An Alabama Family in World War II, Part 39

Melton Pearson Holliman’s Difficult War

by Glenn N. Holliman

My Uncle Melton died early in 1958, age only 49, prematurely taken by heart disease.  He was a pharmaceutical salesman in 1943, having learned his craft while working in his Uncle Floyd Caine’s drug store in the late 1920s.  Melton was the first born of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman’s seven children, and the first to pass away. 

Another three decades would elapse before another child of my grandparents would leave this world, this being my Uncle Euhal Holliman in 1989. According to his daughter Tommie Holliman Allen, Euhal also had heart issues, complicated by rheumatic fever contracted when a child.  This chronic condition, plus being the father of four children, kept Euhal from being drafted during World War II.

The draft by 1943 was reaching deeper and deeper into the available pool of able-bodied American males.  That August, Melton, age 35, was inducted into the Army at Ft. McClellan, Georgia and within a month was shipped to Camp Barkeley, Texas for basic and advanced training.  From September to February 1944, except for a six-day furlough in January 1944, he slogged through first the dust and then the mud of this hastily established military facility on the Texas plains. 

Left, Melton in uniform; note the medical corp insignia on his collar.  This picture suggests a physical resemblance to World War II swing band leader, Glenn Miller.

Melton’s letters home, which I have used to construct this narrative, are poignant, expressing the homesickness of almost every G.I. caught up in the maelstrom of World War II.  My uncle had additional reasons to pen moving words back to Alabama.  

He and his wife of eleven years, Ida Hughes Holliman, had adopted in April 1943, a curly haired, red-headed bundle of joy, an infant daughter, Patti (whom Melton called Patsy).  Melton was to miss the critical, unrecoverable months of Patti beginning to walk, talk and capture the hearts of the entire Holliman clan.

“Christmas Morning, December 25, 1943

My Dearest Precious Ones,

There is a lot I could write this morning, but it would make me bluer and I know you’d be blue when you read it….so I won’t do it.  Deep down in your heart you probably know how I feel.

I spent all of yesterday in the hut.  Did not even go to the PX after I called you.  It rained most of the day and the mud was awful.  We will have our Christmas dinner at 1 pm.  Will have turkey and all the trimmings.  The mess hall is gaily decorated in ‘Xmas’ tree and everything. 

Last night after we went to bed the choir from our chapel came through the company streets singing Christmas songs.  There were about 50 soldiers in the choir…the singing was beautiful.  Before we retired, all of us in the hut sang songs.  I was a half way leader of the singing.

Above, Melton, back row, second from right, and his fellow troops.  Note the tar paper huts, constructed in 1940.  The camp once held 50,000 trainees before closing in April 1945 near the end of the war.  No doubt these are the fellow homesick soldiers who joined in the singing on Christmas eve.

I heard this morning that we were to finish up here entirely January 15^th.  I am still classified a pharmacist. 

I hope you enjoy your Christmas party at Moma’s.  I sure wish I could be there with you.  I am not on KP today.  The Jewish boys were put on; I think that was fair enough.  They don’t observe Christmas.  

Baby, my prayer is that next Christmas we can be together…so I hope you had a Merry Xmas and I love you very, very much.  Melton”

Left, Patti Holliman (Hairston) and her first cousin, John Melton Ferrell, third child of Charles and Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, 1943.

Sadly, Melton would not be home for Christmas in 1944. In late autumn, he was evacuated from his medical unit in France and  hospitalized in England for high blood pressure and other unspecified ailments  December 1944.  He later was shipped home and reunited with his wife and child in the winter 1945.  Apparently, this serious episode was the first manifestation of a heart condition that would later take his life prematurely.

Below, the training schedule for part of December 1943 at Camp Barkeley, near Abilene, Texas.

 

Living in the barracks required a strict regimen of tidiness and hygiene as the demerit list indicates!

Next posting more on an Alabama family engulfed in World War II and how their lives were forever changed.....