How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 13

by Glenn N. Holliman

A Marriage Launched, Two Brothers meet, Letters and a New Assignment....

Immediately after the wedding of Virginia Holliman and Walter Cornelius, January 30, 1942, Virginia went to work at the Woodlawn, Alabama National Bank, managed by her brother-in-law, Robert W. Daly, Sr.  No longer a student at the East Lake campus of Howard College, she was now a married business woman.  Starting as a teller, no one then could know she would climb the corporate ladder to become in the 1980s the first female vice president of the 1st Alabama National Bank!  Below, right, Virginia and Walter in late 1943 after he joined the Army.


During the winter of 1942, Walter worked as a civilian for the War Department in Childersburg, Alabama.  That required a long commute from their tiny apartment on N. 21st Street to the boom town where DuPont was building a chemical plant.  A hamlet of 500 in 1940, Childersburg swelled as 14,000 construction workers descended on the village and constructed the largest explosives plant in the South.  By the end of the war, 9,000 persons made the 'burg' their home.  During the early 1940s so many workers drove from Birmingham to Childersburg over a narrow, dirt road that a special commuter train had to be established. Forth to the Mighty Conflict, Alabama and World War II by Allen Cronenberg, University of Alabama Press, 1995 and a letter by Virginia Holliman Cornelius 1942.

In late 1943, Walter would be in the U.S. Army and eventually would serve in Saipan in 1945/46.  For several years Virginia would follow him to training bases in the U.S., gaining more career experience and, as with hundreds of thousands of other G.I. wives, acquired a broader perspective of the world.

By early March, 1942 Virginia's brother, Bishop Holliman, was on the move from his sonar training base in Key West, Florida to the Navy base in New Orleans.  He traveled by train from Miami to Jacksonville, changed to a Pullman and alighted at Pensacola, Florida the next morning for a quick visit with his brother, Melton, and sister-in-law, Ida Hughes Holliman who lived in Mobile, Alabama.  Ida is wearing his sailor cap. - Diary of Bishop Holliman 1942

Melton noted in a letter to Bishop that the government was now taking older men with dependents and "That means me and I am ready to go.  Guess that means the Army, and I will be a buck private." - Letter by Melton P. Holliman, 1942

Melton (1908-1958) would enter the U.S. Army a year later as a private and, due to frequent transfers and health problems, barely advanced in rank.  Melton was 35 years old when he was drafted, only a few months after adopting a long-sought child, Patti Holliman (Hairston), in the late spring of 1943.  Ida and Melton had married in 1932, and remained childless until Patti joyfully entered their lives and the lives of the larger Holliman family. 

It was wrenching sacrifice for Melton to leave his young 9 month old new baby behind to enter the Armed Forces.  Befitting his civilian profession as a pharmaceutical salesman, he served as a medic in England and France, arriving in France six weeks after D-Day.

Bishop wrote home to Irondale, Alabama that he had been assigned to a subchaser, the PC (later SC) 531, a vessel that would later see service in the Pacific.  Subchasers were built of wood fairly quickly in small boatyards on both coasts and the Great Lakes and Gulf regions. Many of the boatyards were small, family-owned businesses, only a few of which exist today. The navy wasted no time letting out contracts to fifty such boat yards. By the time the war ended 438 wooden  subchasers had been launched and commissioned, and the PC 531 was one of these fragile, underpowered ships.  A diagram of one is below is taken from the Internet as is the SC 531 history. Note the sonar cabin amidships.

He would never serve on the ship.  The patrol craft was not ready for sea, and Bishop had acquired the idea of joining the Navy Air Corps. After arriving in New Orleans, he proceeded to put in for a transfer to that elite body of fliers.  He was told to go home, get a birth certificate, some recommendations and report back.  He was on his way shortly for his first leave home, leaving a Navy career in submarine patrol craft behind him. 

Back in Irondale, Alabama, Bishop's mother, Pearl Caine Holliman (1887-1955), had written often with news about the weather, family, friends and always with advice and a 'benediction' as she was a saintly, terribly worried mother.

