An Alabama Family in World War II, Part 42

Melton falls Ill and is Evacuated from France

From early February to September 1944, Melton P. Holliman, (1908-1958),the first born child of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman, moved from training in the United States to the European theater of war.  From his letters we know that Melton understood the status of a ‘replacement’ was a wretched position  in the Army.  From Camp Barkley in Texas, where Melton trained as a pharmacist and medic, to transit camps in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, he arrived in England in early April. 

There he languished somewhere in the U.K. until July 31, 1944, 55 days after D-Day.  The rapid advance of the Allied Armies at that time resulted in yet another replacement camp, sleeping on the ground for over a month in a shared pup tent near St. Lo, Normandy.

Right, Melton in England

General George Patton’s 3^rd Army roared through France in August, helped liberate Paris and moved faster than gasoline supplies could keep up with the Sherman tanks rolling toward the German border.  Melton boarded a truck and with other G.I.’s raced east, passing through towns filled with joyous French people celebrating their liberation from the Nazi regime. 

On September 1^st, he arrived at the 94^th Medical Battalion near Verdun, the World War I battlefield. For several months, still sleeping in a pup tent and slogging in the rain and mud, he served as a dental assistant.  Finally with his training, he began to serve wounded soldiers and his own morale soared.

His mail caught up with him, but the nights in October grew cold and the rain kept falling on his primitive sleeping arrangements.  He wrote that autumn that he never felt better, but on November 7^th  he went on sick call and was soon hospitalized.

My Uncle Melton was not a young man, then 36 years old, a Camel cigarette smoker, and for months had suffered with chronic bronchitis.  He did not want to worry his family in letters home from France, but for several months he had been having dizzy spells.  By November 17^th, he was evacuated to England to be further examined.   Diagnosed with high blood pressure, he faced the danger of a stroke. 

He was still in England on December 10^th,  but returned to the States immediately afterward by either air transport or fast ship to an Army hospital on Staten Island, New York before Christmas.  There Ida and Patti rushed to his bedside and stayed for four days.  While with them his dizzy spells continued.   His odyssey ended January 2, 1945 at Foster Army Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi.  There his mother and wife were able to visit.  By February 1945 he had his first leave in over a year and reunited with his family in Irondale, Alabama

 

Right, reunited with his beloved family, Ida and Patti in the swing at 2300 3^rd Avenue North in Irondale, Alabama, February 1945.  Out of his uniform, Melton relaxed in civilian clothes.

It was on this visit that my father, Bishop Holliman (1919-2018), on leave from the Navy, introduced his soon to be bride, my mother, Geraldine Stansbery to the family.

Above, left to right, Geraldine Stansbery Holliman (1923-2015),  Mary Daly Herrin, Vena Holliman Daly (1910-1990) and Pearl Caine Holliman (1887-1955) at the Daly House on a chilly February day in Alabama.

Below, two brothers, both still on active duty and on leave, Bishop (1919- 2018) and Melton (1908-1958) on a warm winter day in early 1945.

Melton would spend the rest of his war at the hospital in Mississippi on light duty.  As with millions of others that year, he was discharged and returned to his civilian career, in his case with Wythe Pharmaceuticals.  He had done his duty, but at the cost of precious months away from his wife and child, Patti.  And his health was never the same….

An Alabama Family in World War II, Part 41

The Run Up to the Invasion of Europe

By Glenn N. Holliman

April 15, 1944, my father, Bishop Holliman (1919-2018) received a ten-day leave in Boston after another tiring convoy trip to and from the European Theater. He took the occasion to train to his home in Irondale, Alabama. 

Crowded, the trip took the better part of two days to make the journey.  It took another two days back before his leave expired on April 25^th, hence only six days home.

Left in 1940, 20 year old Bishop Holliman, right and his friend, a Methodist minister, Paul Nelson Propst.  Bishop would name his son, Glenn Nelson Holliman, after Paul with whom he maintained contact for the rest of Paul's life, one of the few pre-war friendships Bishop was able to maintain after the service.

The length of Bishop's military obligation, 3 years and 10 months, had weakened most of Bishop's many Methodist Church relationships.  Charles Ferrell helped Bishop gain employment as a youth assistant for the North Alabama Methodist Conference, a job that enabled my father to pay much of his way through three years of Birmingham-Southern College from 1937-1941.  

