For current photos taken by computer people with digital cameras ... this has become easy. The photo file is electronic and any picture can be sent to me, via your computer, as an email attachment. For a large quantity of these its best to send them on a CD or on a USB key memory (the latter I will return to you). For historical 8X10 b&w prints, you will need to scan these to an electronic file or make duplicates at Walgreen, Wal-Mart, etc. Usually ... Walgreen & Wal-Mart will make a CD for you from photos you bring in and scan on their machines ... normally that would be a limit of 24 photos at about $5.99 per CD.

Everything has about become electronic and the darkroom has all but faded from the picture. There are negative scanning devices for folks like Ralph Hanna (with will-power above and beyond) to make positive electronic copies of their old negatives. Same difficult procedure for prints. And all the more frustrating as we become older and electronic programs explain less --- which usually results in the reader thinking "Say What?"

DO NOT, and I mean DO NOT, attempt to send me 1) xerox copies of photos or 2) your printer's copies (although some of the circa 2008+ printers are very good). The older printers will not work. Jack Bristol and Col. Fairlamb wasted lots of well intentioned effort this way.

Random hard-copy photo advice: Walgreen now has some great equipment ... use it, if one is near you. The Wal-Mart 8x10 copying system (at this writing) is a chemical system (and expensive) ... its snapshot copies, however, are made digitally --- ergo the latter are cheap but their DPI (dots per inch) create a random interference pattern with scanners. These snapshot copies are good buys for everyday distribution but of no use to this web page or for electronic conversion. One more thing on older snapshots, the ones printed on grain-surface paper, thats a real problem for a scanner because of the random light reflectivity. On those, its best to find the old negatives if you can. And if whatever you're looking at is out of focus ... pass it up. All scanners and all monitors degrade the image, if thats bad to begin with then the results aren't of much use. Sometimes an image is so important that it must be used regardless of condition, but generally not. Tain't easy ... and good luck.

During the winter, I have had good results using a hand-held digital camera to copy a photo or newsprint (even one as small as a thumbnail) in window light, squaring the camera back to the photo plane. Never using flash. When it works, it can stun you. Nothing to lose by trying it. A really neat way to copy things like screened photos in yearbooks. [But a caution --- anything the sunlight passes through will reproduce on the image and impact the exposure ... like dirty window glass and screenwire patterns.] But no cost, no matter how long it takes you to get it right. When the weather is warm with very little wind, then an outside table works best.

We started from scratch in 2002 and the rosters above have really become representative ... but we STILL NEED copies of orders. ANYONE, holding their 482nd orders (their husband's, their brother's) has information on those about other squadron members. Would you please xerox those (at the library, supermarket, Wal-Mart, etc) and send them to the address at the bottom of this page. Orders about tech training, leaves, Good Conduct medals, TDYs, discharges, promotions, sports assignments ... all apply. There are still a lot of 482nd items out there but we're in the last decade of finding them. Make the effort ... please ... before your data and photos are scattered in the breeze off some auctioneer's table. Too late also ... when I'm not here to receive them.

KUDOS & THANKS

Special acknowledgments for contributions to this web site have been earned by Richard J. Abrams, Robert L. Baker, Gerald R. "Gary" Barnak, Albert E. Basinger, Jack Boyd Bristol, Anton "Tony" Brunner, Ralph W. Burcham, James E. Carl, Patrick D. Casey, Wayne A. Cekola, Francis Chergosky, Sloan A. Coker, Leslie C. Conwell, Douglas B. Cortright, James A. Cunningham, Robert W. Curtis, Jim W. Day, Andy DeCuzzi, Arthur W. Delgado, James W. Dove, Tom Elder, Brent Ellis, Blaine & Nancy Emanis, Ray J. Epperson, Richard C. Fairlamb, Donald J. Fink, Ronald & Margie Gaffney, Eugene Preston Greene, Mrs. Laverne Griffin, James M. Grooms, Kenneth E. Gwinn, D. Ralph Hanna, Bryan W. Hart, Carroll C. Hicks, Dean A. Hillard, Harold T. Hinson, Joseph F. Kopack, Grant Edward Leek, Dennis M. Lisac, Basil E. Lybrand, Carlton T. Marsh, Michael A. McCowan, Roger A. McCumber, Bobby R. Menius, Donald P. Neville, Phil Harris Norman, Robert J. "Rosie" O'Grady, Elmer R. Olson, Arthur C. Patterson III, Curtis H. Peacock, Harold M. Pearce, Donald C. Pendergraft, Alfred R. Percy, Nathan V. Pessah, Irvin Picklesimer, William S. Piper, Eddie G. Pittman, William C. Plemmons, John C. Quillinan, Nicholas R. Ranone, Harold J. Renninger, George J. Rickel, John Robinson, Ralph L. Robledo, James W. Schlegel, David K. Schurr, William M. Seay, John C. Shirley, Charles L. Skipper, Steven L. Smith, Norris "Jim" Stoddard, Robert W. Stonestreet, Thomas D. (& Carol) Sutton, Walter Swartzlander, Robert E. Tabler, Roy E. Thompson, H. Steve Volpe, Paul L. Wagner, Tom Wallace, Carl T. Weaver Jr., Donald L. Wieser, Ben J. Williams, Herman H. Williams, and Ernie L. Willie.

