Category: We Remember

AZtoVA sends us a link to the Department of Defense announcement that Sergeant First Class Christopher Andrew Celiz was killed during combat operations in Afghanistan yesterday;

Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Andrew Celiz, 32, from Summerville, South Carolina, died, July 12, in Afghanistan, of wounds sustained as a result of enemy small arms fire while conducting operations in support of a medical evacuation landing zone in Zurmat district, Paktiya province. The incident is under investigation.

Celiz was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Hunter Army Airfield, Georgia.

AW1Ed sends us the sad news that retired First Sergeant Harold Eatman has passed at the age of 102 years old. He was an original member of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment and one of the few who jumped four times with the 82d Airborne Division during World War II, according to Army Times;

“Harold Eatman was among the generation of All American paratroopers who defeated Nazism, liberated Europe, and inspired many generations of paratroopers to follow,” said Lt. Col. Joe Buccino, spokesman for the 82nd Airborne, in a statement. “We always say that when you wear the Double A patch, you walk among legends. One of those legends has passed.”

Eatman was one of fewer than 2,800 paratroopers to have made all four World War II combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne Division — in Sicily, Salerno, Normandy and Holland. Fewer than 16 now remain living, according to the 82nd Airborne.

Eatman volunteered to serve in the Army in 1942, according to the 82nd Airborne. He served in H Company, 505th Regimental Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, from October 1942 through September 1945.

His awards and decorations include the French Legion of Honor, the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart, two Army Commendation Medals, and the Senior Parachutist Badge with four bronze stars.

David sends us the sad news that Harlan Ellison, an American writer has passed at the age of 84. He is probably best known for his science fiction work that included screen plays for episodes of Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, and Babylon 5.

Like most of his generation he was a veteran of the US Army from 1957-1959.

Ellison’s disputatious personality was legendary among science-fiction aficionados. He was as caustic and pugnacious in person as he was on the page—a confrontation with Frank Sinatra is recorded in the famed Esquire profile “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold”; he settled out of court over allegations that James Cameron had plagiarized elements of his work in writing the screenplay for The Terminator (1984); and he once sent a dead gopher to a publisher who violated a clause in his contract. He frequently mocked his own fractious tendencies and misanthropic attitudes, indicating a more-humanist worldview than his ornery disposition might initially have suggested. His flamboyance was on full display in the documentary Dreams with Sharp Teeth, released in 2008 after more than 25 years of filming.

DocV sends us a link to Stars & Stripes tells the story of the B17 crew, First Lt. John Liekhus, Tech Sgt. John Brady, Tech Sgt. Allen Chandler, Staff Sgt. Bobby Younger, and Staff Sgt. Robert Shoemaker, that was interred together at Arlington this week after they were recovered from a crash site where they were left after they were shot down on November 2, 1944;

The U.S. Army Air Forces airmen were members of the 323rd Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bombardment Group (Heavy), Eighth Air Force. On Nov. 2, 1944, they were part of a nine-man crew that joined an armada of bombers on a mission to Merseburg, Germany and the Leuna Werke, a sprawling chemical factory that produced synthetic fuels.

Their B-17 was hit by flak, or ground, anti-aircraft fire, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. As the B-17 fell out of formation, German fighters attacked. Witnesses reported seeing the aircraft burst into flames and then descend rapidly. Three crewmembers survived the crash and were taken prisoner. One of the airmen killed was identified in May 1945; the other five crewmembers were declared missing in action.

On Wednesday, they returned to US soil and were interred together at Arlington National Cemetery.

We get the sad news today that Richard Harrison, also known as “The Old Man” on the History Channel’s Pawn Stars, has passed at the age of 77. According to Wikipedia, he was a career Navy veteran;

When he was 17, Harrison attended a barn dance, where he met his future wife, Joanne Rhue, the daughter of Joseph Rhue, a county judge, who later became one of the lead attorneys for Philip Morris in North Carolina. They married in 1960. Before they married, however, Harrison stole a car, and after he was arrested, was given a choice by the judge to go to prison or the military. Harrison chose the latter. JoAnne became pregnant with their first child immediately after they married, and Sherry, their first child, was born with Down syndrome. They also had three sons, Joseph, Rick, and Chris. Harrison left the Navy in February 1962, but re-enlisted fourteen months later in order to obtain the health care benefits necessary to meet Sherry’s medical expenses. She died when she was six years old.

Harrison ultimately served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years, including stints as a paymaster, and attaining the rank of petty officer first class. Harrison served on four ships, including his final five years on fleet tug ATF 100 USS Chowanoc, from 1972 to 1976.

In 1967 Harrison was transferred by the Navy to San Diego, California. He continued to serve in the Navy, while JoAnne obtained her real estate license in 1970 and opened her own office in 1973. After Harrison was discharged from the Navy, he worked part-time in his wife’s office. Declining real estate sales caused by interest rates as high as 18 percent cost Harrison $1,000,000 and the collapse of this business in 1981.

Julius Heinrich Otto ‘Henry’ Pieper and twin Ludwig Julius Wilhelm ‘Louie’ Pieper were both killed on June 19, 1944 during the invasion of Fortress Europe when the boat they were taking on a rescue operation struck a mine and shattered the vessel. From the Daily Mail;

Louie’s body was soon found, identified and laid to rest at what is now the Normandy American Cemetery, but Julius’ remains were not recovered until 1961, when French salvage divers found them in the vessel’s radio room.

Julius — given the identifier ‘Unknown X-9352’ — was interred as an ‘Unknown’ at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium, which is devoted to the fallen of World War II in the region that saw the bloody Battle of the Bulge.

Julius’ remains might have stayed among those of 13 other troops from the doomed LST-523 still resting unidentified at the Ardennes cemetery, had it not been for a U.S. agency that tracks missing combatants, establishing case files for each from witness accounts to DNA testing.

That agency’s efforts led to Julius’ proper identification in 2017.

Julius’ remains were laid next to his brother’s at the Normandy Cemetery yesterday. Their nieces Linda Suiter and Susan Lawrence were on hand for the reburial.

The Pieper twins, callow fellows born of German immigrant parents, worked together for Burlington Railroad and enlisted together in the Navy. Both were radio operators and both were on the same unwieldy flat-bottom boat, Landing Ship Tank Number 523 (LST-523), making the Channel crossing from Falmouth, England to Utah Beach 13 days after the June 6 D-Day landings.

The LST-523 mission was to deliver supplies at the Normandy beachhead and remove the wounded. It never got there.

The vessel struck an underwater mine and sank off the coast. Of the 145 Navy crew members, 117 were found perished.

Thanks to Another Pat for the link.

USAFRetired sends us the news that Navy Pharmacist’s Mate 1st Class John Schoonover is coming home to his son at Pensacola Naval Air Station. John was interred with the other 429 sets of unidentified remains from the USS Oklahoma that were lost at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Hondo told us that his remains were identified last August.

Schoonover’s son, Robert, of Panama City Beach, Florida, says confirmation of his father’s remains has brought him closure.

He says a funeral will be held at the Naval Air Station Pensacola later this month.