Sunday, December 4, 2016

A Gathering at Mary Daly Herrin's Home

by Glenn N. Holliman

Several weeks ago, my father, Bishop Holliman, b. December 17, 1919, in Irondale, Alabama, returned to his childhood home to visit his niece, Mary Daly Herrin.  Dad now lives in Avilla, Indiana, just north of Fort Wayne.  That is the childhood home of his wife, Ellen Parks Cox Holliman. They have been married for sixteen years.

While I posted photographs that Mary's son David had emailed me, David's sister, Linda Herrin Bradley sent several more.  Taken together, these deserve a more permanent place on this blog.

On the left, right to left, Ellen, Bishop, Patti Holliman Hairston and Linda Herrin Bradley. 

Patti is the daughter of Melton (1908-1958) and Ida Hughes Holliman (1905-1995) and Linda, the daughter of  E.C. (1930-2015) and Mary Daly Herrin. Mary is far right in the right picture.


Patti and Mary are first cousins, both with numerous grandchildren. Mary, a matriarch of the extended family, is the daughter of Robert W. and Vena Holliman Daly. She is the first born grandchild of Ulyss (1884-1965) and Pearl Caine Holliman (1888-1955). Ulyss and Pearl were born in Fayette County, Alabama, married there in 1906, farmed and around 1917 moved to Irondale, Alabama.

Irondale was a growing suburb of Birmingham, a city then exploding in population due to its steel industry and World War I. Ulyss, who had wood working experience, went to work for the Birmingham Electric Company which ran the street car lines.  The trolleys were then wood frame with wooden benches.  In 1921, a large family house was constructed at 2300 3rd Avenue North in Irondale sans painting and running water. There tw0 children were born and seven grew to adulthood.  This writer in 1946 spent the first two weeks of his life in the house with Grandmother Holliman teaching my mother, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman Feick (1923-2015) how to be take care of a wiggly, loud infant.

The day before the above pictures were taken, Ralph Holliman (b 1924) and his wife, Laura, living in Gulf Shores, Alabama drove up to Birmingham for the reunion.  Bishop and Ralph are pictured below.  The ladies left to right are Ellen, Bishop's wife, Mary and Laura Mills Holliman, Ralph's wife.



In the picture below, Mary's two sons - David (b 1964), left, and Clayton Herrin (b 1953), far right, join their great uncles in group pose.

Bishop and Ralph are the two surviving children of Ulyss and Pearl who had seven children between 1908 and 1924.  The children who have passed away are Melton, Vena (1909-1990), Euhal (1912-1989), Loudelle (1914-1998) and Virginia (1922-2011).

Writers have called the generation of these seven children 'The Greatest Generation' because they survived the Great Depression, fought World War II and helped build the largest economy in the world.  To all my aunts and uncles, I tip my hat and thank them for raising the 18 grandchildren of Ulyss and Pearl!

Monday, October 31, 2016

An Alabama Family during WW II, Part 33


by Glenn N. Holliman

My Father, Bishop Holliman, a young sailor from Irondale, Alabama, wrote a long document in August 1943 detailing his experiences in the Allied invasion of Sicily the previous month.  So fresh were his memories that he moves his writing back and forth from present to past tense.

Moving to the Front

June 1943, the USS Butler, a one year old destroyer crewed by freshmen sailors, joined a convoy of transports and warships in Hampton Roads, Virginia and crossed the Atlantic on a course to the Mediterranean.  The objective was to invade Italy's island of Sicily, a stepping stone to Adolph Hitler's Fortress Europe.  Under dictator Bineto Mussolini, Italy had allied itself with Nazi Germany, part of the famed Pact of Steel, the Axis of Germany, Italy and Japan.

Upper right, the port of Oran in 1943.  U.S. and British troops on November 8, 1942 invaded North Africa to engage Vichy French, Italian and German forces.  In May 1943 in Tunisia the last Axis forces surrendered to the British, USA and Free French.  North Africa, cleared of German power, became the staging point for the attack on Italy and additional German divisions.  Just like the USS Butler, the US Army and Navy were 'new', filled largely with troops and sailors who were serving in combat for the first time and commanders who were learning how to command massive numbers of men, war assets and supplies.  