"I think you can almost hear the typewriter. Ralph (the youngest son, b. 1924, a champion debater at Shades Cahaba High School in Homewood) is typing the debate (on which) he sure is working hard day and nite.  I think they go to Tuscaloosa one week from tomorrow (a University of Alabama debate tournament).  Oh, yes the Dalys (Robert and Vena Holliman Daly who lived next door) got them selves a new stove today.  It sure is nice, cost about $160.00 - some stove! (There is a bit of envy here in Pearl's letter.  According to the 1940 Federal Census, her husband's (Ulyss Holliman) income as a mechanic for the Birmingham Electric Company was $1,600. Robert Daly made considerably more as a bank manager.)

I do hope you get transferred in some other work that you will be satisfied in, and I would keep trying, if I were you.  If you don't look out for yourself, no one will do it for you.  (Bishop took the advice, and applied for the Naval Air Corps.)

We are thanking (sic) of you and our prayers are for you.  Wherever you go the Lord goes with you, and will take care of you.  When our country gets back to God, we will win this war.  So do all you can for the Lord as that is all that counts.  With much love, and God bless and keep you.  Mother H."  Letter February 1942 by Pearl C. Holliman, Irondale, Alabama
 

Next posting, a first leave home to Irondale, Alabama to see family and friends....

Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

 

Or join your many cousins at MyFamily.com and view an expanded Holliman family tree and many files on the history of the family.  Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation.

 

 

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 12

by Glenn N. Holliman

A War Time Visit and a Wedding!

In the first winter of World War Two for the United States, the conflict went very badly for the U.S. and Allies.  In January 1942, the Japanese Navy rampaged in Southeast Asia with European colonies, one after another, falling before the onslaught of ships and soldiers.  The U.S. colony of the Philippines remained under siege, MacArthur and his troops being pushed into a corner of Bataan.  The Germans remained deep in Soviet territory, and the Nazi general, Rommel, continued to occupy a huge portion of North Africa thereby threatening British forces in Egypt and the all important Suez Canal. 

With German U-boats devastating the merchant tanker fleet off the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, it was critical for the U.S. Navy to build ships, man them and send them into battle against this menace.  One of the hundreds of thousands of young Americans being trained that dreary winter was Bishop Holliman of Irondale, Alabama.  By mid-January, he was learning the hows and wherefores of sonar operations, those sound waves emanating from surface ships that bounced off submarines and revealed their presence, allowing for the dropping of boat killing depth charges.  His duty station was Key West, Florida. 

In those anxious days, not knowing when they would see Bishop again, members of his family drove the hundreds of miles from Alabama to the tip of Florida to visit for a long weekend of January 30 - February 1, 1942.

Below, The Rev. Charles T. Ferrell, his mother-in-law Pearl Caine Holliman, Ralph Holliman, his sister Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, and Ulyss S. Holliman in an unusual pose.  Bishop Holliman must have taken this photograph along a beach at Key West, on an unusual blustery, chilly day in the sub-tropics.

In order to visit Bishop, his mother, father, one sister, a brother-in-law and a brother, missed the wedding of another family member, Virginia Holliman who on Janaury 30, 1942 married her high school boy friend, Walter Cornelius of Birmingham, Alabama. The wedding took place in the Irondale home of her sister, Vena Holliman Daly and brother-in-law, Robert W. Daly, Sr. 

The young couple below....Pearl Caine Holliman, Virginia's mother, had objections to the marriage, generally based on cultural differences between the two families.  Pearl and Ulyss had become conservative evangelical Christians in the 1930s, leaving the Irondale Methodist Church, which they believed to be too liberal. 

They joined the Gospel Tabernacle in Birmingham, a Christian and Missionary Alliance church pastored by a flamboyant radio evangelist, Glenn Tingley, who in 1934 pioneered in the deep South the proclamation of a fundamentalist gospel over the air waves.  Biblical literalists, Pearl and Ulyss did not believe in intoxicating beverages, card playing, movies on Sunday or dancing.  Walter's father ran a cross roads store in Shelby County, Alabama and his family was much more tolerant of such activities.

Born 1922 in Irondale, a working class suburb of Birmingham, Virginia had a successful high school experience at Shades Cahaba in Homewood, Alabama, probably one of the best secondary schools available in the state at the time.  She excelled in scholarship, led the debate team, was president of several clubs and editor of the yearbook.  After graduation in 1940, she started Howard College. 

