The Mingo Republican

TWO LOCAL MEN IN FAMED 82ND

The famed 82nd Airborne Division, which once planned a war-time drop on Berlin, has taken over the task of guarding the American occupied zone of the German Capital after a peaceful, truck-borne invasion.

Members of this Division are two East Williamson soldiers, Pfc. Hershel Taylor, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Taylor of 833 East Fourth avenue, and Pfc. Luther C. Phillips, son of Mrs. Mattie Phillips and the late Mr. G. C. Phillips, East Williamson grocer, of 1104 East Fourth avenue.

Under 38-year-old Maj. Gen. James A. Gavin, the division will have the peacetime job of policing the American zone and sharing honor guard with the British, French and Russians at allied control headquarters.

Gavin and members of his staff jumped from C-47 transport planes onto the Tempelhof airdrome Sunday in a test drop. Ninety-nine others and men at the 82nd, many of whom participated in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Normandy, parachuted onto a section of Berlin Tuesday to realize their ambition of some day floating down on target Berlin.

The 82nd has added a lot to drab Berlin. On guard duty the men wear white gloves and red neckerchiefs made from parachute silk. On formal occasions they blossom out with shoe laces made from white parachute shroud cords criss-crossing their gleaming boots and white hats with white gloves.