How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 16

by Glenn N. Holliman


In early April 1942, the U.S. began to fight back, more symbolically than effectively, with an air strike on Tokyo and other Japanese cities.  General James H. Doolittle led 16 B-25s off the deck of the USS Hornet on a pin-prick raid on Japan that had enormous consequences. 

Morale in the U.S. soared as the first pay back for Pearl Harbor although Corregidor, the last American holdout in the Philippines, soon fell.  The Japanese, infuriated by an attack on their homeland, first launched their armies deeper into a China killing tens of thousands in a land that harbored the downed U.S. pilots.  Tojo's government then ordered the Japanese Navy to turn eastward to capture the Midway Islands, the suspected launching site of Doolittle's raid.  The Battle of Midway would become a major turning point in the Pacific War.


State-side the Armed Forces continued to train and prepare a generation of young Americans to carry the war to the Axis powers - Japan, Germany and Italy.  One young Alabamian was my father, H. Bishop Holliman of Irondale, Alabama.  His story continues.

Above, in his flying gear, Bishop entered into U.S. Navy flight training in New Orleans in late April 1942.  From his journal - "Started classes - very tough - math, physics, aerodynamics, meteorology, drill, really working us.  Same schedule through out the week.  Sunday, May 5th, on duty all day. Same all week.  Letters and newspapers make the time pass quicker and more endurable - Air Corps much better than Navy - boys are nice.

20 May - Started flying - went up one hour - very nice, classes in morning and night.  Flying and studying remainder of week.  Flying and studying (week after week).  Being treated for ear trouble."  

The ear trouble would doom his flying career, but we will come back to that later.  Above, the BT-13 Valiant was built by the thousands for the Navy and Army Air Corps during the war.  This is airplane Bishop trained in during the spring of 1942.

 

Civilian folks had to cope with the War also.  Robert W. Daly, Sr., Bishop's brother-in-law, wrote that spring - "Remember all our funds go to the USO, Red Cross, Community Chest, defense bonds, Stamps for Soldiers, the Salvation Army, home defense & etc.  The average person at home does not have any savings after meeting living expenses.  So don't be discouraged; we are all in the same boat. You don't need to worry about your Birmingham gals because there are no boys left to go with them."

Robert's letter, as with millions of letters during the War, carried news of home town folks.  For example, Archibald Jones, son of the Irondale Methodist Church minister married that April to Sadie Christine, a marriage that lasted to Archie's death in August 1997.  Sadie died in 2010.  Dick Petty, born 1917 and a former manager of the local grocery, was en route to Australia when his 66 year old mother, Mary Petty of 2nd Avenue in Irondale, died of heart failure.  Robert Daly served as one of the pall bearers.



Right in 1940 at Cheaha State Park, the highest point in Alabama, back row, Bishop and Ralph Holliman, brothers.  Front row, Vena and her daughter, Mary Daly Herrin, and far right, Irene Petty whose brother served in Australia during World War II and whose mother died in 1942. Irene served for a while as postmistress in Irondale.  She died in 1978 in Birmingham, Alabama.

 
Next more Training and News from the Home Front....

 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 15

by Glenn N. Holliman

From Subchaser to Flight School...and the Home Front....


In the spring of 1942, the wave of Japanese conquest in the Pacific rolled on.  General Douglas MacArthur was ordered out of the Philippines, but he vowed to return.  The embattled American army and Filipino troops were pushed from Bataan to Corregidor for a last stand. Australia, deeply worried about the Nipponese juggernaut bearing down on the nation, welcomed the arrival of 30,000 U.S. troops in March of that year.  The Japanese navy even penetrated the Indian Ocean to Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and sank the British carrier Hermes.  

In those dark days, the United States rushed to build weapons and train young men for war on many fronts.  One of the millions mobilized was my father, H. Bishop Holliman, of Irondale, Alabama, a suburb of the steel city of Birmingham.


After his  first leave ended, he reported back 5 April 1942 to his duty station in Algiers, Louisiana, home of a U.S. Navy training base.  Bishop took a physical and joined as a trainee in the Navy Air Corps. 


Letters from home remained important to the boys in the service.  Bishop's Mother, Pearl Caine Holliman wrote often and filled her letters with news of relatives and friends in the close-knit community of Irondale.  What follows are exerts from letters written in March and April of 1942.  These comments about persons at home are undoubtedly typical of millions of other epistles in that era.  She writes of other young men whose lives were disrupted by the war.

