The file was prepared by Oberleutnant Werner for a German Ary Book he worked on. He studied the Battles carefully and published. Werner who signed this folder multiple times, his picture on Lexicon Der Wehrmacht. Paul-Hermann Werner joined the Imperial Army as a soldier around 1912. He came to Railway Regiment No. 2. He was promoted to lieutenant with a commission dated August 20, 1912. Even before the start of the First World War in the summer of 1914, he was still a company officer in Railway Regiment No. 2. On December 18, 1917, he was promoted to first lieutenant. In the First World War he was not only wounded several times, which was reflected in the awarding of the wounded badge in silver. In the First World War, in addition to the Knight’s Cross of the Royal Prussian House Order of Hohenzollern with swords and both Iron Crosses, he was also awarded other awards. After the war he was accepted into the Imperial Army as a first lieutenant with his old seniority. In the 200,000-man transitional army in the spring of 1920, he was part of the Reichswehr Infantry Regiment 3. When the 100,000-man army of the Reichswehr was formed, he was assigned to the 5th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment as a company officer. On October 1, 1921, he was transferred to the 5th (Prussian) Cavalry Regiment as a squadron officer. He was probably assigned to the staff of the 2nd Division of the Reichswehr in Stettin for two years to train as an assistant commander. From the spring of 1924 at the latest he belonged to the 4th (MG.) Company of the 5th (Prussian) Infantry Regiment in Stettin. In 1924/25 he was transferred to Schwerin (Mecklenburg) as a company officer in the 2nd company of the 2nd (Prussian) motor vehicle department. In 1925/26 he was transferred to the staff of the 2nd (Prussian) Motor Vehicle Department in Stettin. On February 1, 1926 he was promoted to captain. In 1927/28 he was appointed head of the 2nd company of the 2nd (Prussian) motor vehicle department in Schwerin (Mecklenburg). He then held this position for several years. In the spring of 1931 he was transferred to the Reichswehr Ministry (RWM) in Berlin. There he was employed as a clerk in the inspection of the traffic troops (In 6). For the next few years he was deployed there to the staff of the motor force under Major General Lutz. After the expansion of the Reichwehr into the Wehrmacht, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on January 1, 1937. As such, he was then deployed as commander of the anti-tank division 20 in Hamburg. In the fall of 1938 he took over the position of commander of the anti-tank troops X in Hamburg. After the Polish campaign, he became a colonel and commander of the 31st Panzer Regiment of the 5th Panzer Division. He then led his unit with particular skill in the western campaign in the spring of 1940. He always led the regiment, which at that time stormed the Loretto Heights north of Arras, “from the front”. For his outstanding achievements he was awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross on June 3, 1940. In the second part of the western campaign, he forced his tanks to cross the Somme near Amiens. He captured Ruon and closed the pocket near St. Valéry with the entire 7th Panzer Division. After a forced march of 360 kilometers in two days, he was the first officer of the Wehrmacht to reach the military port of Brest on June 19, 1940. In the course of a swimming accident in the Atlantic, Colonel Werner died of a heart attack just a few days later on June 30, 1940. After the funeral service took place in the Hamburg Hanseatic Barracks on July 5, 1940, he was buried the following day in camps near Schwerin. The Pictures in the folder are ordered and show the frontline, they are marked Secret (Geheim) and made by the Bildstelle der 2 Division. Area are – Reserve Infanterie Regiment 229 Positions on the 31st of July 1917 in Flanders. (Area – Langermark – Poelkapelle). For Which the Commander of the unit was awarded the Pour le Merit. One letter from an Oberlt in the K.A.2 sends Generalleutnant a.d Schwarte (Berlin, Charlottenburg). There is a signature of Generalleutnant a.d Schwarte  More about Schwarte: Schwarte had been an officer in the Prussian Army since October 14, 1880. Before his military career, he worked as a teacher at the War Academy in Berlin from 1902 and as a department head in the General Staff from 1906. From August 15, 1912 to January 26, 1913, Schwarte was commander of the 4th Upper Silesian Infantry Regiment No. 63 in Opole. He was then transferred to Wesel as commander of the 79th Infantry Brigade and was promoted to major general. At the beginning of the First World War, he led his brigade, consisting of Infantry Regiments No. 56 and 57, as part of the 14th Division on the northern Western Front. Schwarte took part in the battles of St. Quentin and the Marne. From November 23, 1914 to February 13, 1915 he commanded the 17th Reserve Division and since February 16, 1915 the 10th Infantry Division. In this capacity, Schwarte was promoted to lieutenant general on June 6, 1916 and was awarded the Order of the Red Eagle, 2nd class, with oak leaves and swords in December 1916. On April 30, 1917, Schwarte was recalled.[5] From 1919, Schwarte was editor of Wehr und Waffen. Technology in the World War. He was also the author and editor of a large number of military history books and essays. The historian Ulrich Herbert places Schwarte alongside Friedrich von Bernhardi, Joachim von Stülpnagel and Kurt Hesse among the four military men or military writers whose interpretation of the First World War was crucial for laying the foundations of the political and ideological formation of National Socialist Germany: “the war was…

