Christmas 1941...A Homesick Sailor on Liberty....
In another fit of madness and arrogance and honoring the
agreement of the Japanese alliance, Adolf Hitler declared on December 11, 1941 that
Germany was at war with the United States.
Italy followed suit, and the U.S. Congress quickly replied in kind. The United States now faced global war on numerous
fronts after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Bishop Holliman, b. 1919, of
Irondale, Alabama spent his first Christmas away from his large and close-knit
family by taking a day's leave from his Navy training station in Norfolk, Virginia
to visit the nation's capitol on December 25, 1941. Winston Churchill, then in Washington, D.C.
spent Christmas with the Roosevelt's at the White House where planning for a
response to the Axis powers - Germany, Italy and Japan - continued for over a
month. Their planning would yield rich results in time, but that holiday season,
the Allied cause was reeling under the massed forces of Japan, Italy and Germany.
"I had been in boot camp since November 13, 1941. Ordinarily, basic training went on for 6 to 8 weeks but because of the war and, hence, the need to get men to ships and service stations as soon as possible, training was reduced to 4 or 6 weeks. Our platoon (305) disbanded before Christmas and we were assigned to K.P. duty on the base. My first liberty came on Christmas Eve, and I rode to Washington, D.C. I have forgotten how I got there back, but, believe me, for a little more than 24 hours, I forsook the Navy and turned my thoughts to things!
All telephone lines were busy. This was before direct dialing and one had to
go through the operator. She would
connect you with Charlotte, then Atlanta and finally, Birmingham. Sometimes you might get to Charlotte or
Atlanta. At times you would get an
immediate response 'all circuits are busy.' So you would try, try again. This contest might go on for hours, which on
this Christmas Eve it did. I was never
able to get through that night nor the next day." Bishop Holliman, 1991 Memoirs
Immediately
after the attack on Hawaii, Japanese forces launched a Pacific-wide offensive
of land, sea and air. Hong Kong,
Singapore, Guam and Wake Island were quickly conquered and subdued. Only in the Philippines, then a colony of the
United States, did the combined forces of the U.S. and the Philippine Army hold
off for four months the invasion of Japanese divisions. General Douglas MacArthur, commanding
joint colonial and regular U.S. Army troops, stalled the Japanese on the peninsula. of Bataan, north west of the capitol of
Manila.
Above, the General of the Army, George C.
Marshall, the right man at the right place during the War, reached out and
called to Washington, D.C. a former administrative aide to MacArthur, one newly
minted one-star General Dwight David Eisenhower. Eisenhower's job that December was to devise
a way to get supplies to the Philippines to keep MacArthur's forces
fighting. With the Japanese Navy and Air
Forces in charge of the South Pacific and with much of the U.S. battle fleet at
the bottom in Pearl Harbor, the task was impossible.Below, one star General Dwight D. Eisenhower, pictured as World War II began.
But Eisenhower's work ethic, management skills, organizational talents and cooperative, but firm attitude, caught Marshall's eye. The War would see much of General Eisenhower.
Next, more on that
Christmas of 1941 for an Alabama family....
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!).
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. Don't just let family's genealogical work or photographs languish unread and deteriorating in an attic. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you. - GNH
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!).
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. Don't just let family's genealogical work or photographs languish unread and deteriorating in an attic. Thanks to the Internet, we are able to scan, upload to the web (with your permission) and return the materials to you. - GNH