Duty of Memory

Picture of 743rd tankers taken during the liberation

Hope everybody can contribuate to this blog and share information with each other (not like on other forums where guys want to keep information for themselves ) so that we can learn more about those wonderful tankers. My father remembers the tankers very well. When they arrived on my father's fields, they dug in and slept near their tanks. Fouron le Comte, the village where I'm living, was used as a repair place for Shermans. Co C was in my town with Harry Hanssen in command.  I think he was wounded during the battle for Aachen. Living not far away (6 miles) from both American Cemeteries: Henri-Chapelle (Belgium) and Margraten (Holland), I adopted eight  743rd tanker's graves and would like to know more about those guys and the area where they were killed. My father sheltered many 30th Inf Div guys in his barn in 1944.  I'm running a Museum entirely dediacted to the 30th Inf Div and attached units so the young European Generation can remember the sacrifices of the many GI's made so many years ago. For most of them, the last and ultimate one. It's our duty of memory.
"PRESERVE THE PAST FOR THE FUTURE"
Submitted by: Vince Heggen: heggen.vincent@skynet.be
"Old Hickory Museum "
Belgium: http://www.oldhickory30th.com/
Ps I 'm still looking for pictures or other 743rd items to  display in the museum so they are not forgotten.
Thanks

743rd Tank Dozer taken during the liberation of Belgium

D Day and DD Tanks

It wasn’t until I was middle aged that I realized I had an uncle that was on Omaha Beach on D Day. I knew I had an uncle that had been killed in the war but nobody ever talked about him. The reasons might have been long lasting grief or that they just didn’t know any details of his service. I happened to be home for a visit and at the some time I was reading Stephen Ambrose’s book on D Day. Someone mentioned that Uncle Philip had been in the 743rd Tank Battalion. Stephen Ambrose’s book had a diagram that showed the landing order of the assault units. The 743rd Tank Battalion was the lead unit, 10 minutes ahead of the 116th Regiment of the 29th Division, on the right hand side of Omaha Beach opposite Vierville sur Mer. The beach assigned to his company, Company B, was code named Dog Green.

As I started doing research, I was surprised to find that little was discussed in the popular literature about the 743rd Tank Battalion and their position in the assault on D Day. There was almost nothing about them in the exhibits in the World War II Museum in my own hometown of New Orleans. Yet they were a unique secret weapon that military planners relied upon very heavily for close infantry support. It seemed to me that more should be known about them. (Click on the last sentence to read the rest of the post)

Submitted by John Robinson: robinsonj414@asme.org