Capt. Hart had been a resident of Chattahoochee since retiring from the Navy in 1973. A native of Cambridge, Mass., he attended Northeastern University from 1937 to 1941 and George Washington University from 1966 to 1967, where he received his Bachelor of Science in political science. He was married to the former Emily Swearingen of Pine Hill, Ala. He was a Mason belonging to the Indian Wells Valley Lodge in Inyokern, Calif., and was a longtime board member at Chattahoochee First United Methodist Church. Capt. Hart, a World War II veteran, entered the U.S. Navy at Pensacola in January 1942, following Pearl Harbor and received his Navy Wings of Gold in 1943. Following a tour as a flight instructor, he joined Night Fighter Squadron 55 embarked on the USS Enterprise (CV-6) in 1945, and later, Night Fighter Squadron 90 at the Naval Air Station in Key West. During his 31-year career in the Navy he was ordnance test pilot at the Naval Ordnance Test Station in Inyokern; attended Empire Test Pilot School in Farnbrough, England; was the executive officer of the first Cougar squadron to be deployed, Fighter Squadron 24, embarked on the USS Yorktown (CVA-10); and headed the Navy’s Air Traffic Control Office in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. He was operations officer of Carrier Air Wing Eleven, commanding officer of Attack Squadron 94, of Carrier Wing Nine embarked on USS Ranger (CVA-61), and operations and executive officer of USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14). He attended and was on the staff at the NATO Defense College, in Rome, Italy and retired in 1973 following his tour as the executive officer of the Naval Air Engineering Center in Philadelphia. He passed away in 2005. All items pictured are part of the sale. (Last two photos are reference only). Final Comments: Some incredible history there, sadly we did not find the exploits in detail of Captain Hart although we are happy to offer this on for further study. It is possible at the National Archives there is more information to find out about his career. Some of the patches are incredibly rare, especially the 55th Night Fighter Jacket Patch.   Name Gordon McAllister Hart Gender Male Birth Date 14 Nov 1919 Death Date 9 Feb 2005 Cause of Death Natural SSN 032078136 Enlistment Branch NAVY Enlistment Date 26 Feb 1942 Discharge Date 30 Jun 1973

Grouping to Major General Robert Alexander Commander of the 77th Infantry Division It was the first American division composed of draftees to arrive in France in World War I, landing in April 1918; overall, it was the seventh of 42 divisions to reach the Western Front. The division fought in the Battle of Château-Thierry on 18 July 1918 and later in the Meuse–Argonne offensive, the largest battle in the history of the United States Army, from late September until the Armistice with Germany on November 11, 1918. During its service in France, the 77th Division sustained 10,194 casualties: of these 1,486 men were killed and another 8,708 were wounded. Major General Robert Alexander (October 17, 1863 – August 25, 1941) was a senior United States Army officer. He served in World War I, where he commanded the 77th Infantry Division, in which the famous Lost Battalion served, on the Western Front in 1918. Robert Alexander was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 17, 1863. His parents were Judge and Mrs. William Alexander. His father had been Justice of the Circuit Court of Baltimore City and the Court of Appeals of the State of Maryland. Alexander studied law in the offices of J. B. and Edwin H. Brown in Centreville, Maryland. He attained admission to the bar, but decided against a legal career, instead enlisting in the United States Army’s 4th Infantry Regiment as a private on April 7, 1886. In 1887, he became the first sergeant of his company, and in 1889 received a promotion to second lieutenant. As he rose through the ranks he took part in the American Indian Wars, served in Puerto Rico during the Spanish–American War. He was with the 11th Infantry in 1901 when it was ordered to the Philippines during the Philippine–American War, and he served at Carigara on the island of Leyte. In 1902, he took part in combat against Filipino insurgents on Leyte and Samar, and in one engagement he was wounded by a bolo. During the Pancho Villa Expedition, Alexander served on the Texas–Mexico. At some point he attended both the United States Army War College and the United States Army Command and General Staff College. When the United