Old WC's never die - they just move on! :-)

[DM Carpenter]

Apfelwein...natur, Bitte

[12th Air Force]

Apfelwein...natur, Bitte

Und bitte: Nicht geschüttelt, ohne Oliven (James Bond style), auch nicht gerührt und vor allem: Ohne Eis.

Natürlich das ganze im korrekten Glas ("Geripptes"):



All about this speciality from the center of the State of Hesse (German: Hessen) can be found here at Wikipedia...

...English version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apfelwein
...German version (with much more informations): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apfelwein

...infos about the "Hessische Apfelwein- und Obstwiesenroute " (touristic route): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessische ... iesenroute
...infos about the "Hessische Apfelweinstrasse (touristic route thru the heartland of the Apfelwein production): http://www.hessische-apfelweinstrasse.de/
...visit one of the largest Apfelwein producers (Possmann): https://www.possmann.de/de/kelterei/kelterei-fuehrung

...or an original Apfelwein Pub in Frankfurt:
"Das Rad" is making their own Apfelwein and is one of the oldest in Frankfurt: http://www.zum-rad.de/
"Zur Sonne" is another very old traditional one: http://www.zursonne-frankfurt.de/
Both have a good restaurant too - you should try the local fish speciality: "Forelle Muellerin" (Trout from the Taunus hills made "Muellerin Style").
And of cause "Handkäs mit Musik" as a starter.

"Prost" from Frankfurt,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Coming back to MV related stuff:

I have updated my link list and added two German living history groups (with WW2 US Army focus) as well as to private historical research sites about the end of WW2 in the State of Hesse.
See: http://www.steel-toys.com/Links.html

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[DM Carpenter]

Jetzt habe ich Durst....

DC

[vario]

I just came home from a visit to http://www.solzer-frankfurt.de
Ich habe keinen Durst mehr ...

Ulrich

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

since today I know how "riders in the storm" feel...
- I was driving my Dodge about 25 km to my former colleagues to get the lousy brakes fixed and after 4 km the heavy rain started - and I had no canvas! Okay - if you are lazy you have sometimes to pay the prize.
So I picked up my old Army poncho and had then to realize that wipers are not useful if the rain is on the INSIDE!
Anyhow: if I'm lucky the job is done next Friday and the Dodge summer can go on after a 5 week's brake.

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

if you have nothing to do a militaria fair is a good alternative. So I was driving on Saturday to the Ardennes and spent some money at the militaria fair at La Gleize.

It's one of the 3 largest of it's kind in Belgium beside of Ciney and Gent Militaria Fair - and famous among collectors in central Europe.




It's about 340 km from Frankfurt and place of a fierce Tank Battle in Winter 1944. Today the complete village is once a year on 2 days a XXL WW2 relikts flea market.

Photos are now uploaded here: http://www.steel-toys.com/LG15

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello FolK's,

news from the brake drama: it turned out that the leak in the brake system was caused by an shitty repro wheel brake cylinder!
It seems that the hole for the adaptor screw was not correctly drilled in a 90° angle into the brake cylinder housing...

The result: the shim (gasket) between brake cylinder and brass adaptor was tight on one side - but leaking on the opposite side because of the wrong angle / wider distance...

But: no new right hand side cylinder at hand, only a new left one... = my lousy compromise: we used now an old right hand side cylinder housing I had in stock + the parts of the new left one to get the job done in time. Not perfect, but only the result matters.
- Sort of "in the field repair"...

To be continued...

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

the Queen is back home from her visit in old Germany and so is my Dodge.
The brake system does not leak anymore and the brake works better than before but it's still noisy as a train in a bend.

Anyhow: tomorrow I will pack all stuff for Sunday and the weather forecast is promising a pretty nice sunburn.
It will be cool to have most best buddies & Dodge brothers in place for a beer or two and some good gasoline talk's.

Have a relaxed weekend with your MV pet's,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

I finished on Saturday our new "Rumor Board" for Events as last Sunday's "Klassikertreffen".

I was a bit tired of piling up flyers on the hood of our MV or to explain over and over our Club background, the motivation in collecting WW2 MV etc. etc.

So here is the solution:



Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's

sometimes happen funny thing's on Events as the Klassikertreffen at Russelsheim. This is such a moment:

While unloading my Dodge an elderly woman with grey hair and a smile in her face looked at my Dodge and then at me and asked: "but you are not Lancaster?"

