Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman and their Descendants

Ralph Holliman, the War Sweeps over the Holliman Family… Part III
by Glenn N. Holliman

The successful days of high school closed for Ralph in 1942.  When a sophomore at Shades Cahaba in Birmingham, Alabama, Germany invaded Poland, and before his junior year, France fell to the Nazis.  The British fought for their existence in the skies over London.  After Pearl Harbour during his senior year, the young Alabamian knew he would soon be joining his brother, Bishop, and millions of other Americas in the War.  

Right, William Ralph Holliman, age 17, a senior at Shades Cahaba High School in Irondale, Alabama.

In February 1942, Ralph took a week off from his senior year to travel by car with his parents, Ulyss and Pearl Holliman, and his brother-in-law and sister, Charles and Loudelle Ferrell to visit his older brother in Key West, Florida.  Bishop Holliman had joined the Navy in November 1941, and a few months later Americans were worried sick by the Japanese advance in the Pacific and German U-Boats in the Atlantic.

To this point only one of the four Holliman brothers was in the fight.  This would soon change.

Below Ralph and Bishop in Key West, Florida, both facing an uncertain and dangerous future, and their Mother knew it.

 Life speeds up during war time. 

The War and his coming induction into the Army led to the marriage in the late winter of 1943 of Ralph and Motie Chism, high school sweethearts.  After a honeymoon in Atlanta (an airplane flight no less!), Ralph in March of that year found himself in basic training in Miami, Florida.  Assigned to the U. S. Army Air Corp, he traveled by troop train to his next base in Stapleton, Denver, Colorado.  Although the train stopped in Birmingham, he was not able to get off to telephone Motie, his young bride.

Once again with the Robert W. Daly, Sr. house as a back drop, Ralph and his new bride, Motie, pose for the camera.  Soon Ralph would leave his new wife for Army service, not to return for almost two years. The marriage would last until Motie's death in 2003.


Next posting, service in England and France before coming home....