'Big Mama' was the family name given lovingly to The Rev. Charles Ferrell's mother. My Uncle Charles was assigned to the Ensley Highlands Methodist Church in the fall of 1944 after a pastorate in Huntsville, Alabama.  Left to right are Charles H. Ferrell, his mother Loudelle, her daughter Carolyn and Mrs. Ferrell in black.

He had hoped to see his sister, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell (1914-1998), who lived in Huntsville, Alabama with her husband, Charles, a Methodist minister and their children – Hal, Carolyn and the latest addition, two-year-old John Melton.  Time and distance did not permit a visit.  His brother-in-law Robert Daly, Sr. observed in his letters that gasoline rationing now limited most civilians to three gallons a week.

Bishop, who had been at sea for much of the past eight months, was fatigued.  Generally, on his destroyer, the USS Barker, he was on radio duty for four hours on and four hours off around the clock.  He wrote Loudelle that he probably would not try to return home again between sea duty unless he had longer leave time, that the emotional experience of saying good bye to his parents and loved ones, and the coming and going was wearing on him. 

The truth is Bishop’s world had enlarged beyond his childhood home and experiences.  Forty years later he wrote by late 1943, he finally felt at home in the Navy, had learned his job and had some buddies on the USS Barker.  After 2 ½ years in the military, his world had grown larger – numerous trips to the Mediterranean and others up and down the Eastern Seaboard.  He had met persons from all over the United States, persons of different cultures and faiths (or no religious traditions).  For my father and millions of other, the war expanded personal horizons.

 

Right, Bishop Holliman and his brother Euhal at the Vena Daly home in Irondale, Alabama in 1967. Note the hats worn by men in that era!

His return north-bound train did stop in Attala (Gadsden, Alabama) and his brother Euhal (1912-1989) and his family, wife Edna, and children Jerry, Terry and Anne, turned out in their Sunday best to greet Bishop for the few minutes as passengers got off and on.  My father wrote how touched he was by their short visit.  Euhal, the father of three children and with a fourth on the way (Jean born 1944), was called up for his physical but not conscripted that spring of 1944, probably due to his family responsibilities and his health.  He had suffered debilitating rheumatic fever as a baby.

 

Below at the home of Bishop Holliman in 1954, Johnson City, Tennessee.  Far left and far right, twins born 1940, Jerry and Terry Holliman, Euhal's sons and middle, left and right, Glenn N. Holliman, b 1946 and Rebecca Holliman Payne, b 1950, all preparing for a game of baseball in the front yard.  Jerry and Terry had traveled with their grandparents from Alabama to visit.  Bishop was a field representative for the Social Security Administration, and made numerous relocations in the 1950s and early 1960s.  We lived in Johnson City from 1952 to 1957.

His brothers Melton and Ralph (stationed in England), both worried Euhal might be drafted and hoped he would not be due to the above noted reasons.  Although 17 years of age separated Melton (b 1908), the oldest son of Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman, and Ralph (b 1925), the youngest son, the four brothers were close emotionally.

Their sister Virginia’s husband during that spring, Walter Cornelius in the Army Air Corp was training in Mississippi and Tennessee.  The Holliman family as with millions of others were now dealing with a long war, one that did not yet suggest an end in sight. 

Unknown to the American public, hundreds of thousands of these soldiers, sailors and airmen were about to enter major battles in Southeast Asia (Burma), the Pacific (the invasion of Saipan and the Philippines and for the Holliman sons, France (D-Day and the sweep across France).  Before the summer and fall of 1944 would pass, tens of thousands of American homes would be receiving dreaded telegrams from the War Department announcing the deaths of their sons.

Melton (1908-1958) who wrote daily from England to his wife, Ida (1905-1995), remarked in early April 1944:

“Of course Honey, you know how much I miss you and Patsy, b 1942.  I am glad you have her with you; she is so sweet.  We are fighting for the loved ones at home.  That is the reason we are here. So that she and you can live peacefully, and she can grow up unafraid.”

Above in 1942, Melton and Ida Hughes Holliman.  Melton wrote daily while in the Army to Ida and their young daughter, Patti (whom Melton called Patsy). 

