Telegram reporting the Death of Sande Harrington Martin

Gift of Penny Ellis, 2010.163

Sande Harrington Martin served in the Medical Detachment of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He was killed in action on July 10, 1943 in the invasion of Sicily. Over three hundred Americans were killed or wounded in the initial days of the invasion, many from one of the deadliest friendly fire incidents of the war. Sande's mother wrote him a letter (later returned) on the very same day the chaplain of the 504th was writing her a condolence letter. It would regularly take anxious families weeks, even months, to learn the fate of their loved ones.