[Collectively, you have all been a big help ... glad we were able to communicate ... especially with those of you who have since "moved on to a low, green tent" (to use a Civil War burial expression). Among those, from my time period, I especially miss Stoney, Ernie, and Paul ... every day I breathe.]

PERSONAL EGOBOO STUFF

"He believes in nothing . . . yet still he does what is right."
The Golden Child (1986)

"I'm a union man from head to toe . . . I'm U.S.A. and C.I.O."
Woodie Guthrie --- (American Folk Legend) --- 1912-1967

"I am now mostly a collection of partial memories ... of my country, my family's freedom, my companions, and my struggles. I am New York City (1961-1963) ... and a product of Woodie Guthrie; Bob Dylan; Alexander King; Joan Baez; Peter, Paul & Mary; Martin Luther King; and the Kennedys. Yet, the greatest thrills I can recall came at the end of a midnight work-shift, watching live Neil Armstrong's "...one giant leap for mankind..." and the shock I had when I first looked into Robert Kennedy's pure blue eyes. I am proud to have served my country and respect the rights of all Americans to peacefully dissent; honored to have set granite military markers above a hundred previously unmarked graves and re-set as many more; determined to represent my Union brothers and sisters with integrity; fortunate to have been friends with the famous in all of the various fields that interested me; and grateful to have lived long enough to recall those precious images, now hazed and dimming. I trust only knowledge and am not religious. Evil is the boogie-man used as Mankind's straw dog ... corruption, greed, ignorance, and bigotry are the problems. I am proud of you all ... those I never met and those I knew personally, now fading from memory. So while I can ... thank you for your service, help with the webpage, and friendship ... thank you so much."
[Oct - 2010]

EDITORIAL ASIDE: The following is an article of interest (hopefully) I wrote some years back, with photos, on re-setting by hand a 200 pound Civil War military marker that was totally underground, vertically, due to flooding: called "The Raising of Peter Myers."

[NOTE: M/Sgt McIntire's repeated urging for me to find out about my family's Civil War history was ultimately responsible for my doing this work. He signed my group in at the Electronics building. When he came to my name, his head jerked up with a smile, which startled me.
"WHERE ... are you FROM?"
"Madison, Indiana, sir."
"Yes ... thats the right place. Are you related to General August Willich of the 1st German 32nd Indiana?"
And from then on, I never received a detail in that building, and would not know why, until two decades later when I began Civil War research in order to mark all unmarked military graves in Jefferson County, IN.
Thanks General. Thanks Sarge. I didn't let either of you down.]

Webmaster's Current Mail & EMails

George C. Willick, 514 East St., Madison, IN 47250
at either
AF16526225@yahoo.com ... or ... gwillick@seidata.com

The decade long, daily research and effort involved in
this website is dedicated to my younger first cousin:
SMSgt Garry Reed Fuller, Vietnam, USAF
September 13, 1941 - December 29, 1988
Arlington National Cemetery

"Last Night I had the Strangest Dream
I'd Ever Dreamed Before.
I Dreamed the World had All Agreed
To put an End to War."

Ed McCurdy - 1950

(Folk songwriter)