By late May, Melton was complaining that he had moved ten times since arriving in England, that the mail had slowed and that he was stationed at a port (evidently on the English Channel, a jumping off post for the Invasion). Finally, on June 2, 1944 he had received a temporary assignment in his military occupation, a pharmacist.

From finishing his training in January 1944, Melton had been traveling and waiting, moving and waiting, perhaps not realizing that hundreds of thousands of other men also were moving into position for the June 6^th Invasion of Europe.  Historians have noted that the U.S. military in England was like a ‘coiled spring’, tightly wound and ready to be unleashed on a Nazi occupied continent.  Melton, Ralph and Bishop were all part of the great enterprise that was about to free western Europe from tyranny. 

Left, Bishop's son, Glenn, b. 1946 passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, October 2018, 75 years after his father made the same journey to the Battle of Sicily, and 74 years after Bishop sailed through on June 5/6, 1944.

The night of June 5, 1944 my father’s destroyer approached the Straits of Gibraltar moving from east to west, once again on convoy duty.  

That day, the U.S. Army liberated Rome.  

The next morning, Bishop Holliman would hear over the ether waves the alert for all U.S. ships that the great invasion of France was on.  He and millions of others hoped against hope that the end of the war was drawing neigh. We know the brutal conflict would continue for another 11 months in Europe and Japan would not surrender until August 1945.

And Melton would be a casualty before the year of 1944 was out.

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.....

An Alabama Family in World War II, Part 36

by Glenn N. Holliman

News from the Home Front, as Summer turns to Autumn, 1943

Bishop Holliman's destroyer left the Battle of Sicily and the Mediterranean and arrived in New York City in the late summer of 1943.  Brothers Melton and Ralph were in the Army - Melton as a medic in training at Ft. Bradley, Texas and Ralph, a clerk assigned to Reno, Nevada.

Their Mother, Pearl Caine Holliman sent Melton a newsy letter proclaiming that Ed Fortenberry, the Irondale, Alabama grocer, was ready to adopt Melton and Ida's new vivacious daughter, Patsy, if ever they wanted to give her away!  "She seems to win everyone's heart wherever she goes."

 Left, Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman in Irondale with their grand daughter, Patsy (Patti), daughter of Melton and Ida Hughes Holliman.  

Pearl wrote "We had a bond rally in Irondale last night and us women had to go door to door to sell bonds." A week later she wrote Melton, of which I publish a part of the letter (see below).  This is my grandmother's own handwriting.

In the 4th line, she writes that Motie, Ralph's young wife, has returned from visiting him and now has a job in Birmingham, but if Ralph stays long in Reno, she is going to join him.

In the 8th line Pearl refers to Vena Holliman Daly's pregnancy, one in which she often had been sick.  The child, Bob, will be born safely in October 1943 and was named after his father, Robert William Daly, Sr.


Right, Vena, Ulyss, Pearl and Mary, daughter of Robert and Vena Holliman Daly in 1942.

In the 11th line, Bishop has been reassigned from the USS Butler to the USS Barker, but goes for more radio direction training in Maine before shipping out again into the North Atlantic.

His Mother is worried he will be sent back to Italy, where 'they are having some slauter (sic) over there.'  Here Pearl writes, as she did in most letters, of her deep Christian faith, a faith that through prayer all her boys would come home safely from the war.

Toward the end of this letter, Pearl expressed her concern that her sister, Vista Caine (1898-1986), had a new boy friend (Vista smoked, drank, was twice divorced and generally enjoyed life).  Pearl's strict religious beliefs and Vista's life style created stress between the two sisters throughout their lives.  Their Mother, Lula Hocutt Caine (1861-1957) had a more live and let live approach to life!         

                                                                                                                                       

Above, Fred Gumpp, Vista, Bishop and Gerry Holliman in 1974 at Vista's home in Indiana.  She married that 'rich man', Fred, and settled down to 40 years of marriage!

Next post, more letters from the home front in Alabama!

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 30

by Glenn N. Holliman

News from the Home Front during World War II, Spring 1943

March and April 1943 were months of stress and change for the Irondale, Alabama family of Ulyss (1884-1965) and Pearl Caine Holliman (1888-1955). Their 5th of seven children, Bishop (b 1919), had been in the Navy for 1 1/2 years. 