Fresh from radio code school in Maine, Bishop Holliman's first war cruise was also his first trip across the Atlantic.  And it was a voyage into combat.  Below are his words from a letter he wrote in August 1943 after arriving back in the States.

"On June 22, we entered the Med. and saw land for the first time in two weeks. My greatest desire was to get a view of the Rock of Gibraltar, but unfortunately I was asleep or on watch when we went by.  However, we could get a view of the Spanish and African coasts.  We arrived in Oran (Algeria)...our stopover...for the purpose of refueling.  There was plenty of evidence of the USA there - army jeeps, guns, ships, etc." 

Below, a map of the western Mediterranean Sea during Operation Torch.  On November 8, 1942, USA and British forces invaded Morocco and Algeria, at that time French colonies.  Oran was taken by the American First Infantry Division which took casualties before subduing French forces who believed they were defending against hostile invaders. Oran became an important port for the clearing of North Africa in the winter and spring 1943 and the invasion of Sicily in July 1943.




"We proceeded on to Algiers, 24  hours away.  Upon arrival...we did not go into port immediately but spent another 24 hours on maneuvers with landing barges and other craft.  We knew then the time and place were drawing near.


The harbor was filled with Allied ships of all kinds.  It seems impossible that the Italians or Germans did not expect an invasion of some kind.  There was no reason whey they could not find out about the equipment and ships at these Med. ports.   

The first to do at Algiers was to get the mail off-and that we did-my first card had been mailed back at Oran.  We also had church services in the mess hall-on the way over too-conducted by one of the officers.


A couple of days after arriving, liberty was granted.  I went ashore on Sunday afternoon- the Sunday before the Fourth. There were many modern buildings in the city but most of the places were filthy and unattractive.  There was no place to buy any refreshments or food. The place was filled with army trucks, jeeps, cars and there were thousands of soldiers and sailors from every allied country including native Africans and Free French.
The only place Americans could go was to the Red Cross building where they were able to get ice cream at certain hours, and which wasn't any good. and something they called sandwiches.  They also have movies there, but the place is so crowded we can hardly move about.  It is the only place for the boys to go.  It is pitiful to see the boys walking around with nothing to do. 

I talked to one soldier from Iowa, who had been over there since November.  He said the mail was about the only thing they had to look forward to.  However, he seemed to be pretty well satisfied and not going hungry.  Probably getting better food than we were on the ship.  I told one fellow I had not tasted a Coca Cola in over a month.  He said he had not had one in a year.  So it isn't the service men who are getting all the drinks.

Up until about the 7th of July we did patrol work around the Algiers' area.  Each day we hoped that would be the day to get started to wherever we were to go.  During our stay here there were rumors to the effect that there had been air raids, but were not concerned. All this time weather was very hot in the day and cool at night.  In the crew quarters though it was always too hot to sleep."

Right, Algiers during a 1943 air raid.


"On Sunday afternoon, we left Algiers to move 'closer' to the front so the captain said...to Bizerte"...to be continued.


Monday, October 3, 2016

The Invasion of Sicily - An Alabama Family at War - Part 32

A Son under Fire!
by Glenn N. Holliman

By the summer of 1943, three sons and a son-in-law of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman of Irondale, Alabama were in uniform serving in World War II.  One son went into battle that July, H. Bishop Holliman, a radioman on the USS Butler, a destroyer escorting transports and warships during the Allied invasion of the island of Sicily.  The ship's guns supported the American infantry facing the German crack Herman Goring Division.  Later in the battle the Butler fired on German bombers that attacked the ship.

By May 1943, Generals Eisenhower and Montgomery had pinned Nazi and Italian forces in a vice in Tunisia forcing the surrender of almost 250,000 troops.  The Americans and British now turned their energies on the island of Sicily, a part of Italy as their entry into Occupied Europe.  


Sicily is in red below, a triangle shaped island 
seemingly about to be kicked by the Italian boot.