Virginia caught a gleam of what a woman could achieve in a new age, and Walter, ambitious himself, represented a route to a larger life.

Her parents had been born in the 1880s, and poorly educated in rural schools in Fayette County, Alabama.  There was a generation and education gap between parents and child, and further gap growing between urban and rural cultures and religion.  And there was a war on, and young people married quickly before the Armed Forces separated them.

Below, Pearl Caine and Ulyss Holliman with their son, Bishop Holliman, in his U.S. Navy uniform at Key West.  Photographs indicate Pearl, b 1887, 55 years old when this picture was made, aged rapidly during the war.  Three of their sons and Walter Cornelius would be posted overseas. Ulyss was 58 when this picture was taken. In addition to her handbag, Pearl is holding coconuts.

 

 

From the 1942 Diary of Bishop Holliman, Sunday, February 1 - "Met the folks at 9 a.m. Went to church and ate dinner with the Reviers (a church family). Rode around in the afternoon.  I drove for the first time since I left home. Made pictures (see below).Went to church that night.  Charles preached good sermon.  (Charles Ferrell, a Methodist minister, must have been invited into the pulpit that evening.) I left the folks about 11 p.m.  Bid them good bye - sad parting."

 

Above, on the beach in their Sunday best, Ralph Holliman, b 1924, who was in his senior year of high school at Shades Cahaba.  A year later his Army draft number would come up, and he would marry his high school sweet heart, the second member of the family, but not the last, to marry during the war.  Left to right - Ralph, Charles Ferrell, Bishop Holliman and his father, Ulyss S. Holliman.

 



From the Diary of Bishop Holliman, 23 February, 1942 - "Received orders to leave - me to New Orleans.  Assigned to P.C. (patrol craft) boats."

 

Next off to New Orleans and a change of plans....

 

Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

 

Or join your many cousins at MyFamily.com and view an expanded Holliman family tree and many files on the history of the family.  Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation.

 Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .  GNH



Visits with Cousins

by Glenn N. Holliman

A Month of Cousins...!

There are 18 living first cousins from the seven children of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman.  During the past month, I have had the pleasure of visiting with five of them (not counting my two sisters - Becky and Alice).  So let's interrupt our Holliman 'World War II' story and share some photographs and updates on our mutual lives.

Below, Clayton Herrin, the first born great grandchild of Ulyss and Pearl Holliman, waves from his mother's Irondale, Alabama home which we visited in October.  His mother, right, is, of course, Mary Daly Herrin, the first born of the grandchildren of Ulyss and Pearl.  For over a generation the Herrin family (E.C. Herrin, Mary and now Al and Linda Herrin Bradley) have hosted family gatherings. E.C. is ailing now, and all of us have him and the family in thought and prayer.

 

 

The famous Irondale Café was the location of a meal shared in October with Jean Holliman and Tommie Holliman Allen, two of the six children of Euhal and Edna Westbrook Holliman.  Back ground in red, is yours truly, with left to right, Jean, Tommie and my sister, Alice Holliman Murphy.  In the café as one consumes fried chicken and fried green tomatoes one can see embedded in the wooden floors the indentions of counters which held merchandise in the former Daly Hardware. The Daly Hardware Store was owned by Robert W. and George Daly during the 1940s and 50s.

Below, Charles Ferrell, far right, and his wife Nancy, hosted my sister Alice and myself at their home on an October Sunday afternoon in Homewood, Alabama. Charles is the second born grandchild of Ulyss and Pearl Holliman, the first born son of Charles and Loudelle Ferrell Holliman.  He kindly shared hundreds of photos of the Ferrell and Holliman families, now scanned, and which we will be posting later in this space and at MyFamily.com.

Finally, sharing an evening in my home in Newport, Pennsylvania the past week was Dr. Robert W. Daly, Jr, right.  Just retired from his decades long position as a professor of biology from the University of North Alabama, Bob traveled north to visit his son John and his family in southeastern Pennsylvania.  While on this excursion north, Bob stopped in for the night our central Pennsylvania farm house.

It is a pleasure to reconnect with the cousins of one's youth!

