THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 30, 1994 TAG: 9407300184
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STAFF REPORT
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
More than 1,500 current and former paratroopers and their families are expected in Norfolk for the 82nd Airborne Division Association's 48th annual convention Aug. 11-14.
An airborne assault demonstration by an infantry battalion task force from the 82nd is scheduled at 10 a.m. Aug. 11 at the Navy's Fentress Air Field in Chesapeake. The event will be free and open to the public.
Maj. Gen. William Mike Steele, the division's commanding general, is expected to lead his paratroopers in the drop.
The convention will highlight the 50th anniversary of the paratroopers' 1944 D-Day drop in Normandy. The assaults were vital to the strategic advantage the Normandy campaign brought to the allied forces of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower.
``The drop at Fentress will demonstrate the fundamentals that were key to the successes of the Normandy landings,'' said Hans Rosenstock, co-chairman of the convention.
``We hope the public will come and see firsthand today's modern Army attacks from the sky. While aircraft and weapons have been modernized, the basic tactics of airborne assault are relatively unchanged,'' Rosenstock said.
The convention also will honor the memory of 23 paratroopers from the 82nd who were killed at Pope Air Force Base adjacent to Fort Bragg, home of the 82nd, in North Carolina. The 23 paratroopers were killed in March when they were hit by flaming debris from a jet crash.
The Howard Johnson Hotel-Norfolk will be headquarters for the convention. Several functions also will be held at the Waterside Convention Center and the Quality Inn-Lake Wright.
For more information on the convention, call Hans Rosenstock at 461-5522. by CNB