Monday, June 15, 2009

4th Armored Div. Historical Group











Sponsored by the Wellsville Historical Society at their museum on Riverside the 4th Armored Historical Group rolled into town last Friday for a Saturday & Sunday exhibition. This group is head quartered in Hubbard, Ohio and has members from all over. This group uses authentic tents, uniforms, weapons and equipment used in WWII. It was a living history of the brave men and a demonstration of what they used fighting that war.

On Saturday they put on a shooting demonstration using weapons actually used during WWII. Some of those weapons dated back before the days of the first world war. Although they only used blanks it was an impressive demonstration that probably made some folks in West Virginia think we had were attacking them. They even had a 1917 Browning water cooled machine gun. On that one there's a tank around the barrel that holds 4.5 pints of water to cool it.

Pictured above is a group photo of some of the members that were here this week-end for the re-enactment. Kneeling, from the left is Lt. Tim Rane and 1st Sgt. Gordon Smith. From the left standing is Pvt. Nick Dauka, Cpl. Don Fuller, Society President Brassy Beresford, and Cpl. Bob Marmura. T/Sgt. Winkler had to break camp early and didn't get in that picture.

The group will be in Conneaut, PA, in August to take part in a D-Day invasion re-enactment and in Alliance in late September for An American Military History Show. You can get additional information by e-mailing Cpl. Fuller, the company clerk, at dafuller@zoominternet.net.

It was an interesting learning experience for many of us that came around after that war. A lot of the equipment on display was things I've only seen pictures of or weren't even aware of. For others it was a trip down memory lane. There were visitors from young children to some veterans that were actually in that war. One of those gentlemen came with a couple of his children that shared some of his experiences from WWII. It astounded the kids with them remarking that Dad never told us those stories. Wish I could have recorded some of those stories.

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge. I broke this up into a four part series. Scroll on down for the other three.



ole nib




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

THAT WAS A VERY WONDERFUL DEMONSTRATION.....THANK YOU EVERYONE THAT IS INVOLVED WITH PUTTING THIS ON....YOU HAVE DONE A WONDERFUL JOB