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. 3rd
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 8th, and on August 15th, 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!
Happily the Holliman family of Irondale, Alabama suffered no deaths or physical wounds. But the world, their world, would never be the same.
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