Felix
Belois Mestas, Jr. was
my uncle.
He died in the invasion
of Itlay campaign. His
bravery that day was
investigated for a Medal
of Honor Citation and
after years of delay
he was awarded the Silver
Star Medal. Later, a
mountain in southern
Colorado near his home
was renamed Mt.Mestas
in
his honor.
In
2001 I learned how to
make websites. One of
the first websites I
put up was MtMestas.com,
a small 50 page website
about my uncle and the
88th Infantry Division.
Not long after, people
from all over the world
started contacting me
for more information
about the 88th Infantry
Division for their own
family research or from
World War II relic hunters
in Italy researching
the movements of the
divisions that fought
in their area.
Within a year, the MtMestas.com
website had grown to
some 1000 pages of unit
histories, historical
narratives, rare publications,
monographs and pictures.
Too many questions and
not enough time led
a few years later to
my converting most of
the files to the keyword
searchable PDF document
format and publishing
it all to CD and putting
it up on eBay so people
could easily do their
own research.
Along the way I also
collected files on all
the other divisions
and have likewise taken
on the mission of publishing
a "Researching
World War II" CD
on each of the over
100 Divisions who saw
action during World
War II.
Along
with my other three
ww2 websites WorldWar2Files.com,
MtmestasMemorialMonument.com
and MtMestas.com, this
will be my fourth website.
The
purpose of this website
is that I've been looking
for a method to provide
for these files after
I die. I'm not there
yet but the situatuation
is, I'm getting older
and nobody in my family
has an interest in what
I'm doing and when the
time comes that I do
die, all these files
along with my many personal
effects, will undoubtedly
be tossed into some
rented dumpster.
I've
spent the last few years
looking for a suitable
steward of these Archive
files that would promise
to maintain them into
perpertuity but even
if I did find someone
there's no guarantees.
So,
I've decided my solution
will be to forgo any
further sales of my
88th CDs, publish this
88th Archive website
and spend the next few
years promoting the
website, populating
the internet with links
to the Archive, etc.,
and getting these files
into the hands of the
people who would want
them.
That,
along with the maximum
9 year allowable prepaid
domain registration
and website hosting
to keep the website
online, should provide
for the security and
access to this Archive
in perputity.
I hope
you enjoy the new website.
It'll be under construction
for a little while as
I continue to search
through and organize
the files to publish.
About 90% of the reading
files are up now and
next will be the Rosters,
Photos, General Orders
(Promotions), Names,
Bios, Obits, Trench
Art and Collectables
sections.
Feel
free to send an email
of your comments and
requests or if you have
something you want to
contribute to the website.
If something you want
to know about isn't
back up yet, send me
a note and I'll see
if I can send it to
you or publish it to
the website soon.
Ciao'
mates,
Gary
Smith
www.88thInfantryDivisionArchive.com
17 May,
2021
