very proud of my father and wish more than ever that I could have known this truly remarkable, courageous man.
The Battle of the Bulge Association, Inc. is co-sponsoring the Battle of the Bulge exhibit at the National Army Museum, along with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Luxembourg has already pledged $125,000 for half of the cost of the exhibit. BOBA is raising the other half, so that our name will be on the exhibit and will create more awareness about BOBA.
The WWII 83rd Infantry Division Association will hold their 72nd Reunion on August 1-5, 2018 at: Verve Crowne Plaza, 1360 Worcester St., Natick, MA 01760. Veterans, friends, and families of veterans are welcome.
The 28th Infantry Division Association conducts several annual events that fulfill the purpose of the organization. Their Annual Conference and Reunion is held the Wednesday through Saturday after the Labor Day holiday. Tours of Fort Indiantown Gap, local excursions and a day trip to a place of historical interest are some of the activities available to reunion participants. The week concludes with a memorial service at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery and a Veteran’s Banquet