Bishop Holliman, fresh from radio school, crossed the Atlantic for the first time and found himself part of the greatest invasion yet in world history, the taking of Sicily by Eisenhower's forces.  Upon returning to the States, unharmed in August 1943, he typed an 11 page synopsis of the engagement and mailed it to his niece, Mary Daly Herrin. I am quoting liberally from that document which can be found at www.bholliman.com. Click on the Records page and insert and click Sicily in the Search box.


Right 1943, Mary Daly Herrin and her Uncle Walter Cornelius in Army uniform at her home in Irondale, 2300 block of 3rd Avenue North.  Walter had married Virginia Holliman in 1942.

Below is page one of his transcript, typed on Navy time and paper. While faint of ink now, he writes of returning to the ship in Norfolk, and being advised to send home his 'blues' and other non-essential items.  The ship dispersed to the Chesapeake Bay and waited for several days for escort duty.  All liberty was cancelled and rumors flew fast.



"We pulled out on Tuesday June 8th, and the group were about 25 freighters, troops, etc, 15 destroyers and 3 cruisers. While in the Atlantic the captain announced this was a 'high speed' convoy.

All the way over there were lectures on what to do if captured by the enemy, etc. what to say.  And also information on injuries, how to protect yourself from certain woulds, First Aid Stations on the ship, etc. The expectation of seeing action kept the time from being dull."

 

Above Bishop home at 2300 3rd Avenue North, Irondale, Alabama after the war. With a new bride and the G.I. Bill, he returned to his interruped education at Birmingham-Southern College.

Below is a three day watch schedule as lived by Bishop in 1943 in which he writes this was one of the easier schedules on the ship!  He was earning his $77 a month!


Below the USS Butler at sea.  The ship was commissioned at Philadelphia in 1942 and quickly decommissioned after hostilities in 1946.  The ship was broken up for scrap by 1948 after dodging bombs in both the Mediterranean and Pacific. War is expensive and wasteful.



Next posting arriving in the Mediterranean, shore leave and then the invasion.

Monday, September 12, 2016

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 31

by Glenn N. Holliman

The War Continues to Disrupt the Lives of an Alabama Family....

In the summer of 1943, the Holliman family of Irondale, Alabama became fully engaged in World War II as three sons and a son-in-law were in military service.  Ralph, b 1924, left his young new wife, Motie, and did his basic training in Miami, Florida.  In mid-summer he was transferred by troop train to Camp Buckley, Colorado.  There he learned to be an Air Corp clerk, later to serve in France.



Right, decades later Ralph, Motie Chism Holliman (1925-2003) and Virginia Holliman Cornelius (1922-2011). Virginia's husband, Walter, went to the Army that spring of 1943 also.

Ralph's despondent mother, Pearl Caine Holliman (1888-1955) wrote her sailor son, Bishop Holliman, b 1919 - "They moved him (Ralph) to Denver. He came through Irondale and his train stayed in our town for over two hours and we did not know it. He could not call; I could hardly stand it."



From his new posting in the West, Ralph wrote July 2, 1943 to his brother-in-law Robert W. Daly, Sr. (1901-1959): "You meet any kind of person here, and I would not take anything for the friends I have made in the Army.  Most of the fellows are in the same boat. They all left their homes (believing) that something was to be done and the sooner that was over, the sooner we would get back to our homes. I think I was lucky to get into the Air Force and into clerical school.  The school is seven weeks."


Ralph had received a  letter from his brother, Euhal Holliman (1912-1989) in Gadsden, Alabama.  "It was signed from the five of us.  He said he had been working hard. I hope he doesn't have to go."  

Left, Euhal in 1982 fishing 
in Alaska.  He and wife, Edna Westbrook Holliman, had six children of whom, Terry and Jerry, the twins, would make their homes in Alaska.

In the summer of 1943, Euhal was 31 years old and supporting three children - Terry, Jerry and Anne Holliman Phillips. A fourth child, Jean, was born in 1944. Fortunately for his family's sake, Euhal, who perhaps had a physical injury, was never called.