States joined the Allied forces in World War I, Alexander proved his valor and was able to rise through the ranks. He was also given the responsibility of inspector general in the Zone of Communications from November 1917 to February 1918. Alexander was promoted to brigadier general in February 1918 and then to major general in August 1918. From the headquarters of the 77th Division in France, Alexander was one of the officers who reported on the Lost Battalion incident. A group of around 500 soldiers, in nine companies, had disappeared after going into the Argonne Forest expecting American and French Allied troops to meet them. This had followed an American attack on German forces and, with Major Charles White Whittlesey leading the group, the men found that the French troops had been stalled. As a result, the battalion was cut off by the Germans who surprised them and suffered large losses with only 197 men coming out of the ravine. In the report he states: “General Order Number 30: I desire to publish to the command an official recognition of the valor and extraordinary heroism in action of the officers and enlisted men of the following organizations: Companies A, B, C, E, G, H 308th Infantry Company K 307th Infantry Companies C, D 306th Machine Gun Btln. These organizations, or detachments therefrom, comprised the approximate force of 550 men under command of Major Charles W. Whittlesey, which was cut off from the remainder of the Seventy-Seventh Division and surrounded by a superior number of the enemy near Charlevaux, in the Forest d’Argonne, from the morning of October 3, 1918, to the night of October 7, 1918. Without food for more than one hundred hours, harassed continuously by machine gun, rifle, trench mortar and grenade fire, Major Whittlesey’s command, with undaunted spirit and magnificent courage, successfully met and repulsed daily violent attacks by the enemy. They held the position which had been reached by supreme efforts, under orders received for an advance, until communication was re-established with friendly troops. When relief finally came, approximately 194 officers and men were able to walk out of the position. Officers and men killed numbered 107. On the fourth day a written proposition to surrender received from the Germans was treated with the contempt which it deserved. The officers and men of these organizations during these five days of isolation continually gave unquestionable proof of extraordinary heroism and demonstrated the high standard and ideals of the United States Army. Robert Alexander, Major General, US Army Commanding” April 15, 1919 In France, he commanded the 41st Division, 63rd Infantry Brigade, and the 77th Division.[1] He commanded the 77th from August 1918 onwards, including during the Meuse–Argonne offensive, where he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) in October for heroism at Grandpré, Ardennes. The medal’s citation reads: The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Major General Robert Alexander, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with 77th Division, A.E.F., near Grand Pre, France, 11 October 1918. During the advance in the Argonne Forest and at a time when his forces were fatigued by the stress of battle and a long period of active front-line service, Major General Alexander visited the units in the front line, cheering and encouraging them to greater efforts. Unmindful of the severe fire to which he was subjected, he continued until he had inspected each group. His utter disregard of danger and inspiring example resulted in the crossing of the Aire and the capture of Grand Pre and St. Juvin.[4] He was also awarded the Croix de Guerre (France), two citations and was made a Commander of the Legion of Honor…

An incredible pocket litter of a Paratrooper… All items photographed belonged to pfc Charles W. Main who was in the Headquarters Company of the 82nd Airborne Division. Interestingly, he was in Berlin in 1945 and was issued a multilingual pass for free movement in Berlin. It comes with his original Parachute Infantry Side Cap Insignia as pictured.  I have not seen many WWII US Pocket Litter Groupings like this come up often. He is listed on find a grave: He was born June 9, 1921, in Tipton, Indiana, to Arthur D. & Theresa (Landseadel) Main. On August 31, 1941, he married Elizabeth Ann Nicholson and she died January 31, 2006. He worked as a tool engineer at General Motors, retiring in 1972. Charles was a past member of the Masons in Anderson and the Tipton Elks. He was a member of the first golf team at Tipton High School. He served in the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne during WWII and received the Purple Heart. According to research main was enlisted in 1943. See below for his details from his enlistment. Name Charles W Main Race White Marital Status Married Rank Private Birth Year 1921 Nativity State or Country Indiana Citizenship Citizen Education 4 years of high school Civil Occupation Semiskilled filers, grinders, buffers, and polishers (metal) Enlistment Date 9 Dec 1943 Enlistment Place Indianapolis, Indiana Service Number 35900568