An Alabama Family in World War II, Part 43

by Glenn N. Holliman

World War II Ends for an Alabama Family

In July 1944, the American Army broke out of the hedgerows of Normandy, France and after heavy fighting by September pushed the Nazi war machine beyond Paris and almost to the German border.  Then the rains began, foul weather that engulfed my Uncle Melton Holliman’s medical unit near the Colmar Pocket close to the Rhine River. 

As I wrote in my last World War II article, Melton, age 36, sleeping rough with an evacuation unit, became ill, high blood pressure, and was shipped back to England.  His condition was so serious he returned to the States, his time in Europe over.  By the summer of 1945, he was discharged and returned to his career as a pharmaceutical salesman in Mobile, Alabama.

My father, Bishop Holliman, left Boston in August 1944 escorting what must have been the slowest convoy in the North Atlantic, a 35 day crossing.  His destroyer, the Barker, a World War I ship of 900 tons, delivered a flotilla of tankers and oil barges into Falmount, England.  There the ship pushed off into the English Channel and almost engaged in gunfire with three English destroyers who the captain had mistaken for German E-Boats.  No harm done except some lost sleep.

After a few days patrolling off Cherbourne, France the ship escorted empty transports back to Falmouth and then to Belfast, Ireland.  There my father rented a bicycle and pedaled into the Irish county side.  Back on convoy duty, his ship sailed to the Azores.  There for two days he went ashore, played some baseball and swan in clear blue seas.  Another three weeks of escort duty brought my father back to Boston.

While my father plowed the ocean that summer and autumn, my Uncle Ralph Holliman crossed the Channel from his English posting, along with his air corp transport unit.  He had the best duty of all three brothers, stationed not far from Paris for the rest of the European War. A clerk, he made rank of sergeant, and even obtained an 8 day leave to England.

Left, Ralph at a desk, not in France, but years later at work.  He climbed the corporate ladder quickly moving his family eleven times in twelve years.

Below, Ralph wrote from France describing V-E Day in Paris!

With the surrenders of Germany and Japan in spring and summer of 1945, Ralph came home the summer of 1945 to his young wife, Motie and entered Birmingham-Southern College on the G.I. bill.  When their first child, Pamala, came along, he left school and went to work for American Bakeries, venturing into a long and lucrative career with that national company.


Left, Motie, Ralph's young wife and my mother, Gerry Stansberry Holliman, meeting for the first time in February 1945 in Irondale.  They were two of the three war brides of World War II, the other being Virginia Holliman Cornelius.

Back to my father – He had reconnected with Miss Geraldine Stansberry of Philadelphia in June 1944.  The stars must have been in alignment.  They had met in September 1942 and while sparks flew for my future mother, not so with my father.  She wrote him often; he seldom replied evidently not ready to settle down.  The summer of 1944 was different.  He fell in love, deeply and by October 1944 when docked for a month in Boston, invited her up and they spent time together. 

February 1945, Bishop finally received leave to go home to Irondale, Alabama (after sailing to the Caribbean and serving as a target for US submarines firing practice torpedoes). Gerry came down from Knoxville, Tennessee (her new home where she lived with her sister as her mother had died the year before). She stayed for a week with the Robert Daly’s, their home adjacent to the Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman, my grandparents at 2300 N. 3^rd Street.  Melton, now stationed at Foster Army Hospital, Jackson, Mississippi and on light duty, took leave also and the two brothers had a reunion. 

Left, my parents in February 1945.



Right in February 1945 in Irondale, left to right, Robert Daly, Bishop Holliman in uniform and his father, Ulyss Holliman.

The visit was a success, and four months later (after another cruise to Ireland and back), my parents married June 26, 1945 in Philadelphia where his ship was docked.  The Germans had surrendered on May 8^th, and on August 15^th, the Japanese did also.  By early September my father, along with thousands of others, received his discharge.  He had served 3 years and 10 months, most of the time as a radioman listening for German U-Boats.    His most dangerous service had been at the 1943 invasion of Sicily when his ship was bombed by the Luftwaffe.