Below, the summer of 1943, front row left to right - Charles H. Ferrell, Patti Holliman Hairston and John Ferrell.  Back row left to right - Carolyn Ferrell Tatum, Mary Daly Herrin and unknown.




Loudelle Holliman Ferrell (1914-1998), sister to her siblings and the wife of Dr. Charles Ferrell, Methodist minister in Jacksonville, Alabama, wrote to announce her Victory Garden already had produced beans and beets.  She also reported the apprehension by the police of an Army deserter, missing for four months, who had taken shelter under their church.  



My grandmother, Pearl, wrote of her great distress when her oldest son Melton, (1908-1958), age 35, was drafted into the Army.  He was ordered to report to Ft. McClellan,
Alabama for his physical in July 1943.  He passed the examination and at age 35, he prepared to leave his lucrative career as a pharmaceutical salesman, his young child and wife and do his duty.


 Right, Melton and Ida Hughes Holliman, 1942, when visiting Melton's brother, Bishop, who was stationed in New Orleans for training.

While his brothers were training for war, Bishop Holliman, a radio specialist in U-boat tracking, was about to engage in the first hostilities a member of the family would experience - the July 1943 Allied Invasion of Sicily, the first attack on Hitler's Europe.

That is the subject of our next posting. 


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!).




There is also a massive Ancestry.com Holyman and Associated Families Tree available for review.  For an invitation to this collection of over 30,000 individuals, please write glennhistory@gmail.com.  

Blog sites are available not only at http://ulyssholliman.blogspot.com but also at 

http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com.  For archival materials and manuscripts of Holliman and associated families, visit www.bholliman.com.  If you would like to 
save your family materials and photographs at this site, please contact glennhistory@gmail.com. 

Friday, September 9, 2016

After 46 Years...a Trip Back in Time, Part 15

by Glenn N. Holliman

Grass by Carl Sandburg

“Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work.

I am grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg, and pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.

Shovel them under and let me work.

Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:

What place is this?  Where are we now?


I am the grass.  Let me work.”

My war time is long since over.  The grass has grown back in Vietnam.  But still the damage lingers in Southeast Asia and in the memories and wounds of aged service persons living. Unexploded weapons still pocket the fields of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.  Agent Orange, sprayed liberally over bush and forest, haunts the bodies of older Vietnamese and Americans.

Below, the tarmac of the Lai Khe,  Vietnam  US Army1st Infantry Division air field is still visible in the foreground.  On the edge of the field stand two  new schools, replacements for the Cobra, Huey and Chinook helicopters that once hovered and landed on these grounds.

Right, one of the few remaining concrete bunkers left intact.  My first night in Lai Khe, I was sent to guard the perimeter and spent the night (and numerous more) in a bunker like this.  During that February 12, 1969 night, the earth shook to the north as a massive B-52 raid saturated a suspected North Vietnamese placement.



Our group visited the Chu Chi Tunnels north of Ho Chi Minh City.  I discovered studying the map above that this complex was located 12 or so air miles from Lai Khe.  Now I realized where all those income missiles originated almost 50 years ago.

Below, my daughter, Grace, demonstrates how a thin person such as herself could hide in the  tunnels.


Meanwhile Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) continues to grow and prosper.  I have left ghosts behind, as well as my youth.  My thanks to cousins Jim and Karen Holliman for making the travel possible, and my daughter for sharing the nostalgic adventure with me.


The young soldier below center, skinny, all my black hair, working with some orphans in Ben Cat April 1969.


Below, the old man, now 50 years on, at 3 score and ten.  Filled with memories and more than filled with the grace of life.  Here a new generation of children, untarnished by warfare, smile with the exuberance of youth.  May they forever be spared the pain of their grandparents.  This picture was made outside of the Presidential Palace in Ho Chi Minh City.

And in our bit of whimsy, my grand children's chicken, that traveled with us from Virginia to Asia and back, bids her own farewell to a Vietnamese replica of that fowl and beautiful species!




For additional reading on this tragic American and Southeast Asian war, read the former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's mea culpa and his conflicted emotions about championing the conflict in the middle 1960s.
May we as a nation learn from our mistakes!

