How a World War changed an Alabama Family, Part 5

by Glenn N. Holliman

Summer 1941

22 June 1941, full of hubris and more than mildly insane, Adolph Hitler launched his war machine east against the Soviet Union.  Earlier that spring, his Wehrmacht had swallowed the Balkans, Greece and Crete and joined the Italians in North Africa.  German foreign minister Von Ribbentrop wrapped Nazi arms around Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and Finland.  Britain, supported by her dominions Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, stood on the continental fringes of Europe facing foes Italy and Germany. 

German Panzer IIIs invaded Russian in what most of the world thought would be an easy conquest.  It was not to be.
n Panzer III tanks close to a border battle near Brest-Litovsk on June 22

Mad with ambition, a loathing of communism, racial and religious hatred and swollen with excessive confidence in his armies, Hitler hurled over 3 million men against another sadist dictator, Joseph Stalin, the communist autocrat of the largest geographical nation on the planet.  The battle of two titans commenced, and the world held its breath.

In the United States the World War would soon reach out and engulf an Alabama family....
 
The year before, 1940, Walter Cornelius, second row, far left in coat and tie, graduated from Shades Cahaba High School in Homewood, Alabama.  His future brother-in-law, Ralph Holliman, Class of 1942, sat near him in the middle of this group picture in the white and black shirt with the collar.  In early February 1942, Walter married Virginia Holliman, also Class of 1940.  Both Walter and Ralph would serve in the U.S. Army during the war - Walter in Saipan and Ralph in France.

From the memoirs of Bishop Holliman of Irondale, Alabama - "In the summer of 1941, I went back to Lake Junaluska, attended the Methodist Youth Conference at Montevallo College (and was elected president and interesting to note, my opponent was Howell Heflin, later U.S. Senator from Alabama) and worked intermittently at Hill's Grocery in Irondale, Alabama.  I am afraid I did not dwell a great deal on the prospects of the U. S. entering the war even that terrible summer in Europe."

Below Bishop Holliman 'concentrating' on his religious duties at  the Methodist Conference Center of Lake Junaluska, North Carolina in 1941.

In August 1941, a letter from his draft board sent Bishop scurrying back from a vacation in Florida with the Daly and Ferrell families. Checking in, Bishop was told he would be called in the fall.  Not anxious to join the U.S. Army, Bishop enlisted in the U.S. Navy, ready to go at a later date.

In the meantime, a girl friend, Gloria Zackey, who was a secretary  for Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company on 1st Avenue in Birmingham, recommended him for a temporary job, filing in chronological order cancelled checks.  "I was paid 75 cents an hour and thought a $26 a week pay check was pretty good."

Above, ten year old Mary Daly (Herrin) in a bathing cap suits typical of the period holds hands at Daytona Beach, Florida, August 1941 with her cousins Carolyn (Tatum) and Charles Halford Ferrell. The war would soon bring such vacations to a screening halt for most Americans.  Vena Holliman Daly and Loudelle Holliman Ferrell were Bishop, Virginia, Euhal and Ralph Holliman's sisters.

That same August, President Franklin D. Roosevelt rendezvoused in Newfoundland by ship with Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill of the United Kingdom.  Their military leaders met, and from the meetings at sea, was issued the Atlantic Charter, a just vision of a post-war world, declared boldly before the U.S. was formally in the war. Below, Roosevelt, Churchill and their staffs on the deck of the HMS Prince of Wales.

And again that summer of 1941, generally not noticed by many Americans, the State Department, utterly disgusted with Japan's continued war and invasion of China, initiated an embargo of the selling of U. S. petroleum to Japan.  For the militaristic government of Japan without oil, the clock began to tick rapidly toward a decision either to seize supplies in the Dutch East Indies or acquiesce to U.S. demands to cease their four year invasion of China. 

The government of new Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, a Japanese army general, refused to consider a withdrawal from China, and began plans to confront the U.S. militarily. Japan would decide to secure by violence the resources needed to maintain their military and civilian economy.  Time was running out in the Pacific, while most U.S. eyes were focused on the North Atlantic and Europe.  Below the Prime Minister of Japan who authorized the attack on Pearl Harbor.

"For ten years, Japan had been front page news, but I was not cognizant of how big a threat she was and I know that in the summer of 1941, I did not view that country as an enemy we would soon fight.  I guess all our attention was on Europe and I simply did not foresee future conflict with the 'Rising Sun'.  In later years I wondered how I could have been so uninformed - or ignorant - about what was happening in the Pacific." - Bishop Holliman

Next Posting, a Holliman joins the Navy....

Have questions about Holliman family history and associated families? 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. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you.

Announcing also a "Seminar and Site" gathering October 18 and 19, 2013 in Fayette, Alabama for Hollimans and associated families whose ancestors are from that area. Space at the Rose House Inn is limited for the occasion due to a football weekend. For information, contact me at glennhistory@gmail.com. GNH