Next posting, back to our story of World War II and the Holliman family....

Join your many cousins at MyFamily.com and view an expanded Holliman family tree and many files on the history of the family.  Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation.






 

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 11

by Glenn N. Holliman

A Family Member at the U. S. Navy Sonar Training School, Key West, Florida.....1942

"By late January 1942 more than twenty U-boats were operating in American waters.  On January 28, a single submarine standing off New York harbor sank eight ships, including three tankers, in just twelve hours." - Williamson Murray and Allan B. Millett, A War to be Won (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000)

 

After two months in the U.S. Navy, Bishop Holliman, a 22 year old young man with three years of college, a native of Irondale, Alabama, began training as a sonar operator at the U.S. Naval Base in Florida.  His job would be to listen to sound waves bouncing off German submarines which were devastating U.S. shipping in 1942. Through his diary below, we read of his training, homesickness, seasickness, but his pleasure at being stationed at Key West.

"January 12, 1942 - Started classes on sound operation at Key West, Florida.  Not exactly to my liking.  Got liberty at 4:30 pm. Went ashore, saw the beach.  About 9 p.m. I called the (Holliman) family.  Talked to all of them, including the Dalys (Robert W. Daly, Sr. was married to his sister, Vena Holliman).

 

January 13/14, - Still attending classes, etc.  Same routine.  Officers are good to us.  Climate swell.  Tropical atmosphere.

  

January 15 - Had boat watch.  Today was pay day.  I might say here that pay day and mail are looked forward to more than any two events.  If folks only knew how the boys like to get mail they would write more often.  A letter cheers one more than anything else.

 

 January 17 - Had first test today.  Make 3.90 out of 4.00. 

 

January 18 - Went to Methodist Church today.  Met Mr. and Mrs. L.L. Trent, formerly of Birmingham YMCA.  Went to Baptist Church that night. Four of us enjoy going to shows, eating in restaurants, etc.  Run together a great deal." - Diary of H. Bishop Holliman, 1942

 

         Information booklet for sailors based in Key West, Florida during World War II

 

                                                   

 "In January 1942 German U-boats prowling off the East Coast sank 48 ships of 276,795 tons; in February, 73 ships of 429,891 tons, and in March, 95 ships of 534,064 tons. The Navy did not sink its first German submarine until April 1942." - Murray and Millett

 

So the same week a U.S. sailor from Alabama went to church, in the suburb of Wannsee outside of Berlin, Germany, officers of the German S.S. held a meeting over lunch and brandy to discuss a 'final solution' for the disposition of European Jews.  In that bureaucratic atmosphere, as if they were deciding whether to build a new factory or construct a hydroelectric dam, Reinhardt Heydrich (pictured below) and high ranking Nazi fanatics set in motion the process by which six million persons would be murdered by the spring of 1945. 

 

Heydrick assured those present from civil service and security organizations that the plans to eliminate Jews were approved by the Furher.  Not until after the War did news of this nefarious Wannsee meeting come to the attention of Allied historians. - Chronicle of the Second World War by Derrik Mercer (Longman, London, 1990).

Meanwhile, the training continued in Key West, the pace increasing, the need great for sonar operators....

 

"February 2, 1942 - Went out to sea as a sound operator.  Really got sea sick. 

 

February 4 - Sea again today; did not get sick. 

 

February 6 - Out to sea again on Saturday.

 

February 8 - To sea again on through the week, went to sick bay a couple of times during the week.

 

February 17 - Working five hours a day in buildings on base.  Awaiting transfer to ship." - Bishop Holliman, Diary 1942 

 

Next posting, fearing a quick transfer to sea duty, the family visits and a marriage occurs at home....

 

Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

Or join your many cousins at MyFamily.com and view an expanded Holliman family tree and many files on the history of the family.  Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation.

 

Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .  GNH

 

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 10

by Glenn N. Holliman

 My father, Bishop Holliman, wrote in 1991 in his memoirs of the weeks after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii:

"Thanks to the Japanese, boot camp was cut short, and we apprentice seamen were held to a 'waiting' game at the Norfolk, Virginia Navy base - pending a permanent assignment to a school or ship.  We had taken all sorts of tests to determine the fields most suited to our talents.  Throughout those few weeks of waiting, we were given KP duty and stood watch.

