Mothers to the Blue Star Mothers and to the gold star
In the United States during time of conflict,the mothers had the habit of hanging in their windows a banner with a blue star ,When they have a son called up for the military service. . The number of stars was equal to the number of son serving the country.
However, when their son was killed, the mother withdrew the blue star to put a golden star.
I wanted to thank you for your website and to inform you that I have been using your research to help with my own. My name is Raymond Conrad and I am attending Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. I've been working on my senior capstone paper and its focus is on combat engineers during World War 2, Korea, and Vietnam. The information you have on the 540th has helped me a great deal in my efforts.
I assure you that everything I use is being properly cited to avoid any plagiarism.
I just wanted to let you know that I was using information from your website and to thank you.
Raymond Conrad
I wrote back to him and he gave me permission to share this note with everyone here, and will also send a copy of his paper, upon completion.
My father was Major Charles Finley Lewis of the 344th Engineers throughout WWII. They were in North Africa by late 1942, in Sicily and Italy, and went into the southern part of France after DDay.
Their most famous exploit was rebuilding the bridge across the Rhone at Lyon in only eight hours--while ducking a sniper's bullets and contending with the carnival atmosphere of the good citizens of Lyon who insisted on riding their bikes back and forth across the new bridge.
At the end of the war they were in Germany---and rebuilt the streetcar system in Munich with the help of German engineers who were POWs.
Received this yesterday. My very dear friend, Al Panebianco is in the hospital. Please keep him in your prayers. It was nice of Bob to let me know, since Al and I speak via email a few times per week. All my best to you Al. I bet you can't wait to return home.
Love ya,
Marion
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Al was admitted to Western Wake Hospital last Monday with pneumonia and congestive heart failure. He is steadily improving and we expect him to come home some day this upcoming week. Please keep him in your prayers. Since no one is checking his e-mails, he will not be able to respond until he comes home and receives some physical therapy. However, I will be sending periodic updates...
Tina is holding up well. She may be hard to reach since she is spending most days and nights at the hospital. She is normally home after 8:30 or 9:00PM.
Once again 11/11 approaches. As always I will be travelling six miles to the now disused (since 1952) RAF Blakehill Farm. This airfield was built in 1944 in preparation for Operation Overlord and it is hard to believe now that the empty farmland and country park once contained over 500 structures (US Engineers?)
Here were based US, Canadian and RAF personnel operating Dakota aircraft and Waco/Hadrian gliders.
The first two pictures show a returning casevac Dakota and the RAF nurses that flew in it. The third picture shows one of the casualty wards as it is today 65 years after being built and the final picture shows an RAF 233 Sqn Dak flying from Blakehill Farm.