I was slightly irritated. "Lancaster?" Pictures of British WW2 Bombers occurred in the back of my mind.

"Burt Lancaster!" she answered.

"Burt Lancaster???" I was confused and felt a bit stupid.

She started to laugh and asked me: "Don't you know "From Here to Eternity" with Burt Lancaster? - He was driving a Dodge like your's in that movie".

Well, to be honest - I did not know that and I hardly remembered that movie, that I have seen the last time on TV more than 25 years ago or so.

Sometimes happen totally unexpected thing's like that if you are driving an old MV...

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Updated the sub page with the photo galleries of the latest Events I have seen:

http://www.steel-toys.com/Events.html

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

one half of our colleagues from the PEP Cars US-Car Club left yesterday for a major Event at Dresden - about 400 km from Frankfurt. A bit to far away for my old battlehorse.

But the remaining colleagues from the Club called me up - they had organized a spontaneous BBQ evening in front of their garage and we had a great evening with about 25 members in place.

Nice sideshow: one of them offered me a WW2 US Army Field Bed in great shape for 30,- Euro's - an offer I could not refuse.
So I have now 3 of them to fill my GP Small Tent at upcoming MV Events as Tanks in Town in August.

Have a great weekend,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

thank's to a growing digital world I could add today some new details to one of my veterans profiles that I have published on my homepage.

So here is the updated version.

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim





cc:

Angelo Manna - The Italo-American G.I. that liberated the city of Giessen
I bought in early 2014 at a local Sunday flea market an US Army dog tag from WW2 with a small silver "St. Christopher" medal. The seller was "such a typical metal detector owner" that was selling some of his finds. To be honest: I'm "no friend" of this sad "dog tag trading business", because in many cases those "collectors" make it impossible to inform the relatives of a person that is MIA (missing in action) since WW2.
So I bought that thing and back at home I started to find the "story behind" this find so that I could inform the relatives as well as the authorities on it (in case of a person MIA). "Thank's to google" the answers have only been "one click away": The owner of the dog tag was a young man with "Italian roots" and joined the Army in 1943 as a private. He survived the WW2 and retired as a private first class. He returned to his hometown Auburn, NY and lived there as a veteran until he passed away 1976 at the age of 52.
So that's one of the stories behind the WW2 items I have - and this one is fortunately with an happy end.

So all I can say about the background of this lost dog tag is, that Angelo Manna must have been in one of the units under General George Patton's command that crossed the River Rhine in the late March of 1945 and proceeded to the east, heading to the Cities of Marburg and Giessen in the north of Frankfurt. It could have been the 9th Armored Division - but I'm not sure about that.
The City of Giessen is a town with a University and a population of only 80.000 in a rural area. Giessen had since 1867 a large garrison and in consequence caused that heavy fighting at the end of March 1945. The battle of Giessen was shown in the Movietone - showing the Tank battle at today's City-Ring. With the support of Sherman Tanks the US troops could finally liberate Giessen on the 27th and 28th of March 1945.
A short video clip of the battle can be found here: Link
So I think Angelo Manna lost his Dog Tag at a Camp outside the City or in a foxhole at the frontline in the Giessen area at about those days in March - nearly 70 years ago.

Update:
Thank's to the latest internet research I found an article published by Ormie King on 11 May, 2014 giving some details on the group of young men from Auburn that joined the Army in 1943 - among them: Angelo Manna. And the evidence that he was part of the "wonder at Remagen" - the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen, that ended WW2 in Europe weeks or months earlier than the allied command hade foreseen. - Saving that way hundred thousands of lives.
Link: http://auburnpub.com/ormie_king/ormie-k ... b43d7.html

A tribute to Auburn's WWII heroes. So here is the full story:

Today's article was submitted to me by Jim Giannettino, and tells the incredible story of true Legends of Auburn, our young local men sent off to fight in World War II, and some upcoming events to honor them:

In late February 1943, with World War II raging, a group of about 60 young men from Auburn and the surrounding area received their draft notices in the mail. Many of those drafted were in their senior year of high school, but would have to forgo the last three and a half months of the academic year in order to report for basic training. These young men, for the most part, either knew of each other or were all friends. Many of them were neighbours on the West end of town and had grown up together.
One month later, these young men assembled at the downtown bus station and said goodbye to their families as they answered their nation's call to service. They, along with many other contingents of draftees from New York, were assigned to the newly formed 299th Combat Engineer Battalion.



