This photograph (left) from the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader edition of June 5, 1942 shows Lieutenant Harry F. Welsh in the get-up of a paratrooper in training at Fort Benning, Georgia.
The image ran with this caption:
Mr. Welsh, son of Mr. and Mrs. F.X. Welsh of 318 Academy Street, a former employee at Luzerne County Commissioners’ Office, has received his silver wings as a parachutist after extensive tests conducted at Fort Benning, Ga.
He is a graduate of Meyers High School and widely known through this region as a swimmer, having twice won State championships in diving.
He entered the service of the United States Army on January 20 [1942], and after completing this preliminary training petitioned for transfer to the parachute troops.
Two years and one day after this photograph appeared in Welsh’s hometown newspaper, Lieutenant Harry Welsh jumped into Normandy with Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division – the organization later made famous by Stephen Ambrose’s book and the subsequent HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.
Harry Welsh was portrayed in the series by actor Rick Warden. (Photographed at right above)
Welsh survived the war and traveled home to Wilkes-Barre where he lived until his death in 1995.
Read more about Harry Welsh and Band of Brothers
Lieutenant Harry Welsh of ‘Band of Brothers’ – Wounded at Bastogne on Christmas Eve, 1944
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