The 24th Website, www.24thida.com
by Tom J. Thiel, Webmaster, 19147 Park Place Blvd., Eustis, FL 32736-7262, 352-357-3943 24thidaweb[at]gmail.com
The 24th IDA Website is operating very well. It has now grown to 530 MB and contains 1,821 files. A file can be any picture or document or web page, and it can vary from a single photograph or page of text to an entire book.
Largest repository of 24th Infantry Division information on Internet!
Books added:
- “South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu,” by Roy Appleman; 852 pages, one file
- "Children of Yesterday, The 24th Infantry Division In World War II,” by Jan Valtin, 429 pages
- "24th Forward, A Pictorial History of the Victory Division in Korea" (1952) book, 375 pages
- So, those three files alone contain 1,656 or so pages
Estimate, guestimate, that there are somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 pages, illustrations and photographs on the website.
POW/MIA information.
- Special POW/MIA Taro Leaf
- The list of the 1,005 lost 24th ID members in alphabetic and date order in addition to the single one published
- This facilitates looking for a single individual, or for casualties by date
- Begun building stories of member responses
Taro Leaf Publication
- Vol 01, No 01, the initial Taro Leaf from August 1947
- Many others from then through 2003
- Beginning with 2004 through today it has all published Taro Leafs
- I have many prior to 2003 but need to scan them, which takes time and effort
- These all have the full text of the document, and if published in color they are retained in color
- The full text is searchable with Google or Bing Search engines
Member’s Stories
- Members have written stories of their unique, first-hand experiences that are not published anywhere else,
- One of my main motivations for doing the site—to get these to audience >> 2,100 members
- Approached librarians, The LoC, on how best to achieve
- All advised me to put it on the World Wide Web
- So, that is what I did
- Eighty+ stories by 24th IDA members on the site
- Continue building these yet today
Association Honor Roll by Wes Morrison
- Very valuable and unique information, much appreciated
- 5th RCT and WWII
- Wes is working on Korean War
- Look forward to the time when Wes has it finished
Forms
- Quartermaster
- Membership Application
Finding items on our website
- No capability from inside the site
- But very “findable” from the outside – any word or string of characters anywhere on the site will be found with a general Google or Bing search!
- Every time I search for 24th specific information our site is included high among the websites retrieved
- often will be the first several listings!
- We are out there in the world and people are finding us!
Encourage all members to find a way to view it
- You really should know what is on “your site”
- First hand, or
- Via a relative or perhaps at your local library
- You will be proud I think
- Just enter www.24thida,web in your browser and follow the menus
Association owns the site
- Unlike a previous 24th IDA site
- Lunar Pages.com. The Domain Name ~ $20.00 per year and the Host Site (where the site is actually stored) ~ $85.00 per year.
- Sec Dunn has the passwords and access codes.
- Created and maintain with my copy of Microsoft Expression Web 4.0 on my computer
- Upload additions and changes to Lunar pages hostcomputer
- EW 4 creates a standards-compliant website so anyone could take over in the future should I no longer be able.
Material for the site
- Always want more material,
- But I now have material that has not yet been loaded.
Cooperation
- David Valley, Editor, and
- Merry Helm, Historian,
- both freely share material, which is a first for the Association at least since I have become involved with it.
Tom Thiel, Webmaster