How This Website Came Into Being
This website is dedicated to the memories of the soldiers of the 567th AAA Battalion who fought in WWII. My father Chester Charles Schliep served in this Battalion. I am his daughter Renee (Schliep) Winklmann. The idea for this website came to me as I was going through old boxes of photographs and papers that I inherited from my parents after their death. I came across two typewritten documents: One about the Battalion in general and the other about Battery A of the Battalion. The paper that they were on is now much yellowed, so I retyped the documents onto my laptop. I have tried to copy everything verbatim, but occasionally it was difficult to make out some of the text. PDFs of these two originals can be viewed via the index on this page.
The 567th's insignia is shown in the upper left corner of this web page. It is a “Red Jackass”. It's origins are explained in the second edition of the battalion's newspaper “The Muzzleburst”. The patch in the upper right corner is an army Anti‐Aircraft artillery patch.
The contents of this website are listed in the index to the left. Please note that many of the indices in the index refer to a PDF. Depending upon how you have your browser set up, these files may be opened in a new tab of your browser or you may have to access them in your download folder. So, if you click on an index and you are not transferred anywhere, you will need to retreive the PDF document from your download folder.
The “March Order” of the battalion was printed and published in Épernay, France while the various U.S. army units were awaiting transport back to the United States. Their stay there after the end of the war seems to have lasted somewhere between three and six months. The members of the 567th were quite scattered in different tent “city” camps there. However, during their stay there several members of each battery and headquarter's battery began publishing a newspaper for the whole battalion. Publication of “The Muzzleburst” began in Forchheim, Germany and continued (as far as I know) until the beginning of September 1945. The “March Order” of the battalion was published by the staff of “The Muzzleburst” about five months after VE Day.
“The Informal History of the Battalion” seems to have been the brain child of Edward F. Meany, 1st Lt, C.A.C. of Able Battery. This was one of the two battalion‐related documents that my father had in his possession. It is unclear to me if it was “issued” to various soldiers while they were in Europe or if my father later obtained a copy at one of the stateside reunions of the 567th.
Even though our family lived in Oregon, my father and mother attended several battalion reunions which were always held somewhere on the East coast. In July of 1989 my father and my mother attended the 40th annual reunion in Savannah, Georgia. Among the documents that they returned with was a roster of the 567th's members. By my estimates there are about 760 names on the roster. I also found a list of around 78 men for whom the Association had insufficient addresses. That would bring the total number of men close to 840. This would seem to be about the correct size of the battalion, however, I do know the names of a handful of men that do not appear on either list. And in one case, I have also found that the battery that the soldier was supposed to have been in was incorrect. So, the list is incomplete and has some errors. Some of this could be due to transfers that happened in and out of the battalion.
“Able Battery” is the second of two battalion‐related documents that my father had in his possession. Like the first document, it is unclear where it was printed and distributed. And, unfortunately, the writer(s) did not put his name on it so the author is unknown.
The information that I have on “Baker Battery” comes from two PDFs that I found on the Internet. It is not clear when these PDFs were posted on the Internet, but it seems to have been posted by the children and/or grandchildren of Cpl. Adam E. Yancey of Battery “B”.
The information that I have on “Charlie Battery” comes from a website which was posted in 2011 and 2012 by the daughter of a soldier who served in the battalion in Charlie Battery.
“Dog Battery” was an MS Word document that I found on the Internet while searching for more information about the 567th Battalion. Its authors appear to be Gilbert V. Stoddard and Milton Neil Proctor both of Dog Battery. I have included more information on my research into this document at the end of the document itself. Click on “Dog Battery” in the index for more information.
As mentioned above, “The Muzzleburst” was a weekly newspaper that was published in Europe by a staff of soldiers from the various batteries of the 567th. The issues that my father had in his possession were issues 1 through 4, issues 7 through 10, and issue 12. If anyone out there has any of the missing issues, please let me know as I would love to scan them into PDF format and post them on this website. The newspaper issues make for very interesting reading and were quite professionally done. They contained current news, a letter from the editor, a chaplain's column, a public forum, reviews of books and movies that were available, who went on leave and where, cartoon drawings, discussions over whether or not wives should work outside of the home, and results of the four batteries plus headquarter battery's baseball games.
In 1949 the 567th Battalion held its first annual reunion since the end of the war. My parents attended several of these annual reunions. Along with posting the printed programs from the 19th, 35th, and 40th annual reunions, I have posted other paraphernalia obtained at these reunions.
The “Images & Photographs” section of this website contains images of places and things that were mentioned in the various documents that were at my disposal. They are displayed in chronological order, i.e. corresponding to the battalion's beginning in 1943 up through September of 1945. The majority of these images I have copied from the Internet. In each of those cases I have given credit to and links to the websites from which they came. Also included are a few photos that my father took.
Instructions on how to obtain copies of images and print documents that appear on this website are given as the last entry in the index on this page.
I would like to collect more information on the 567th. If it exists, I would like to obtain a copy of the history of Charlie Battery. I have located documents about Baker and Dog batteries that were posted on the Internet and I have re‐posted them on this website. There is also a book that was published about Dog battery, but it is out of print. I found several Internet links to it. A copy seems to reside in the archives of the Alden Library at Ohio University in Athens, OH. Two authors are listed: Milton Neil Proctor (Dog battery) and Gilbert V. Stoddard (Dog Battery). Its title is History of the 567 AAA AW BN (M).
For your information, my name is Renee (Schliep) Winklmann, the daughter of Chester and Vivian Schliep who are
now deceased. I currently reside in Firestone, Colorado. If you would like to contact me, please email me
at:
renee.schliep@gmail.com.