Friday, June 3, 2016

After 46 Years...a Trip Back in Time, Part 14



by Glenn N. Holliman

A Last Look at the Battle Fields surrounding Lai Khe, Vietnam 1969....

 Photographs I took from 1969 of the young men of the the U.S. Army's famed 1st Infantry Division....filling sand bags
and patrol...day after day, each man counting off the days until his year was up.

Right, the men at a Fire Support Base shell suspected targets with 105s.  Below, a mortar platoon takes it ease at a Fire Support Base.  The sticks were for measuring ranges.

A  Protestant worship service interrupted by an air strike in 
the distance.

A Viet Cong ambush along Highway 13 north of Lai Khe, a typical hit and run event.  They would not stand in open battle.  The enemy never won a battle against the Americans, but by wearing down a nation's patience and making that nation waste its blood and treasure, the North Vietnamese won the war.  After all, it was their county....

A company moves out at Aachen II, through the wire and Claymore mines.
 The choppers arrive to pick up the troops and the Viet Cong notice.  Minutes later as the men prepare to board for a helicopter ride to a new battle field, mortar rounds start falling.
The Sergeant screams 'Get down'.  Unfortunately there are casualties.
 Troops injured and evacuated out..... 

For some it was a year out of our lives; for others it was a lot more.


The writer as a young man....time to move on.....

Sunday, April 24, 2016

The Loss of a Vietnam Veteran

by Glenn N. Holliman

The Loss of a Veteran....

As many of you know, I have been writing in the space about my return to Vietnam, that war of my youth.  There were millions of us, mostly young men in the 1960s, who were in an out of that conflict over a multi-year period.  One of those U.S. Army Vietnam veterans, a career soldier, was Joel W. Phillips, married to my first cousin, Anne Holliman Phillips.  Anne is the first born daughter of my late uncle and aunt, Euhal and Edna Westbrook Holliman.

Joel (pictured left), born 1942, died this past Saturday, April 23, 2016 after a long illness.  As his wife Anne says, he is no longer suffering.  At this writing Anne is in their Dothan, Alabama home, surrounded by her three children and numerous grandchildren.  The military honor service will be held Tuesday, April 26 in Houston County, Alabama, Joel's childhood and adult home.


Anne remembers that Joel at a Mobile, Alabama Mardi Gras one year told her he had rather be in a bunker in Vietnam than at the festival!  I suspect there are many career soldiers like Joel, a 22 year plus veteran, who found much purpose in military service.  (Right, Joel's mother, Bertha Lee Sanders Phillips)

I got to know Joel better at the last reunion in Orange Beach, Alabama at Al and Linda Herrin Bradley's home (which they kindly opened to dozens of Hollimans for a weekend).  

Joel shared pictures of his children and grandchildren which I scanned into my computer, and filed in my Euhal and Edna Holliman, Irondale, Alabama folder.  He was exceedingly proud of his family, and took great pride in their success and well being.  (Joel and Anne in 2007)

We lost Joel's  father-in-law and mother-in-law in 1989 and 1992, but I know Euhal and Edna would have been proud also of these descendants, just as they were very proud of the lives of their own six children - Terry, Jerry, Anne, Jean, Tommie and Bill.

So as Joel goes to his next roll-call, this Vietnam veteran, who served all of two years, 1/10th of Joel's time, delivers him a well-earned salute and thanks him for his service to his country and family.  

Survivors include Ann Phillips; sons, Michael (Jenifer) Phillips and Jeffrey (Karri) Phillips; daughter, Nancy (Bobby) Justice; grandchildren, Serra Justice, John Justice, Alex Phillips, Lexie Phillips, and Hannah Phillips; great-grandson, Rylan Brennecke.  Anne kindly gave me permission to write this article.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

After 46 Years...a Trip Back in Time, Part 13

by Glenn N. Holliman

Memories continued of a war in 1969....