January 10, 1942 was my father's 58th birthday (Ulyss S. Holliman, 1884-1965), and on that day I was transferred to the Key West, Florida Navy Sound Operator school.  With trepidation, I boarded a troop train late at night and headed for this new adventure.  The only good thing to come from this was the enjoyable train ride on the way south.  We followed a circuitous route, not knowing where we going at first.  Another two sailors and I shared a compartment on the train, enabling us to be separated from the throngs of other service men who filled the cars." - Bishop Holliman



Attitudes within the nation were changing as the reality of war set in.  In the letter excerpt below, Bishop's sister, a sensitive Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, laments the fact that her son and daughter have been affected by the global conflict.  Her son, Charles Halford Ferrell, had received a toy gun for Christmas.  Carolyn Ferrell Tatum is the four year old sister of Hal.

Notice also Loudelle writes of a hasty wartime marriage, marriages which were occurring all over the country as men were called to the armed forces.  One such marriage also would occur that same month in the Holliman family.  Below in 1943, Charles 'Hal' Ferrell, while not in uniform, seems to have learned to salute the attention of the girls!

"Everything is a 'mean Jap' and he's mowing them down.  I didn't think Charles (The Rev. Charles T. Ferrell) would let Hal keep the gun, but Charles has enjoyed it more than Hal.  The other day I heard Carolyn (Carolyn Ferrell Tatum) tell Hal not to do whatever he was doing.  She informed him that that was the way the Germans did. 

By the way, Margaret Shamburger (a Ferrell relative)  ran away about a month ago and married an Army sergeant at Key Field in Meridian, Mississippi.   Her mother was in bed for a week afterwards and nearly had a nervous breakdown over it.  I think things are going to be all right.  He is already calling her 'Mother' and does not think he will have to leave for six months." - Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, January 1942

In late 1941, Life Magazine reported that the average subscriber (10 cents a copy) made $2,500 a year. Milk cost 14 cents a quart and eggs 47 cents a dozen.  Lamb was 32 cents a pound, coffee 26 cents, bread 9 cents a loaf, tomatoes 10 cents a can, pink salmon 20 cents a can, bananas 7 cents a pound, bacon 37 cents and chuck roast 27 cents a pound.  Toilet soap - 7 cents a bar.  Gas required 20 cents for a gallon.  Medical care for a family was $80 to $100 a year.  A movie - 35 cents.  Cigarettes were 15 cents a pack.

Inflation normally becomes a factor is a major war as production is moved from civilian to military materials.  Rationing of foods as well as automobiles and gasoline soon became an American reality.

Robert Daly, Sr. wrote his brother-in-law, Bishop Holliman, on January 4, 1942:

"It looks like we will be walking soon.   Only those that absolutely have to drive a car can get tires.  Mine are very thin.  I may have to put the old buggy up soon.  The Gov. has really put the screws on the banks (Robert was a bank manager) for loans to buy listed articles such as cars, radios, etc.  Regulations are plentiful. 

We do not know what Uncle Sam is doing to relieve the Philippines.  We don't get much dope the last few days.  It looks pretty bad for them." - Robert W. Daly, Sr., January 1942

It was very bad for the American and Filipino troops who were back pedaling from Manila to the Bataan peninsula (see right).  With the most of the U.S. Navy's battleships sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor, there was little the U.S. military could do in early 1942 to come to the aide of this embattled army.  The worst defeat in U.S. Army history was unfolding.

And the U-Boat war off the East Coast was a growing reality.  The Navy wanted Bishop Holliman to join that part of the world battle with all deliberate speed, and his train was carrying him south to a new training base.

Next posting, more on the Holliman family of Irondale, Alabama going to war....

Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

 Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .  GNH

 

 

 

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 9

by Glenn N. Holliman

Christmas 1941...a Sobering time for a Alabama Family and a Nation now at War.... 



"On Christmas Day 1941,  I stood that morning on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C. on a short liberty from the Navy Training Station in Norfolk, Virginia. Then a civilian drove by, stopped and invited me to his home to partake of Christmas dinner with his family.  I was glad to accept his invitation.  It became customary at the start of the war to do all you could for the 'boys in the service'.  So here was a nice civilian doing what he could to bring a little happiness to a lonely, homesick sailor on Christmas Day.