Right a summer day in 1945 in Irondale, Alabama before my father, Bishop Holliman, far right was discharged from the Navy.  Left to right, Vena Daly, Patti Holliman, Virginia Holliman Cornelius, Bob Daly, Gerry Holliman and her new husband, Bishop.

Christmas 1945, a brother-in-law (below) was still overseas, my Aunt Virginia Holliman’s high school beau and since 1942 husband, Walter Cornelius. He shipped to the Central Pacific in 1945, and spent months on the island of Saipan.  He would not get home until 1946.  Virginia (right) had given birth to their first daughter, Carol, in 1944.

It would be the Christmas of 1946 before all were home to enjoy a grand family reunion.  World War II was over, the veterans found jobs and the Baby Boomer generation soon followed!

My father all his life remained modest about his long service in the Navy.  Yet he and my uncles, indeed the whole family sacrificed as did millions of others that first half of the 1940s.  

Happily the Holliman family of Irondale, Alabama suffered no deaths or physical wounds.  But the world, their world, would never be the same.  

A Post WWII Christmas for an Alabama Family

by Glenn N. Holliman

Christmas 1946 - All Together Again

It was the first Christmas when all the sons who had gone to war - Melton, Bishop and Ralph - and a son-in-law, Walter Cornelius, could be together with the extended family.  This Birmingham/Irondale, Alabama nuclear family was reunited after the travail of war.  All the persons pictured above still lived near the childhood home of the seven siblings - Melton, Vena, Euhal, Loudelle, Bishop, Virginia and Ralph.  Euhal and family lived in Gadsden and Melton's branch in Mobile.  In a few years this would change.

And in a few years there would be many more children, the 'Baby Boomers'!

This is a photograph I have starred at many times in my now long life.  The names placed under the photograph are all correct except the name 'Susan' in Virginia's lap.  That is Carol Cornelius born 1944.  Her sister Susan would come along in 1949.  As Charles and Loudelle Ferrell are referred to as Dad and Mother, perhaps cousin Charles H. Ferrell labeled us.

While examining this picture and rearranging others a few weeks ago (I have hundreds of photographs of the Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman's descendants and happy to forward them to those requesting), I was amazed to discover a second photograph taken evidently right before or right after each other.  See if you spot the differences.  It took me a few minutes to do so.

Some eyes are open or now closed.  Grandpa Ulyss is closer to Pearl.  Patti is now on the front row, partially blocking Carolyn.  The bottom photograph is not as sharp; perhaps that is why a second was taken.

Mary, holding her brother Bob, is the oldest cousin and the remaining person who may remember the details of the pictures.  The rest of us were too young, and all the adults have passed away.

There are 12 grandchildren in this picture.  By 1956, there would be 19 grandchildren, but alas Grandmother Pearl had died in May 1955 and with that the Christmas reunions ceased to be.  Both Bishop and Ralph families had moved out of state for employment opportunities.

Who took the pictures?  I believe it was Virginia's good friend, Verlice Nichols, pictured below.  This picture was taken with the Robert and Vena Holliman Daly home in the background.  Many of the Holliman pictures were taken at this location adjacent to the Ulyss and Pearl home.  Why?  One the location of the sun, persons looking south and two, did the Daly family own the camera? 

After my father Bishop died in 2018, my sister Becky and I connected with Verlice, then in her late 90s living in an Arizona retirement home.  She telephoned us several times, and we talked of her memories of Irondale and growing up in the 1930s.  Sadly earlier this year we received a call that she had died suddenly.  Another chapter closed.

As I have reviewed hundreds of pictures the past month, I noticed that my grandfather often stared off into space when posing for pictures.  Notice in the two pictures above he does not look into the camera.

Above is the first known picture of Ulyss taken ca 1900.  The copy under the picture is by Rhodes B. Holliman (1928-2014), grandson of John Thomas Holliman (1844-1830), my generation's great grandfather.   From the beginning, Ulyss avoided a direct gaze at the camera.  Interesting.

Thanks for reading and hope this is helpful to those of new generations who wonder from whence they have come.