CE bo i Emmett Hoover recalls 6-6-44 J YR y @ By JACK HILSHER Post Correspondent There arg 80 “Hoovers” in Wyoming Valley, 32 in the Back Mountain and ex-Private 1st Class Emmett Hoover Sr. of Troxell Switch Road (two girls, four boys and seven grandchildren) is cer- tainly responsible for a baker's dozen of them. But in the early 40s Hoover wasn't sure he'd ever have a family, or a home either. Back then Hoover, at 21, was “going steady,” planning marriage, and had dug the cellar for a home he hoped to build. Then every- thing went on hold when his Uncle Sam invited him to join the army at Fort Meade, Md. There they marched him down to Camp Hill, Va., and later sent him off to England. He trained with the 115th In- fantry Regiment of the 29th Divi- See HOOVER, pg 8 This ls Jo Corkify That EMMETT L HOOVER ~~ 33175128 PFC Grade Name WAS A MEMBER OF THE LY" INFANTRY DIVISION JUNE 1944, AND SERVED ON D-DAY, WITH ASN. JT CONTINUOUSLY. UINTIL THE CAPTURE OF -ST.LO ON 48. JULY 1944 C.H.GERHARDT, MAJOR GENERAL, U.S. ARMY, COMMANDING PROUD REMINDER - Like all the men in nis unit, Emmett Hoover received a certificate from their commanding officer, Major General C.H. Gerhardt, following the invasion of Normandy. Reporter's notebook Grace R. Dove Stories from Normandy and beyond during WWII My generation grew up during the 50s on our parents’ and rela- tives’ World War II stories, and war movies ranging from the comic What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? to the dramatic The Long- est Day, Tobruk and The Great Escape. The favorite TV fare, at least in our house, included Combat, The Gallant Men and the award-win- ning documentary Victory at Seq, which my dad, Harry Richie, en- joyed watching with us, pointing out actual film footage spliced into the story line. . ‘Sometimes he'd share stories of his tour of duty in France with an Army medical unit and show us some of his old black and white photos, but it wasn't until I spoke with him, heard his taped remi- Vietnam vets tend watchfire By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff To honor the 50th anniversary of D-Day and to remember Viet- nam's POWs and MIAs, the Viet- nam Veterans of America Chapter 539 built a watchfire on the grounds of the American Legion Daddow-Isaacs Post 672 at dusk May 29, tending it until the next morning. “Watchfires were used in the American Revolution to guide lost soldiers back to camp,” said John Tasco, who had read about them in a veterans’ magazine and sug- gested that his organization light one. “It's part of a continuous chain of fires up and down the East Coast this weekend. We're using it as a spiritual beacon for the POW’s and MIA's who never made it home from Vietnam. We're also niscences and studied his photos more closely that I better under- stood the hardships the men and women serving during that time experienced. Dad described how he had enlisted in the Army on February 14, 1942, in Newark, NJ. After graduating from basic training at Fort Dix, NJ, he was assigned to the personnel department of Fort Dix’s Tilton General Hospital. “I started out as an office flunkie and worked my way up to Tech Sergeant within a year,” he said. “At first I had to memorize lots of thick books on regulations. One day when I saw a guy sitting at a typewriter doing the payroll, I said See NORMANDY, pg 5 PHOTO COURTESY OF HARRY J. RICHIE BUDDIES — TSgt. Ed Pender, left, and TSgt. Harry J. Richie, right, with their jeep by the hedgerows of Normandy in July, 1944. Dad had written, “Just Pender and me, and our jeep makes three” on the back of the photo fifty years ago. POST PHOTO/GRACE R. DOVE THE WATCHFIRES OF A HUNDRED CIRCLING CAMPS - Vietnam veterans Greg Scholes, Ch- ester Kunigonis, John Charney and John Tasco, members of the Vietnam Veterans of America See WATCHFIRES, pg2 Chapter 539, tend an all-night watchfire May 29 in honor of Memorial Day and the POWs and MIAs. Saga of sl 3 Wednesday, June 1, 1994 D-Day familiar to most But some think of Pearl Harbor By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff Most, but not all, people ques- tioned randomly about D-Day knew what it was and what it meant to the Allied victory in World War II. Four Dallas High School students and nine adults were asked what they knew about D- Day and why its observance this year is so important. “We learned about that when we studied World War II in Mr. Jayne's sixth-grade history class,” said seniors Pat Scoble and Steve Lieberman, both 17 years old. “That's when the Allies invaded Normandy.” Scoble said his grandfather probably served in the armed forces during that time. “One of my father’s employees was there,” Lieberman said. Juniors Beth Delscavage, 16, and Kathleen Krench, 17, said they had studied the war in tenth grade. “It was a big turning point in World War II,” Beth said. “My grandfather was in the Air Force then.” “It was a major battle,” Kath- leen said. “My grandfather was in the Army in Europe, but he never talked about it.” Three people in the parking lot of the Dallas Post Office said they See D-DAY, pg 8 Franklin Township road issue in limbo By GRACE R. DOVE Post Staff After nearly a year of wrangling and research, the status of three Franklin Township roads remains in limbo. Last summer residents of the Crown Hill development had asked the township and Luzerne County to upgrade and pave Crown, Hill and Farmview drives, which are little more than 1 1/2 lane dirt tracks. The Luzerne County commis- sioners, county solicitors Rich Goldberg and Neil O'Donnell and engineer Jim Brozena met May 25 to again discuss Crown Hill's plight. No one is certain who owns Crown Hill's roads - Luzerne County, Franklin Township or someone else. The development, home to 30 families, was apparently set up with a corporation owning “vari- ous parcels ofland,” which turned out to be the roads. When the corporation didn't pay the property taxes on the three roads, the county inherited them through the tax claim bu- reau. Brozena says that he didn't know until last summer that the “parcels of land” were actually roads. They aren't officially listed on the county's road docket, he said. “I don't know if this will ever be resolved unless they go into litiga- tion over it and a judge makes a legal decision,” he said. Brozena has offered to grade the three roads to meet minimum state standards for gravel roads, but the Franklin Township super- visors have refused the offer. They want the county to pave the roads because they say the township can't afford to do it. After the May 25 meeting, Crown Hill resident Joe O’Don- nell told the Citizens’ Voice that he had received “a verbal com- mittment” from county solicitors Richard Goldberg and Neil O'Don- nell (no relation) that Luzerne County would pave the three roads. Goldbergdenied that any agree- ment was reached. “As a solicitor, I don't have the authority to make any commit- ments on behalf of Luzerne County,” he said. Neil O'Donnell was not avail- able for comment. See ROADS, pg 2 H 'In Your Eyes’ was theme of the Lake-Lehman prom last Friday. Photos on page 14. HM Title tilts Dallas and Lehman will play for district AAA and AA baseball crowns. 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