Martin Webber's son, Tom Webber, a Senior Biologist at the Florida Museum of Natural History, sent in a few photos of his father. Tom offered the following comments:

"Martin was a member of the class of 04-1942. He was born 16 September 1914 in Palmyra Indiana and enlisted 21 May 1941 in Los Angeles California.

"On the back of the photo from Fort Lewis he wrote, 'Private Martin W. Webber / 3923661 / Field Telephone Wireman / 7th Signal Company / 7th Infantry Division USA / Taken during Field Exercises of 7th Inf. Div. at Fort Lewis / Washington - late summer 1941'."

Tom said that he had no information about the picture from Fort Ord, except that it was one of a series in which there seemed to be a certain amount of levity going on.

"The last shows dad getting his Bronze Star. This is an official Army photo, and on the back it says, 'Capt Martin W Webber, 4341 Melbourne / Ave., Los Angeles Cal., is awarded the Bronze Star by Maj Gen William / S Rumbough, Chief Signal Officer in the ETO, at Paris, France'.

"The holster: My dad told me about this only once, perhaps thirty years ago, and as I recall he said it was a wartime gift from his confreres in the French signal corps. The standard-issue holster itself would have been a common item then, so the special feature is the customizing, done by hand in ink and even some paint, much eroded now. I have not been able to find any information about a logo like the one shown here. I'll be interested to see if any of your viewers can throw light on it.

"I've included only a few other photos, just sufficient to bracket the war years:

"In the late 1930's dad was living with his family in L.A., but this scene does not look like any southern California mountains I'm familiar with. It looks most to me like the east side of the Sierra Nevada. The car appears to be a 1935 Ford roadster, in fine condition of course given my dad's penchant for taking care of things. At the time he was working as an installer for Pacific Telephone. I suppose that had something to do with how he wound up in the Signal Corps.

"In 1946, right after discharge, dad met and just like that married Doris Lorraine Burger (my mother), who lived next door to his sister in Glendale. She was also a WWII vet, a Navy WAVE. (This might be going too far afield for your site, but I have and could send what I consider to be a radiant picture of her in her Navy blues.)

"Well alright, a bit outside the brackets. The last one shows mom and dad in 1980 at one of the Getty museums near L.A. Such an outfit he's wearing.

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Additional photos and comments received at ArmySignalOCS on 15 August 2012:

Here are another two that might fit. On the back of the photo from London Martin wrote, "Capt. Martin W. Webber, 0-454487, U.S. Army Signal Corps, Office of the Chief Signal Officer, European Theater. Westminster Bridge and Houses of Parliament, London, England -- 1944, prior to Allied invasion of Continent."

Last time I mentioned a photo of mom in a blue Navy uniform. Here is one I like even better. Mom and dad married on 7 December 1946 and were together until he died in January 2000. I never heard a cross word between them. [Editor's Note: Pictured, Yeoman 2nd Class Lorraine Burger Webber, USN]

Tom Webber

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