sburke Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Came across a picture in my father's files that I believe belongs to an Uncle who passed away years ago. It is a lion lying in the grass, the note on reverse side says " lion at Grafenwoher 45th Field Artillery Mascot. Googling has come up dry. Anybody have an idea on what unit that might actually be or when? It is an old pic, I am guessing maybe the 50s, possibly older (Uncle served in ww2, his son served in 1960s, but in Marine Corp.) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonS Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 (edited) The 45th Field Artillery Battalion was - in 1944/45 - a 105mm towed howitzer battalion, part of 8th Inf Div. AFAICT, the 45th returned to the US on 9 Jul 45. The bn got battle streamers for 'Central Europe', 'Normandy', 'Northern France', and 'Rhineland'. (source: Stanton, WWII Order of Battle) Grafenwoher (a.k.a. Grafenwöhr) is a military training area in south east Germany. 8th Inf Div ended the war in northern Germany, almost on the Baltic. I expect they got punted down south into the US Zone of Occupation almost as soon as the war ended. My guess is that the photo was taken immediately after the war - sometime in June 1945 - when things were still a bit wild and loose. One of the privates or junior officers probably stole the lion from the local zoo, and it hung around because it got fed regularly. Edited January 30, 2015 by JonS 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted January 31, 2015 Author Share Posted January 31, 2015 The 45th Field Artillery Battalion was - in 1944/45 - a 105mm towed howitzer battalion, part of 8th Inf Div. AFAICT, the 45th returned to the US on 9 Jul 45. The bn got battle streamers for 'Central Europe', 'Normandy', 'Northern France', and 'Rhineland'. (source: Stanton, WWII Order of Battle) Grafenwoher (a.k.a. Grafenwöhr) is a military training area in south east Germany. 8th Inf Div ended the war in northern Germany, almost on the Baltic. I expect they got punted down south into the US Zone of Occupation almost as soon as the war ended. My guess is that the photo was taken immediately after the war - sometime in June 1945 - when things were still a bit wild and loose. One of the privates or junior officers probably stole the lion from the local zoo, and it hung around because it got fed regularly. Thanks, I'll see about scanning and posting. Kind of funky historical artifact. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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