The youngest son, Ralph (b 1924), and son-in-law, Walter Cornelius (1922-2007), were both drafted into Uncle Sam's growing armies that spring. There was illness in the families of Charles (1907 - 1999) and Loudelle Holliman Ferrell (1914-1998) and Euhal (1912-1989) and Edna Holliman (1916-1992) that March. Melton, the first born son (1908 - 1958), suffered a serious automobile accident.  

Right, a 1920s photograph of three sisters - Vista Caine Grump (1898-1986), Maude Caine Cook (1893- 1940) and Pearl, all daughters of William Lee (1862- 1937) and Lula Caine (1861-1957). The three grew up in Fayette, Alabama and moved with their families to Irondale during World War I.

Let the letters from 1943 'paint a picture' for us.

First a frantic letter from Pearl to son Bishop that March 1943.  Bishop was in Navy radio school in Maine. I copy verbatim from my precious and deeply religious grandmother, who had only an 8th grade education from a rural school in Fayette County, Alabama. In the 1890s, schools often only met for 5 to 6 months a year.

"So many things happening.  I stay in a dose (daze) most all the time.  last week the Ferrells was so bad off, I thought every day, I would have to go up there, and the weather was so cold, I just could not go off and leave Dad by his self, and no one here to keep a fire in the house for him. 

An on top of all that Vena (Holliman Daly) was sick, and will be for nine mo.  don't let it shock you to death, I am trying not to be surprised at anything."  

Left, Melton in the early 1930s in an unwrecked automobile!

"And about 1 o'clock this morning the bottom fell out.  The Telephone woke me up and when I answered Melton answered me.  he had had a reck in Marianna Fla.  got his car torned up.  and he was hurt pretty bad.  A miracle that he is a live.  

Ida (his wife) was in Central Park so I had to get her on the phone she left on the 8 o'clock train this morning.  So I called Mobile while a go and he had been ex-rayed, he had 3 ribs broken, his shoulder knocked out of place said he thought the fumes of Gas knocked him out. and he left the road and turned over. tore the top off his car and some Soldiers found him and got him out. he rode the bus to Mobile be fore he called up or had a Dr. but he thinks he will be all right in a week or so.

I am so thankful that he is ?. Also I had a card from Loudelle and they are all better.  so I do have something to praise the Lord for to nite.  Also had a letter from Edna Sat. She said they had been sick, but was better.  she wanted your add."

A 'translation' for younger generations - Melton was a salesman for a pharmaceutical company, traveling daily from his home and wife, Ida Hughes Holliman, in Mobile, Alabama.  Married since 1932, the couple had no children and were trying to adopt.

Loudelle (b 1915) was married to The Rev. Charles Ferrell, a Methodist pastor in Jacksonville, Alabama at the time.  They had three children - Charles Halford, Carolyn and a new baby son, John Melton Ferrell, named after his uncle.

Edna was the wife of Euhal Holliman who worked in the grocery business in Gadsden, Alabama.  They had three children at the time - twin boys Jerry and Terry (b 1940) and a little girl, Ann (b 1943) pictured on the right.

Vena Holliman Daly (1909-1990)  lived next door to her parents in Irondale with her husband, Robert W. Daly, Sr. and their daughter, Mary Daly Herrin (b 1931).  Vena as expecting a child, Robert W. Daly, Jr., who would be born that October 1943.

Again from Pearl - "Well we pay income tax this week. also $40 for St. improvement, Bunts did not want to pay, because they never complete did their work, and was now they are going to the law and want us to but we are not so, I guess they will be hurt.

My chickens are doing fine.  I just lost 2 so far.  Your grandmas roomers left her last week. but she rented again yesterday. 

Melton and Ida have adopted a daughter!  And are they thrilled. 10 mo. old, and red headed.  We are crazy to see her.  She said she was the pride of Mobile. said people we're coming from ever where to see her.  You know the Holliman family is realy on the increase.  I told some of them, I thought I would join the Waac's or Waves one. as I would soon have a Army at home."

Below - Three cousins playing.   Back is Carolyn Ferrell (Tatum) (b 1938), and center is a very young Patti Holliman (Hairston) and the new Ferrell son, John (b 1942).

"Dad went to the store other yesterday.  Afternoon and they had plenty of meat, something they have not had in Irondale in 2 or 3 weeks, so he thought he would get a good steak.  Went up and ask for it, and did not have the points.  So he did not get any Steak.  Guess we will learn sometime. "

Below, Mary Daly (Herrin) and Walter Cornelius, her brother-in-law, who married Virginia, Mary's aunt in 1942.

