My Grandmother's Wall of Photographs, Part 2

by Glenn N. Holliman

The year was 1945, and here is another view of my grandmother's Christmas tree that first holiday after the end of World War II.  The three sons who went to war of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman of Irondale, Alabama  - Melton, Bishop and Ralph - were finally home. A son-in-law, Walter Cornelius, husband of daughter Virginia, still remained in Saipan, a B-29 base in the Pacific.  In the corner wall, several difficult-to-discern photographs are hanging.  In the last post, we examined the one in the upper left, Virginia Holliman Cornelius. 

Now let's look at the one in the upper center, an Army soldier, the youngest son, William Ralph Holliman, born 1924.

A blurred enlargement.  The original was lost in a basement flood years ago.
Ralph went off to the Army in March 1943 and would not return to see his family and new bride, Motie Chisom, for two long years. Ralph would be stationed in England and France with the Army Air Force from late 1943 until the summer of 1945.



 Below is a picture taken February 1942, when Ralph, age 18, visited his older brother, Bishop Holliman, age 22, already in the Navy at sonar sound school in Key West, Florida. The war was at its worst for the United States.  German U-Boats prowled the East Coast sinking freighters.  After the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Philippines, an American colony at that time.  A U.S. and Philippine army was trapped and would be forced to surrender.  The days were dark for the American war effort that first winter of the USA involvement in World War II.

 

Next, the Photograph of Melton Holliman....