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Show First Yank Shell Enroute To U. S. MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. Forty surviving members of Battery B, 151st Field Artillery, 37the Division, Divi-sion, which fired the first American Amer-ican shot in World War II in Europe, are looking forward to the arrival here of the case of that first shell. It is being forwarded for-warded from Belfast, Ireland, to Lt. Col. Eugene E. Surdyk of Minneapolis, who as a captain commanded the battery at a firing fir-ing practice in the Sperrin Mountains Moun-tains in North Ireland, February 21, 1942. The shell case was saved by Staff Sergeant John C. Brunette. Later it was engraved with the roster of the battery. When the battery embarked for North Africa, Af-rica, the case was turned over for safekeeping to D. Hall Christie, Chris-tie, former mayor of Coleraine, North Ireland. The battery fought in the African campaign, at Salerno, Cassino, the Anzio Beach head, through the Po Valley Val-ley to the Alps. In its 45 months of overseas service, lt had more than GOO days. of combat and lost 13 members killed in action. Before shipping the case, Christie placed inside it a bottle of fine old Irish whisky. The case will remain sealed until only three survivors of the battery i ' are left. They are then to drink a toast to their comrades who have gone on. Colonel Surdyk is now arranging arrang-ing the first of a series of annual Last Man's Club dinners of the battery. |