I can remember anything about the dinner, the house or family.  I do recall that before going to his house, he picked up a soldier then drove us all around the city.  I had been to Washington only once, the year before on an extended excursion.  But this time, I was privileged to see many parts of the city that were new to me, and I was elated that I had fallen upon such good fortune as to taste the first fruits of civilian hospitality that would become a routine action as the war went on.

So what was happening back in Irondale, upon the hill on 3rd Avenue?  I wondered throughout the day.  I was never able to get in touch with the family until I was back at the base, after Christmas had passed, and the dread of a lonesome Christmas was behind me." H. Bishop Holliman, 1991 Memoirs

Below the Holliman house at 2300 3rd Avenue North, Irondale, Alabama, built in 1921.  This photograph was taken in 1955.

That same Christmas night after the annual Holliman dinner at the home of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman, Bishop's brother-in-law, the humorous Robert Daly, Sr. wrote 'tongue in cheek' from Irondale, Alabama, but he did note the bad news from the Pacific.

"Everyone seemed to be cheerful although the war news from the Philippines kept being pretty bad.  The usual gang was present for Christmas dinner at your Mother's - Charles, Loudelle, Hal, Carolyn, Euhal, Edna, Terrible Terry and Jerry, Melton, Ida, Vena, Mary, Robert, Ralph, Virginia, Walter Cornelius, Mom and Pop and Stewart Button. W We missed you at your usual spot, although the food went further."

Terry and Jerry were the twin one year olds of Euhal and Edna Westbrook Holliman pictured below in 1941, who probably behaved at the table like, well, normal one year old boys! Euhal and Edna had married in 1935 and were to have six children - Terry, Jerry, Anne, Jean, Tommie and Bill.   Terry and Jerry were the 4th and 5th grandchildren of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman.  In 1941, Euhal was a grocer in Gadsden, Alabama.  Jerry passed away in 2003 and Terry makes his home in Arizona.

 

"The Duke from Knoxville (The Rev. Stewart Butten, a family friend) offered a nice blessing and prayer; he mentioned you in his prayer in a way not to draw too much attention to your absence because he did not want to spoil the evening.  Your Mom (Pearl) was okay, so was Dad Holliman (Ulyss) although they missed you.

Loudelle (Bishop's sister) answered all phone calls thinking you might call.  All calls turned out to be some one else.  We did not expect a call due to the Telephone Company asking the public to keep the line open for the War Department."

Melton bought a new Chevrolet yesterday.  He took Euhal and family home (Gadsden, Alabama) tonight.  I think he got the last car for sale in Birmingham.  The Ford dealers won't sell the few they have on board.  You can't buy new tires now."

 

Below, Melton Holliman (1908-1958), a successful pharmaceutical salesman who had South Alabama and Southern Mississippi as his territory.  Hence the need for a reliable car such as this black 1942 Chevrolet, right. The public was being admonished with advertising warning about consumption of gasoline and tires.

 

"Virginia got a diamond engagement ring from Walter (Cornelius, her high school flame).  They must mean business.  I don't know how this will go over."

Below, Walter Cornelius and Virginia Holliman, 1940, from The Owl, the Shades Cahaba High School year book.  Virginia was editor and must have placed their pictures side by side on a miscellaneous page in the annual.  In February 1942, they would marry.  Their rushed wartime marriage created unease in the family. 

"Hong Kong lost today.  Submarine blasted off California coast - that puts one out of action.  We are glad you are not on a ship...." Robert W. Daly, Sr., Christmas Night 1941, Irondale, Alabama
 

Next More War News.....
Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .  GNH  

 

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 8

by Glenn N. Holliman

Christmas 1941...A Homesick Sailor on Liberty....