By 1969, the U.S. Army felt the strains of a war that was dividing America, a protracted struggle in Vietnam.  The year for my service, January 31, 1969 to January 30, 1970, was shared with over 540,000 other Americans.  My Army division, the famed 1st Infantry of World War I and II combat, was composed mainly of draftees and career officers serving a second tour of duty in country.



Right, 22 years old, skinny, a college graduate in Lai Khe, Vietnam.  I had most of my life yet to be lived....

I remember composing a letter while on day time guard duty in a tower over looking a portion of the perimeter of Lai Kai, headquarters for the Division and 3rd Brigade.  In that epistle I noted that for four years the Division had occupied territory 40 miles of so northwest of Saigon, pushing against the Cambodia border.  And for four years the same ground had been contested between the U.S. forces and Viet Cong and North Vietnam troops.

True, the U.S. never lost a full-blown battle, but the night belonged to the V.C. The mighty pay loads of our B-52 bombers could blow apart tunnel complexes of the enemy, when such could be found. Our technology was overwhelming when an adversary would stand and fight, but this was a different, confounding war.

A 1st Infantry bunker with action in the background outside the perimeter. 1969

The V.C. fought the war against American conventional might, not in stand up battles, but rather by controlling the villages in the dark, ambushing high value targets such as convoys and forever harassing the Army and then disappearing into the bush or jungle. 

The North Vietnamese took horrific casualties, but just as had George Washington with the British, they had only to remain a force in being, and to wait until the Americans tired of the loss in blood and treasure and went home.

And that is exactly what happened.

In 1969, moral among U.S. troops was slipping.  I remember one night in barracks hearing a loud explosion, not incoming mortars or rockets, but that of a grenade.  A young officer, overbearing with his enlisted men, had been 'fragged' by one of his troops, i.e. a live grenade rolled into his quarters.  Wounded, he lived.  

Drugs were becoming a problem.  I remember waking up in the middle of the night at a Fire Support Base by a young lieutenant rummaging through the medic's bag looking for pain killers.  Another night walking through the barracks, waking soldier's for guard duty, I stumbled across troops smoking dope.  

Another time I discussed with the enlisted men in the field what it was like to patrol in the bush. 

 "Our 2nd lieutenant said he had only one mission here and that was to keep us alive until we could all go home."  

The desire to engage and defeat an enemy was rare among the troops in 1969.   Being a senior enlisted man or conscientiousness officer was not easy with an army of draftees.  Not easy when the USA was torn apart by anti-war marches and race riots.  The 1960s were destructive for America.  Our nation had a lot of self-inflicted wounds.   

Above and below, a patrol on Thunder Road, aka Highway 13.  In 1969 a muddy track and conflicted.  By 2015, a paved highway was lined with apartment and business office complexes!


            



 The government in Saigon, propped up by U.S. monies and supplies, was wobbly and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) loath to expend itself.  The will to win lay with North Vietnam, fighting a classic war of independence and a perceived puppet government still control by westerners.  The South Vietnamese soldier above had his military intelligence office next to our chaplain's office in the 3rd Brigade Headquarters, Lai Khe.


 That Christmas of 1969 the famed quintessential comedian of the 20th century, Bob Hope, came to Lai Khe came to entertain us.  He brought some pretty girls and Neil Armstrong who had been the first man to step on the Moon five months before.  In was incongruous - one of human kind's greatest feats justipositioned with one of human kind's great tragedies - warfare.


Bob Hope, a conservative patriot, announced to us that President Richard Nixon had a plan to end the war.  Amazingly the troops - thousands of us - booed.  Hope was taken aback, confused and stuttered, 'Yes, he really has a plan.'  The writing was on the wall; the army of draftees had had it.  We just wanted to go home.  

Below, the Bob Hope field after the 1969 show before being 'policed'.  A mail transport lands on the Lai Khe airfield.  The company mess hall in the picture on the left.

In 2015, I walked the same ground, exactly where the above picture was taken in 1969.  Below are rubber trees that now cover the same field.  The mess hall long since gone.  Left to right Dr. Jim Holliman and his wife Karen and my daughter, Grace who accompanied me on this emotional journey.


Next posting, more as an aged veteran returns and reflects....