"Mother is better for the last few days and she may make it after all.  Dr. Odom thinks she will get better when the weather gets warm."  Mother was Lula Hocutt Caine, 1861-1957, Grandma Caine to the generations that remember her.  Her father, Manassas Hocutt, died at the Battle of Stones River in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, January 1863. Lula married William Lee Caine of Fayette County, Alabama and had four children to grow to maturity - Floyd, Pearl, Maude  and Vista. 



Below, this photograph is from the early 1920s, probably taken in Irondale.  The writing of the identifications of Vista, Maude and Pearl is that of H. Bishop Holliman.

 

Below, an earlier photograph, perhaps 1904 and taken in Fayette County, Alabama - back row, left to right are Maude (1893-1940), Floyd (1883-1966) and Pearl (1887-1955).  Front row, Lula's mother-in-law, Melissa C. Anthony Caine, 1829-1913.  Vista (1898-1986), Lula and William Lee Caine (1862-1938).  In the 1910s, William took a job as a railroad guard in Irondale.  His children, two of them married, soon followed with their families.  With this move, the Caines and Hollimans left their farms and took jobs in transportation.   This may be the only known photograph of my great, great grandmother, Melissa Anthony Caine.

  

"Vista is worse; I don't know what Ralph will do with her."  Her younger sister, Vista Caine Humber, lived in Irondale and may have been having marital issues with her first husband, Ralph.  Cousin E.C. Herrin believes the never-seen character, Vista, in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes may have been inspired by the real Aunt Vista.  The book, "Fried Green Tomatoes" by Alabamian Fannie Flagg, was based on the life and work of Flagg's great aunt, Bess Fortenberry who owned the hot dog stand, later Irondale Cafe of the 1930s. Bess's brother, Ed Fortenberry, owned a local grocery store. Below Vista, her daughter Dorthy and her niece, Vena Holliman Daly, in the early 1930s at Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Note they are touring wearing formal clothes and heels!

"Your Uncle Lee Cooke has not married yet."  Lee Cooke was the husband of Pearl's sister, Maude Caine.  Maude had the misfortune to contract polio as a child.  Her family moved to Irondale from Fayette, Alabama and lived in the house on the hill just above the Ulyss and Peal Hollimans.  In the 1930s, Lee and Maude moved to St. Claire County, Alabama.  After Maude's death in 1940, Lee remarried. 

"Charles Ferrell has a call to Fairfax, $200 a year more and a larger church."  A Methodist minister with a Yale Divinity degree, Charles was an up and comer in the North Alabama Conference.  His wife, Loudelle, was Pearl's second daughter.  Below, Charles Halford, Charles T. Ferrell, Carolyn Ferrell Tatum, John Melton and Loudelle in 1942.  Actually in 1942, Charles was assigned to Huntsville, Alabama. 

"The Jones have moved into the house with Runyans while the parsonage is built."  The Rev. L.L.  Jones was the Irondale Methodist minister, age 52.  The Runyans were members of his congregation.  Renfro Runyan, age 53, ran the local water plant.

"The Hamiltons went to see Drayton, who is assigned to a subchaser."  John W. Hamilton of Irondale was a county tax collector, an elected position and one that paid a salary of $5,000 a year, a princely sum in 1942.  Their son Drayton (1916-1990) became an attorney in Montgomery, Alabama after serving in the Navy from 1940 to 1948.  His wife was Hilda Sims (1914-2001).  Drayton's sister, Mary Virginia Hamilton, was a good friend of Virginia Holliman Cornelius (1922-2011).

"Ralph Byram left Sunday for Atlanta." Ralph, headed to Ft. McPherson for Army induction, was the son of Joseph and Lena Byram who lived at 2223 3rd Avenue North in Irondale. Joe in 1940 worked for the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.), a New Deal agency created to provide employment and public works.

"Ralph has a new suit; trying to get him ready for his speeches."  Ralph Holliman, b. 1924, was the last of seven children of Pearl and Ulyss Holliman's children to leave home.  After graduation from Shades Cahaba in May of 1942, he would be drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943 and serve in England and France.

Ralph, b 1924, visiting his brother, H. Bishop Holliman, b 1919, in Key West, Florida, February 1942.

Next the Philippines Fall and a Sailor begins flight training....


 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.