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

 

 

How a World War changed an Alabama Family, Part 7

by Glenn N. Holliman

World War II engulfs America and an Alabama Family!

The day still lives in 'infamy', 7 December 1941.  Suddenly, without warning, hundreds of Japanese war planes swarmed over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and the giant U.S. Navy base.  Almost three thousand American service men and women died that day and numerous ships went to the bottom or were damaged for years.  Fortunately the U.S. aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped the holocaust.  The U.S.A. and the Holliman family of Irondale, Alabama were now, fully, at war.

"On Sunday, December 7, 1941 at about 2 pm, I was standing watch in the barracks in the Norfolk, Virginia Navy Training Station when my relief told me he had heard that the 'Japs' had bombed Pearl Harbor.  Up to that time, not many of us had heard of Pearl Harbor, most thinking she was a female in one of the dives in Norfolk!  Upon receiving word we were at war I felt that at last there was some purpose in having to serve two years or more in the Navy, that finally there was a reason for my being where I was and that my experience would not be completely futile." Bishop Holliman, Memoirs 1991

Below, a training field during World War II at the Norfolk, Virginia Naval Station

 

A few days after Pearl Harbor, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, the 28 year old wife of The Rev. Charles T. Ferrell, expressed her feelings on the national emergency in a letter.  She holds her third child, John Melton Ferrell, in 1943.

 

 "It was such a shock and such a treacherous act.  I hate war, the thought of it tears me up...what the future holds, nobody knows....I feel sorry for my unborn child (John Melton Ferrell, b. 1942) coming into such a world.  I am trying to remain calm and control myself.  Even thought the world has gone mad and the lights have gone out all over the world, there is one light will never go out...keep your faith and don't lose your grip on God."  

 

Below in 1943 during World War II, Patti Holliman Hairston, daughter of Melton and Ida Holliman, and her cousin, John Melton Ferrell, play in Jacksonville, Alabama where John's father was the United Methodist Church pastor.  Patti's father, Melton, would be inducted into the U.S. Army in August 1943 as the War continued to reach out and engulf the Holliman family.

 

Below in 2012 at the Orange Beach, Florida reunion at the home of Al and Linda Herrin Bradley, the same two cousins looking trim and incredibly youthful, John and Patti, almost 70 years later. 

 

Blessedly, the worst fears of Loudelle Ferrell concerning World War II were not realized for America, but as we all know, the human race continues to produce conflict and challenges.

Next post, the dismal Christmas of 1941....