And from Mary Daily (Herrin) (1931), the daughter of Robert and Vena Holliman Daly, we have these words from a humorous 12 year old:

"Guess what?  You have a new niece.  'Ida Patricia'.  Uncle Melton and Aunt Ida adopted her Saturday at Montgomery.  She is 10 months old with red hair.  All she has was one dress and 6 diapers.  They bought her 3 aprons in Montgomery but lost them before they got home.  They called us today and told us. So you see there's never a dull moment in the "Holliman" family.

Walter leaves for Kessler Field, Mississippi.  Virginia is going to stay with us.  Mr. Jiles Jones lost his mind.  They carried him to Brices (Bryce) Hospital yesterday.  The 6th of April I sent (free of charge) for three bottles of Jergens Lotions.  April 20th I received them.  They are about 2 inches high. We received the pictures you sent.  They are very good, all except the ones you are in (Ha! Ha!).  Mama H. bought a bond.  Why don't you send me some money and let me buy you some stamps and bonds." 

Translations?  Bryce was the mental hospital in Alabama.  The Bunts were neighbors.  In 1943 miraculously 3rd Avenue in Irondale was paved and sidewalks added, all in the midst of war shortages.  Bonds?  War bonds, of course.

Melton, recovered from his automobile accident, wrote a post card to Bishop on April 5, 1943 filled with good and not so good news. Below Patti sunbathing on a carpet; she the bright sunshine in her parents' lives! 

"I suppose Mother has written you about your new niece.  She is very sweet and we love her very much.  Too bad we got her just before I'm being drafted.  Had to fill out application for reclassification today.  Suppose I will be put in 1A. This letter will be short - we haven't had time to do anything since the baby came.  Love, Ida, Patsy and Melton."

Later in August, Melton, age 35, would be inducted into the U.S. Army and torn away from his wife of 11 years and their long awaited child, Patti.  His war would not end until the spring of 1945. After time in France with the medical corp in 1944, his health would never be the same.

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!).

There is also a massive Ancestry.com Holyman and Associated Families Tree available for review.  For an invitation to this collection of over 20,000 individuals, please write glennhistory@gmail.com.  

Also one will find additional Holliman history at http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ .

I also have a collection of associated family manuscripts and research collected by the late Walt Holliman, Cecil Holliman and Rhodes Holliman.  Happy to send these materials by email and to insure their research is available.  The surnames: Alexander, Baldwin, Barham, Bass, Beall, Blakeney,  Baker, Bond, Bostick, Brewer, Bryan, Bryant, Bullock, Calvert, Carter, Champion, Chew,Cofer, Cole, Crafford, Crockett, Curtis, Dale, Daniel, Davidson, Davies, De Mallpas, Douglas, Duckett, Edwards, Edgerton, Emerson, Fitzhugh, Fowlehurst, Fox, Gains, Garrison, Gonson, Graves, Gray, Guyton, Guins, Hall, Hamby, Hawkins,Hendrix, Hill, Hogg, Holliman, Holt, Howard, Jackson, Jones, Judkins, Love, Lucas, Maget, Mansfield, Manwaring, McBee, McComas, McCurdy, McNewsome, Nicholson, Norsworthy, Noyall, O'dell, Oliver, Pearce, Peerce, Pettigrew, Petway, Pitman, Plow, Plyler, Porten, Prather, Petite, Ridgely, Riggan, Roberts, Smith, Spencer, Sprigg, Standley, Stanyard, Swan, Strother, Thompson, Thornton, Thrope, Trelawney, Turpin, Underhill, Underwood, Wallace, Walters, Weedon, Whitherspoon, Whitten,Williams,Wilmot,Wilson, Whitaker and Yerby.  These are mainly Alabama families and their ancestors from the Carolinas and Virginia. Materials vary from one page to 200. - GNH at glennhistory@gmail.com. 

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 17

by Glenn N. Holliman

Battles in the Pacific and an Irondale Blackout....

During the first months of 1942, Japanese military advanced virtually unhampered through Southeast Asia.  With much of the American fleet resting on the sea floor of Hawaii, the Japanese Navy dominated the South Pacific.  That began to change in May 1942 with the Battle of the Coral Sea off the coast of Australia.