In another fit of madness and arrogance and honoring the agreement of the Japanese alliance, Adolf Hitler declared on December 11, 1941 that Germany was at war with the United States.  Italy followed suit, and the U.S. Congress quickly replied in kind.  The United States now faced global war on numerous fronts after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Bishop Holliman, b. 1919, of Irondale, Alabama spent his first Christmas away from his large and close-knit family by taking a day's leave from his Navy training station in Norfolk, Virginia to visit the nation's capitol on December 25, 1941.  Winston Churchill, then in Washington, D.C. spent Christmas with the Roosevelt's at the White House where planning for a response to the Axis powers - Germany, Italy and Japan - continued for over a month. Their planning would yield rich results in time, but that holiday season, the Allied cause was reeling under the massed forces of Japan, Italy and Germany.

"I had been in boot camp since November 13, 1941.  Ordinarily, basic training went on for 6 to 8 weeks but because of the war and, hence, the need to get men to ships and service stations as soon as possible, training was reduced to 4 or 6 weeks. Our platoon (305) disbanded before Christmas and we were assigned to K.P. duty on the base.  My first liberty came on Christmas Eve, and I rode to Washington, D.C.  I have forgotten how I got there back, but, believe me, for a little more than 24 hours, I forsook the Navy and turned my thoughts to things!

 I was due back to the base Christmas night.  I knew the family would be gathering on Christmas Day just as they always had, but I would not be there.  They would be expecting a telephone call from me, and I fully expected to call home as soon as I could upon reaching D.C.

 Washington was indeed a crowded city that first Christmas of the war.  Winston Churchill was at the White House.  Thousands of service men had crowded into the city as had civilians who were working there, passing through, or visiting.  There was hardly a room available to a poor, homesick sailor on his first liberty on the town.  finally, I found a room in a boarding house.  I don't recall any of the amenities, the cost nor anything about it.  My main objective upon depositing my gear was to telephone home to let them know where I was and what I was doing.

 

All telephone lines were busy.  This was before direct dialing and one had to go through the operator.  She would connect you with Charlotte, then Atlanta and finally, Birmingham.  Sometimes you might get to Charlotte or Atlanta.  At times you would get an immediate response 'all circuits are busy.' So you would try, try again.  This contest might go on for hours, which on this Christmas Eve it did.  I was never able to get through that night nor the next day." Bishop Holliman, 1991 Memoirs

Immediately after the attack on Hawaii, Japanese forces launched a Pacific-wide offensive of land, sea and air.  Hong Kong, Singapore, Guam and Wake Island were quickly conquered and subdued.  Only in the Philippines, then a colony of the United States, did the combined forces of the U.S. and the Philippine Army hold off for four months the invasion of Japanese divisions.  General Douglas MacArthur, commanding joint colonial and regular U.S. Army troops, stalled the Japanese on the peninsula. of Bataan, north west of the capitol of Manila.

Above, the General of the Army, George C. Marshall, the right man at the right place during the War, reached out and called to Washington, D.C. a former administrative aide to MacArthur, one newly minted one-star General Dwight David Eisenhower.  Eisenhower's job that December was to devise a way to get supplies to the Philippines to keep MacArthur's forces fighting.  With the Japanese Navy and Air Forces in charge of the South Pacific and with much of the U.S. battle fleet at the bottom in Pearl Harbor, the task was impossible.

Below, one star General Dwight D. Eisenhower, pictured as World War II began.

But Eisenhower's work ethic, management skills, organizational talents and cooperative, but firm attitude, caught Marshall's eye.  The War would see much of General Eisenhower.

Next, more on that Christmas of 1941 for an Alabama family....

Have questions about Holliman family history? You are invited to join the Hollyman Email List at Hollyman-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com and the Hollyman Family Facebook Page located on Facebook at "Hollyman Family". Post your questions and perhaps one of the dozens Holyman cousins on the list will have an answer. For more information contact Tina Peddie at desabla1@yahoo.com, the list and Facebook manager for Hollyman (and all our various spellings!).

 Since early 2010, I have been publishing research and stories on the broad spectrum of Holliman (Holyman) family history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . For stories on my more immediate family since the early 20th Century, I have been posting articles since early 2011 at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com/ .

If you have photographs, letters, memorabilia or research you wish to share, please contact me directly at glennhistory@gmail.com. Several of us have an on-going program of scanning and preserving Holyman and related family records. Don't just let family's genealogical work or photographs languish unread and deteriorating in an attic.  Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you. - GNH