John Fallon sent me the following email this morning. Rest in peace. Sad to lose yet another...

By a coincidence the 36th Engineers were having their annual reunion n Lebanon PA when Lupe died. We had talked about him and knew that he would have been there if it was a t all possible. He was a great soldier and a great friend and may he rest in peace in the hands of the Lord.

He was provided with this by the family:

Sept. 21 at 7:00 p.m. Central Time, in San Antonio, Texas, Manuel Reynaldo Velez, aka Lupe Velez passed away from liver cancer. He is survived by his wife A. Marie Schwarz Velez of 58 years and his 6 children, Christa Gordon, Reynaldo, Luise, Jose, Annamarie and Victoria. Dad died at home within two weeks of being diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer. He was surrounded by his wife, son and grandson, his granddaughter just having left his side to return to Oregon.

Dad was buried on Sept. 25, 2006, with full military honors at Holy Cross Cemetery, near his son-in-law William Shea. He had a mass of Christian resurrection at St. Helene’s. You can contact his widow Marie at her home in San Antonio. She asks that you notify the rest of the men of the 36th.

Hi, I followed Marions link from the Triggertime Forum. Have enjoyed reading Art M's Detroit memories. I grew up pretty close to the area he did about 50 years later. I also am looking for any information on an ww II engineer named Charles Stevenson 363rd?? Battalion? I will exhaust the avenues given in the forum before I request information formally. Collector/accumulator for many years.

Regards, Jeff Thomas

Son of

Marvin Thomas

13th Armored Division

Blackcat, WWII

For anybody who cares about the public's ability to get to the military records that tell us what happened during WW II, Allen Weinstein, the archivist, has just about made it unworkable for anybody who holds a job.

Go here: "Allen Weinstein Excludes Americans from National Archives."

Thanks.

Sgtleo

Hello,

I am looking for informations about Walter Porter 131st FA - Battery b - 36th,

who was killed in the woods of Biffontaine the 31th october 44, with an unit of the 141st.

I research too, mornings reports or AAR's of the 141st 1st and 2nd battallions during the period of october 1944.

Don't forget, if we need some infos or photos in the Vosges mountains, where the VI corps was (3rd - 36th - 45th) don't hesit !

Merci à tous,

Gerome

This Day in History...

September 30, 1938 : Hitler appeased at Munich

On this day in 1938, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieved "peace in our time."

Although the agreement was to give into Hitler's hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia where 3 million ethnic Germans lived, it also handed over to the Nazi war machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia's coal, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power. It also left the Czech nation open to complete domination by Germany. In short, the Munich Pact sacrificed the autonomy of Czechoslovakia on the altar of short-term peace-very short term. The terrorized Czech government was eventually forced to surrender the western provinces of Bohemia and Moravia (which became a protectorate of Germany) and finally Slovakia and the Carpathian Ukraine. In each of these partitioned regions, Germany set up puppet, pro-Nazi regimes that served the military and political ends of Adolf Hitler. By the time of the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the nation called "Czechoslovakia" no longer existed.

It was Neville Chamberlain who would be best remembered as the champion of the Munich Pact, having met privately with Hitler at Berchtesgaden, the dictator's mountaintop retreat, before the Munich conference. Chamberlain, convinced that Hitler's territorial demands were not unreasonable (and that Hitler was a "gentleman"), persuaded the French to join him in pressuring Czechoslovakia to submit to the Fuhrer's demands. Upon Hitler's invasion of Poland a year later, Chamberlain was put in the embarrassing situation of announcing that a "state of war" existed between Germany and Britain. By the time Hitler occupied Norway and Denmark, Chamberlain was finished as a credible leader. "Depart, I say, and let us have done with you!" one member of Parliament said to him, quoting Oliver Cromwell. Winston Churchill would succeed him as prime minister soon afterwards.