Hi, Fritz --
I enjoyed the trivia, and passed the post on to a friend, who also was
entralled -- enough to dig into the stories. I thought you'd be
interesed in what turned up:
Interesting coincidences and info! It'd be interesting to check the
facts, but I don't have time. ;-) .
I did a quickie on the 45th division and the swastika. Wikipedia
says it was changed in 1939, two years before Pearl Harbor.
Here's the story of the 12 yr old serviceman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Graham
Interesting story about Kiska attack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiska My dad's [some army unit of
men] were slated to go to Alaska to defend it from the Japanese in
1946. Just as they were ready to leave someone discovered that
the rifles (and other weapons?) they'd been given wouldn't work in
freezing temperatures. So the group was divided up and men sent
to other units. The way mom tells it, the strong tall farm boys were
selected to be MPs, and that's how dad ended up protecting the
US from Mexicans and drunken US troops (in El Paso.)
The lists appears on several websites, all claiming this as the
original source:
"Contributed by Ronald Padavan, LTC, CAP MIWG Chief of Staff
MSGT, USAF (Ret.) Past President Lodge 143, Fraternal Order of
Police.
As printed in, The Victory Division News. No. 4. December, 2000. "
Can't locate a copy of the issue!
Clearly, the interwebs have munged things a bit, as passed along,
e.g., is Padavan a Lt. Colonel, or a Master Sergeant?
Alex
--
Alex Sproul
NSS 8086RL/FE
NSS Webmaster
www.caves.org