Shown above:
Saverio "Sam" Trinca and Nicholas "Vince" DeAngelis - two of the young men from Auburn that joined the Army in 1943.

Over the next several months they underwent extensive training and relocated multiple times. Their travels took them from Fort Niagara, to Camp White, Oregon, to Fort Lewis, Washington, to Fort Pierce, Florida. Once their training was complete they were sent to New Jersey where they awaited orders to disembark for England. In April 1944, the 299th shipped out for Europe aboard the troop ship the S.S. Exchequer. After 10 days at sea they arrived in England, where they underwent additional training. In early June they were informed that they were to take part in the invasion of Normandy. The 299th was to be included in the first wave of the invasion and was tasked with clearing the beach for the second wave of the assault.
On June 6, 1944, the invasion of Normandy, code-named Operation Overload, and more commonly known as D Day, began. More than 160,000 ground troops were transported by 5,000 ships across the English Channel under the cover of darkness. Among these troops was the 299th and they were scheduled to hit the beaches at 0633. The battalion was to be split over two beaches: Company B would assault Utah beach while Companies A and C were to assault Omaha beach.
While the D-Day assault on Normandy was a success, the cost was high. More than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded that day, among them six men from Auburn and the surrounding area:
Claude D. Brown Jr., Nicholas V. DeAngelis, Leo A. Indelicato, Thomas J. Phillips, Lawrence A. Roberts and John R. Spinelli.

With the French coast secured more than 100,000 troops began the march across Europe to break the yoke of Nazi tyranny. The 299th was among these troops and they moved through France on to Belgium, where they fought to repel the last German offensive in the Battle of Bulge. The 299th moved on to Germany and was tasked with securing the Remagen Bridgehead. Following the German surrender on May 6, 1945, the 299th moved on to Nuremburg, where they worked to reconstruct parts of the war-damaged city. A couple of months later the unit was scheduled for demobilization and hundreds of battle-tested men, many of whom were the first to land on the beaches of Normandy, returned home. For their actions on the D-Day, the 299th Combat Engineer Battalion was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation.

Following the war, many of the Auburn boys returned home where they found jobs, and most of them got married and had families. They stayed in contact with each other after the war, not just the Auburn boys, but the entire battalion. For many years after the war they held an annual reunion that rotated from city to city. As time marched on and it became difficult for many of the men to travel, those from Auburn began to hold an annual ceremony on June 6. The first of these ceremonies occurred on June 6, 1994, the 50th Anniversary of D-Day, where the surviving members dedicated a monument to the six friends they lost on the beaches of Normandy.
I had the honor of attending a handful of these ceremonies and it was very clear that these men were friends in the true sense of the word. Being from the same town, they had gone to school together, played together, grew up together; and when they left for boot camp, they did that together, too. For many of these young men it was their first time away from home, and having their buddies with them must have made this experience more bearable. When they left they were innocent boys, but they soon became battle-hardened men. They endured the physical and mental hardships of training and combat together, and had to suffer the loss of not just fellow soldiers, but lifelong friends. There was obviously a personal connection between these men, and it was clear that the "friendship factor" was vital in the overall success of the 299th in World War II.

June 6, 2014 will mark the 70th Anniversary of D-Day. In an effort to recognize the sacrifices of the members of the 299th and all local WWII veterans, the Cayuga Museum of History and Art will host an exhibit titled: "Auburn at Normandy: The 299th Combat Engineers and Local Stories of WWII." The exhibit will run from May 23 to Aug. 31 (2014) and will feature several major events to coincide with the exhibit. These events are free and open to the public and we cordially invite you to join us in saluting the Greatest Generation.

Jim Giannettino, vice president, Board of Trustees Cayuga Museum of History and Art

Link to the Cayuga Museum: http://cayugamuseum.org/
Address: The Cayuga Museum/Case Research Lab, 203 Genesee Street, Auburn, NY 13021, USA.

[Minnhawk]

Joakim: Very interesting! Thanks for posting the dogtag story. I am happy the owner survived the war. I agree some of the metal detector people are not proper.