In May 1942 the Japanese Navy was advancing on Port Moseby, the front door to Australia.  The U.S. Aircraft carriers, Yorktown and Lexington, engaged in the first ever exclusive air dual between opposing ships. Both nations lost a carrier, but the advance of Nipponese fleet was effectively thwarted and Australia was safe from invasion. Below the crew of the valiant Lexington abandon ship.

Nerves on the home front were jittery.  May 20, 1942, Irondale, Alabama experienced a practice blackout.  In a letter to my father, H. Bishop Holliman, my grandmother, Pearl Caine Holliman (1887-1955), expressed her excited feelings to her only son then in the service during World War II.   At this time, Bishop was training to be a pilot in the U.S. Navy Air Corps.  His family at home was worried.

 "Dear Bishop - 10 o'clock we have just had a blackout.  We did not know we were going to have it, so we did not where the bombs were coming or not til after it.  Was all over and then they said it was a trial blackout.  One or two in Irondale did not turn all lights out til the last minute.  All these air raid wardens had a time.  I don't what we would have done if the planes had begun to fly over."

 Right, Robert W. Daly, Sr. (1901-1959) in his air raid warden hat standing beside his father-in-law, Ulyss S. Holliman (1884-1965) at 2300 3rd Avenue North, Irondale, Alabama.


By the middle 1930s, Pearl and her husband, Ulyss, had left the Methodist Church in Irondale due to theological differences to attend worship services at the Tabernacle, an emotional, evangelical, Bible-based congregation in Birmingham.  The pastor was one Glenn Tingley, one of the first radio preachers in the South. 



My grandmother's letters often reflected her earnest religious feelings.  During the spring and summer of 1942, her son, Bishop, was stationed in a city not known for conventional Protestant values - New Orleans, Louisiana!  Pearl was not only worried about her son's physical safety; she was worried about the temptations of the French Quarter!

"I will always wonder what you did Saturday night and Sunday.  May you always remember you are a Christian and not go any place you would not take Christ with you.  Now that is all I have to say."

On one occasion that summer of 1942, Bishop was able to visit home on a quick leave and fly back to New Orleans from Birmingham.  Commercial flying was still in its infancy in 1942 and considered a dangerous adventure.  His Mother wrote him of her worries and faith.
 
"We were so anxious to hear how you enjoyed our ride (flight).  I do believe Dad got a bigger thrill than you did.  I tell you (he) was really going.  I do believe I would take a ride in one now if I had the price.  I was not worried about you at all...we went to the Tabernacle.  Dad went to the men's prayer meeting and I went in the women's so they all prayed for you, and I knew you would be okay.  We went to hear Dr. Ham, and I want to tell you. He says we have one thing to do and only one and 'that be ready to meet Jesus.'  Wish ever one of you children could have heard him.  I mean 'heard' him!"

Left, Bishop Holliman  with a sailor friend and several girls in New Orleans on a Sunday afternoon spring 1941.  My father, far right in the photograph, is in his spiffy uniform and looks straight into the camera.  The girl looks a bit coy and is holding hands with the other sailor.  

As with millions of others during the War, Bishop met persons of many different faiths or no faith traditions, some with high ethical values, others with few.  Higher education and travel were changing the views of an Alabama family.

 Right, his brother, Melton and sister-in-law Ida Holliman visited Bishop while he was stationed in New Orleans that spring and summer.  A pharmacutical salesman living in Mobile, Alabama, Melton would be drafted into the Army in August 1943 at the age of 35.

Another son of Pearl and Ulyss's, Ralph Holliman, would join the Army in March of 1943.  Pearl wrote of his last days of high school in a letter to Bishop, reflecting how proud she was of both sons.   "Ralph has been busy with his test paper.  He is to be toastmaster at the Irondale banquet, the same one you was last year."  

 
Above, Ralph's 1942 graduation announcement from Shades Cahaba High School in Homewood, Alabama.  He received the Spanish American Legion Award and the a Jerusalem pen for work done on the school newspaper. In a few months, he would see his name posted in the Irondale Selective Service office.

Next posting, more letters from home....

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!).

Or join your many cousins at MyFamily.com and view an expanded Holliman family tree and many files on the history of the family. Just write to glennhistory@gmail.com for an invitation.