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Bell is heavy. It’s made of Cast Iron. No cracks. Just some surface rust. Looks to be complete. Kicker is inside along with bracket for mounting.
Through an extensive amount of read h I believe this is a D day invasion Bell manufactured by Hillsboro’s C.S. Bell Company:
“D-Day and Memorial Day are significant in United States history, and both are directly linked to The C.S. Bell Company in Hillsboro, Ohio.
Noted historian Jean Wallis pointed out in her 1970s research the implications of The C.S. Bell Company supplying tens of thousands of bells to the allied forces during World War II.
‘The most famous bell that the company made,” Wallis wrote, is “a nine and three-quarter inch bell weighing 20 pounds and known as the invasion bell.
“These bells were used before dawn broke through the pitch black of the morning of June 6, 1944. The Allied invasion of 4,000 landing craft moving across the choppy channel amidst the fog and rain used thousands of invasion bells made in Hillsboro.”
Wallis pointed out that, “These bells rang out the signals between the landing craft as they made their way to the coast and the sandy beaches of Normandy, beginning the greatest military operation of all time.”
Thank you, Jean, for preserving these precious nuggets of history.
The whole invasion fleet, drawn from eight different navies, was comprised of 6,939 vessels: 1,213 warships, 4,126 landing craft of various types, 736 ancillary craft and 864 merchant vessels. The vast majority of warships and landing craft were outfitted with cast iron bells made in Hillsboro by C.S. Bell Company workers.”
