The World War One Diary & Art of Doughboy Cpl. Harold W. Pierce, edited by William J. Welch

Posted by on Sep 8, 2025 in | Comments Off on The World War One Diary & Art of Doughboy Cpl. Harold W. Pierce, edited by William J. Welch The World War One Diary & Art of Doughboy Cpl. Harold W. Pierce Duty, Terror and Survival edited by William J. Welch Pen & Sword, 224 pp., hardcover $37.95 Cpl. Harold Pierce’s diary is a fascinating glimpse of army life in a combat division in the First World War. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Pierce joined the 28th “Keystone” Division in 1917 and served through the armistice in...
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Three Days in Hell: The 28th Infantry Division and the Battle of the Bulge

Posted by on Feb 24, 2025 in | Comments Off on Three Days in Hell: The 28th Infantry Division and the Battle of the Bulge The 28th Infantry Division is the oldest continually serving division in the United States Army. It traces its roots to the Associators, a collection of volunteer militia groups first organized throughout Colonial America beginning in 1747. These units served Pennsylvania and the nation through the Revolutionary War, the early National period conflicts, and the Civil War. In 1879 Pennsylvania...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Feb 21, 2025 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter In the Spring 2024 edition of Pennsylvania Heritage, we looked at the World War II experience of Steelton’s Thomas Mosley, one of the first Black men to serve in the U.S. Marines since the Revolutionary War. In this issue we continue our focus on World War II as we approach the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge and highlight the role of Pennsylvanians in that decisive conflict. In the...
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From the Susquehanna to the Rhine: The Military Career of Daniel Strickler in Two World Wars

Posted by on Nov 30, 2020 in | Comments Off on From the Susquehanna to the Rhine: The Military Career of Daniel Strickler in Two World Wars “Hold at all costs.” It’s an order no commander wants to give. It is certainly unwelcome — and perhaps even terrifying — to the subordinate who receives it. The phrase was used on the morning of December 16, 1944, at the headquarters for the 28th Infantry Division in Wiltz, Luxembourg. Maj. Gen. Norman Cota (1893–1971), the commander of the 28th, issued the order during the initial phase of the...
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Soldiers to Governors: World War II

Posted by on Nov 25, 2020 in | Comments Off on Soldiers to Governors: World War II More than 1 million Pennsylvanians served in the Armed Forces during World War II. Five of these servicemembers would later be elected as Pennsylvania’s governor. Carrying on the great American tradition of citizen-soldiers, these civilians or members of the National Guard left their homes and families to volunteer to fight for their country during a crucial period in history. The Pennsylvania...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Nov 23, 2020 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter This edition of Pennsylvania Heritage was produced mostly through teleworking, as all of us in the Keystone State — and the world — have been in the midst of what already has become one of the most momentous episodes in contemporary history. In the devastating weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, every realm of human existence has been profoundly affected. As we continue through the crisis, history...
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William Curtis Truxal’s Footlocker

Posted by on Nov 12, 2019 in | Comments Off on William Curtis Truxal’s Footlocker William Curtis Truxal (1882–1960) was a 34-year-old attorney residing in Somerset when the Pennsylvania National Guard unit he commanded, Company C of the 10th Infantry Regiment, was mustered into federal service for World War I on July 15, 1917. A graduate of Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, he had first enlisted in the guard as a private in February 1914, and by October of that...
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Trails to the 28th Infantry Division National Shrine

Posted by on Nov 12, 2019 in | Comments Off on Trails to the 28th Infantry Division National Shrine The year 2018 marks the centennial of the last year of World War I and the 100th anniversary of the Armistice of November 11, 1918, that ended the war’s active combat. (The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended the war between Germany and the Allies, was signed in June of the following year.) Memorializing those lost in the war was an important step in putting the Great War in the past....
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The Sacrifices of Company C: Somerset County’s Valiant Soldiers in the Great War

Posted by on Nov 11, 2019 in | Comments Off on The Sacrifices of Company C: Somerset County’s Valiant Soldiers in the Great War In spring 2004 a resident of Somerset in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, chanced upon an aged postcard that had fallen behind a dresser many years before. Dated November 7, 1918, the postcard had been sent by the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland, and was addressed to “the Family of Herbert Foust,” a soldier of Company C, 110th Infantry Regiment, a Pennsylvania...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Nov 5, 2019 in | Comments Off on Editor’s Letter Forty some years ago, when I was in elementary school, I took a field trip with my science class to The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg to see the dioramas of Pennsylvania’s wildlife in Mammal Hall. Walking around the dark, circular gallery, I peered through windows into the fascinating, realistic habitats of 13 mammals, from the common to the locally extinct, and was transported to...
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