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.....

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 23

by Glenn N. Holliman

 The Allies Respond....

 Between May and September 1942, 14 German U-Boats prowled Gulf of Mexico waters sinking 58 ships of over 300,000 tons. - Alabama, The History of a Deep South State, University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 2004.  In the South Pacific the battles of the Solomon Islands continued with a fearful toil of the U.S. Navy.

Below, the USS Enterprise, the last U.S. carrier afloat in the eastern Solomons, takes punishment, but does not sink in the fall of 1942.
 
But the tide of war was changing....

"Between the 4th and 22nd November, 1942, the face of the war changed its entire expression.  On the 4th, (General Bernard) Montgomery won the battle of El Alamein.  On the 8th, American and British forces landed in French North Africa.  On the 22nd, the Russians closed the pincers behind the German 6th Army in Stalingrad." - Volume II of the Dairies & Letters of Harold Nicolson, Atheum, New York, 1967.

For Bishop Holliman, radio seaman from Irondale, Alabama, the war was heating up.  After 40 mm machine gun practice in Rhode Island, his destroyer, the USS Butler, began sea trials, sailing out of Philadelphia and into the North Atlantic of the New England coast.  It was October and November, and the sea was rough.  And so was the shakedown cruise.  

Below, the Butler, all of 1,000 tons in size, sailing from her commissioning port of Philadelphia in 1942.

Below, a letter to Bishop's sister, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, and his brother-in-law, Charles.  Recently, the Rev. Charles Ferrell had taken an appointment at the United Methodist Church in Jacksonville, Alabama as the senior pastor.   Bishop describes the fatigue and intensive training necessary to prepare the crew and ship for war duty, but does not forget niece and nephews.  

Notice his reference to the second front, the Allied invasion under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower of North Africa. Also, the sinking of a U-boat by another destroyer on post with the Butler.

"If you see a sub, don't report it.  Maybe it will sink us."

Below, the Charles Ferrell's and 'a new nephew', John Melton Ferrell, named after his uncle, Melton Pearson Ferrell (1908-1958).  Left to right, Charles Halford, Charles, Carolyn, John and Loudelle.  Loudelle and Charles wrote often to her brothers, Bishop, Ralph and Melton Holliman, during the war.

 Next post, more stories and photographs of an Alabama family at war....

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!).
For additional information on Hollimans, check out http://hollimanfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/ . 

How a World War Changed an Alabama Family, Part 19

by Glenn N. Holliman

More of the Summer of '42....

In the War, the Germans closed in on the Russian city of Stalingrad, named after the Russian Communist leader, Joseph Stalin.  In the South Pacific, the U.S. Navy and Marines began a counter-attack on the Japanese Empire.  The island was called Guadalcanal, and it became the focal point of the Pacific War for almost half a year.   

During late June of 1942, inner ear trouble forced my father, Bishop Holliman of Irondale, Alabama, out of the Navy Air Corp in New Orleans.  He went on duty logging airplane training flights and keeping watch over an office.  For a while he was able to move off base and lived in a rooming house enjoying 'civilian' life to a modest extent.  The Air Corp had raised his sights, and he began to dream of becoming an officer in the Merchant Marine.

 However, before a transfer could be arranged between services, the Navy posted him to the U.S.S. Butler, a new destroyer about to undergo its initial shake down cruise out of Philadelphia.  So it was good bye to the South and new adventures and a new military service occupation - an apprentice seaman, a radioman, bound for action in the North Atlantic. 

Bishop took the Alabama Great Southern train from New Orleans to his duty station.  He knew when he would pass through his home town Irondale, Alabama, and so alerted the family.  The train would not stop but at the appointed time, Lula Hocutt Caine, Bishop's 81 year old grandmother, stood on her side back porch on 2nd Avenue in Irondale where she could see the train roar through.  She  vigorously waved a white towel. 

My father saw the flapping towel, even though his grandmother could not see him.   

In his memory, he sees her to this day.  Right, Bishop Holliman in 2010, 68 years later, standing in front of the former home of Lula Hocutt Caine (1861-1957).

His sister, Vena Holliman Daly (1909-1990), and her family managed a vacation in Daytona Beach, Florida that summer.  Right, Vena and her daughter, Mary Daly Herrin, right with unidentified girl on the left.  Vena wore a kamona to protect her self from the Florida sun in this 1938 photograph. 
 
Brother-in-law Robert W. Daly, Sr. wrote that the beach was nearly deserted, only 1/4th the tourists compared to earlier summers.  It would be their last Florida vacation for the duration of the war.  

