Capture Certificate find

[Devious6]

Several years ago, my father-in-law gave me a pistol he'd acquired from a relative. My father-in-law was a WWII vet who passed away last year. The pistol is a WWII -era Belgian Hi-Power. Unfortunately, it had been chromed at some point. I have had it stripped and reworked(except the gunsmith also blued the barrel instead of leaving it in the white...another project for me) since the value was killed when it was chromed.

Today, though, my wife was working on cleaning out the stable of our property - bought from my inlaws right before I retired from the Army. Her dad kept all kinds of stuff there and she found a manila envelope with papers. As I looked at them tonight when I got home, two of them jumped right out at me - capture certificates. And, when I saw the description...bingo. They are for the Hi Power. Score!!

Information

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[browningautorifle]

Excellent. Provenance at last.

[henry r]

do the binoculars still exist too? it would be awesome to have the complete set.

any history of how he got them?

[Devious6]

I've never seen the binoculars. All we know is that Edmund Satulla was my father-in-law's cousin. I found his enlistment info on the NARA site and also his obituary (he passed away in July of 2010). My father-in-law only told me that the Hi Power was given to his father by his cousin and then passed down. I have no info about Edmund, his service or any of the story.

Interestingly, the unit that issued the first certificate was the 741st Railway Operating Battalion. There's not a lot of history out there on those units. Also, since Edmund enlisted in 1943 and the ROB was not activated until 1945, I assume he served in some other unit(s) before that - assuming he was even assigned to the 741st and not just processing through them on his way back to the US.

The second certificate was signed by a 2LT from the 407th Infantry. The date of the document correlates to the deactivation of the 741st ROB, which also lends some support hat Edmund was assigned to it and then began his journey back to the US when it was deactivated. This certificate identifies the caliber of the pistol as 7.65 - obviously wrong - but it does properly identify the SN of the Hi Power.