1943 Harley Davidson Pictures
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Many thanks to Don Craig of Saranac, NY for this great picture. It shows his dad, Donald J. Craig, on his Harley, probably in the Mojave Desert near Needles, California around 1943. Judging by the fender lettering on other pictures, he was with the 9th Armored Division, 52nd Armored Infantry Battalion, Headquarters Company. Probably a motor messenger. The story, as Don understands it, was that he and a couple of others used to test drive these in the desert. The 9th Armored Division was activated on July 15, 1942, at Fort Riley, Kansas…then to the Mojave Desert for more training…then to Fort Polk, Louisiana…then deployed to England and Europe in 1944. By then a 2nd lieutenant, he was wounded in the leg and captured at the Battle of the Bulge and was a guest of the German Army at a prison camp in Limburg, Belgium, until it was liberated near the end of the war.