Due to the lack of tires and fuel, the Daly family had taken the train.   In the book "Forth to the Mighty Conflict, Alabama and World War II" author Allen Cronenberg states that between March and May of 1942, the whole state had only new 1,366 tires!  Because of  this rationing, Robert Daly, Sr. parked his car and started taking the bus to his bank manager's job in Woodlawn.

Loudelle and Charles Ferrell welcomed a new son to their family that summer, a boy named John Melton.  The new baby's uncle, Melton Holliman, sent his namesake a silver cup and spoon as a birth present.  Charles was pastor of the Methodist Church in Jacksonville, Alabama. Right, John Melton Ferrell, age 1 in 1943.  

Below in the 1930s, Melton Holliman giving his niece, Mary Daly Herrin a ride on a bike.  Mary's expression seems to indicate some unease with her precarious position in the basket!  Melton was told by his Mobile, Alabama draft board that summer of 1942 that he, a 34 year old that year, could expect to be called up for service in 1943. 



Author Allen Cronenberg states that over 320,000 men enlisted or were drafted from Alabama during the war.  Three would be Holliman brothers of Irondale - Melton, Bishop and Ralph.  A fourth brother, Euhal, was called up but excused due to parenthood (four children by 1944) and a possible health issue.

Next an Alabama sailor in the Northeast....

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
























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How a World War changed an Alabama Family, Part 7

by Glenn N. Holliman

World War II engulfs America and an Alabama Family!

The day still lives in 'infamy', 7 December 1941.  Suddenly, without warning, hundreds of Japanese war planes swarmed over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and the giant U.S. Navy base.  Almost three thousand American service men and women died that day and numerous ships went to the bottom or were damaged for years.  Fortunately the U.S. aircraft carriers were at sea and escaped the holocaust.  The U.S.A. and the Holliman family of Irondale, Alabama were now, fully, at war.

"On Sunday, December 7, 1941 at about 2 pm, I was standing watch in the barracks in the Norfolk, Virginia Navy Training Station when my relief told me he had heard that the 'Japs' had bombed Pearl Harbor.  Up to that time, not many of us had heard of Pearl Harbor, most thinking she was a female in one of the dives in Norfolk!  Upon receiving word we were at war I felt that at last there was some purpose in having to serve two years or more in the Navy, that finally there was a reason for my being where I was and that my experience would not be completely futile." Bishop Holliman, Memoirs 1991

Below, a training field during World War II at the Norfolk, Virginia Naval Station

 

A few days after Pearl Harbor, Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, the 28 year old wife of The Rev. Charles T. Ferrell, expressed her feelings on the national emergency in a letter.  She holds her third child, John Melton Ferrell, in 1943.

 

 "It was such a shock and such a treacherous act.  I hate war, the thought of it tears me up...what the future holds, nobody knows....I feel sorry for my unborn child (John Melton Ferrell, b. 1942) coming into such a world.  I am trying to remain calm and control myself.  Even thought the world has gone mad and the lights have gone out all over the world, there is one light will never go out...keep your faith and don't lose your grip on God."  

 

Below in 1943 during World War II, Patti Holliman Hairston, daughter of Melton and Ida Holliman, and her cousin, John Melton Ferrell, play in Jacksonville, Alabama where John's father was the United Methodist Church pastor.  Patti's father, Melton, would be inducted into the U.S. Army in August 1943 as the War continued to reach out and engulf the Holliman family.

 

Below in 2012 at the Orange Beach, Florida reunion at the home of Al and Linda Herrin Bradley, the same two cousins looking trim and incredibly youthful, John and Patti, almost 70 years later. 

 

Blessedly, the worst fears of Loudelle Ferrell concerning World War II were not realized for America, but as we all know, the human race continues to produce conflict and challenges.

Next post, the dismal Christmas of 1941....

 

Ulyss and Pearl Caine Holliman and their Descendants

by Glenn N. Holliman

More on Loudelle Holliman Ferrell, (1914 - 1998)

the Fourth Child of Ulyss and Pearl Holliman

Here are the three Ferrell children, all grown up in the 1970s. Charles H. Ferrell would become a United Methodist minister and later a YMCA director.

Favoring her mother, Carolyn resides in North Carolina with grown children and grandchildren.  

John Melton Ferrell resides in Massachusetts with his family,  where he retired in 2010 as a YMCA director.

Note: The information and opinions expressed in these family biographies are those of the writer alone. Comments, corrections and additions are most welcome. The purpose of these articles is to capture a period and family in American history and to pass this legacy along to future generations who share the common bond of family.

More soon.....