MAJOR GENERAL RENDER BRASWELL

A BORN STORYTELLER 

    They say I was born to tell stories.  I had a long and happy life.  And, I went to a lot of places around the world.  I loved to tell stories to whoever would listen to them.  There are so many stories to tell, but for now, I’ll stick to my own story.  

I was born on October 27, 1907 on the road leading from Adrian to Norristown in Emanuel County, Georgia.  My daddy was  Timothy J. Braswell, an insurance salesman and farmer.  His daddy and my grandpa, John Arthur Braswell, was known to be one of the greatest story tellers around.  He studied and read law, but never became a real lawyer.  

Grandpa Braswell used to tell the story of when he was with the Confederate Army over in South Carolina in the last few months of the Civil War.  He was only 18. He and his fellow soldiers were forced to dig out undigested grains of corn from the horse manure, just to get something to eat.  Starving, freezing  and homesick, my grandfather took a man’s horse and rode home to Emanuel County as fast as he could. 

My mother, Diva Dewberry, used to teach school over in Meriwether County. My momma and daddy split up before I was two. I moved with my mother, a beautiful and smart woman,  to Covington, Georgia.  She was later introduced to and married  Dr. Courtney Brooks, a pharmacist and later, a mayor of Covington.  

When I was only fifteen, I enrolled at the University of Georgia.  I liked science, so I got a degree in Pharmacy at Georgia at a time when most of my contemporaries were just getting out of high school.  I stayed on at Georgia and got another degree, a Bachelor in Science, four years later.  The thought of going to Medical School kept coming into my head.  So, with the help of my stepfather, I went on to Emory where I finished my studies in medicine in 1932.  At 25 years old, I was one of the youngest doctors anywhere around the state.  When I was in school, I joined Sigma Alpha Epsilon and Alpha Kappa Kappa, a  medical fraternity. 

After finishing my internship at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, I made a career change.  In fact, my decision to join the Army would change my life forever.

As a newly commissioned second lieutenant, I was ordered to report to Fort McPherson, where I was appointed the Chief of Surgery.  I went back to school at The Medical Field Service School in Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania before I was sent overseas to Manila in the Phillippines, where the Army made me Assistant Chief of Surgery in the Sternberg General Hospital.  

Just after Valentine’s Day in 1938, I married Elizabeth Willingham, the most beautiful and wonderful woman, I had ever seen.  We got married in a real big wedding in St. Philip’s Cathedral  in Atlanta.  We had a grand time traveling all across the country on our honeymoon, before we traveled to the Philippines to make our first home.  

Just before the war began in 1941, Elizabeth and I were sent back to the states, where I was assigned as Assistant Surgeon at Walter Reed Hospital.  Soon they chose me to become a member of the American College of Surgeons.  They say I was the youngest doctor ever to receive that  prestigious honor.  

I decided I wanted to serve in the Army Air Corps.  My first assignment came as a Commander and Chief of Surgery at the base at Big Springs, Texas.  In September 1943, I was promoted to a position at the Air Force Cadet Center in San Antonio.  I took some time to attend the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. 

Then just as the war was winding down in Europe but heating up in the Pacific, the Air Force sent me to serve as the Command Air Surgeon of the 20th Air Force in Guam.

Our planes flew almost every day or night, bombing the island of Japan.  Tens of thousands of the Japanese people were dying every day when our bombers dropped bombs which exploded and ignited fires that  wiped out many Japanese cities.  Then on August 6, 1945, the course of the war changed forever.  

I was called in to examine the pilot of a B-29 who had just returned from the most important mission of the war.  It may have been the most important military mission of all time.  My patient was Col. Paul Tibetts.  His plane was the Enola Gay.  You know, it was the plane which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan.  That almost ended the war right there.

I was at the hospital  in Iwo Jima when they brought Col. Tibetts in to see me.  The Air Force was concerned that the rashes on his body may have come from atomic radiation.  I went over every  part of his body.  I finally figured out the rashes were actually scratches from the dirt and grit which were blasted up from the ground and went through the Colonel’s flight suit.

My wife and I returned to the states in May 1946, when I  was assigned as Commander and Chief of Surgery, Keesler Field Hospital in Mississippi. After a little more than a year, we moved to Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, with the same duties as I had at Keesler. 

In 1952, I was assigned as an air surgeon in the Third Air Force.  We enjoyed our stay in London, before once again we came back home, When we returned to the US, I went to work as a surgeon for the Military Air Transport Service. 

My colleagues gave me a great honor when I was recognized for my professional attainment in the field of aviation medicine.  My uniform was filled with all sorts of medals.  I was given a Legion of Merit for my work in Iwo Jima and an oak leaf cluster for my time as Command Surgeon of the  World-wide Military Air Transport Service.  I got Air Force commendations for my surgical work at Maxwell and as the Senior American Medical Officer in the United Kingdom from 1952 to 1954.  They gave me three battle stars for the time I served in the South Pacific during the war. My greatest award came when the Air Force gave me a Distinguished Service Medal.

After I retired from the Air Force as a Major General, I went to work as a Medical Director of General Motors in Atlanta.  I later went into practice with my half-brother, Dr. Courtney Brooks.   

My darling Elizabeth died in 1971.  Elizabeth and I had three fine children, Stephen, Thomas and Elizabeth.  Some three years later, I married Lillian Cox Dawes de  la Fuente in Atlanta. 

I died on May 20, 2001.  They buried my body in Section 5 of Arlington National Cemetery.  The Air Force gave me one grand send off into the skies of heaven.  I can’t remember if I ever wanted to be a lawyer like most of the men story tellers in my family.  But, the government buried me in a crowd of Supreme Court Justices.  They are a right smart bunch of fellows.  Sometimes they get together and talk about the law.  And the stories they tell, well you can’t make up these tales.  Right around me are Chief Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Warren Burger, and others like Thurgood Marshall and four more Associate Justices. 

You can’t see them from my grave, but not too far from me, a few hundred feet or so,  and just across a small hill out of sight of the Justices and myself are the Kennedy boys;  Joseph, John, Robert and Edward.  Boy, do those Yankees  have a good time when they all get together! I can’t they say what they do.  After all, one of them was my commander in chief for a thousand  days. And what happens in Arlington, stays in Arlington.  

Well, folks this is my story.  Obviously, I couldn’t speak to you directly. So, I asked my first cousin Claudie Braswell Thompson’s grandson, Scott Braswell Thompson, Sr.,  to tell my story. He’s a hopeless storyteller  like me.  He got it from his daddy, Dale, who was another one of us who every time you see one of us Braswells, we’ve got a story or three to tell.  

THE BLOOD OF HEROES NEVER DIES

        With another Memorial Day having come and gone, let us take a brief moment and salute those men from our county who have given their lives in the service of the United States of America.  

These are the men who have given the last true measure of devotion so that we may be free.

Take a few minutes and read the 199  names and say a prayer in their memory.  I pray that this list shall never be added to, except through the discovery of names from distant wars which are now only known to God.  

WORLD WAR I ERA - John W. Adams, George L. Attaway, Walter Berry, James Bradley, Leon F. Brannon, Fisher Brazeal,  Linton T. (Leonard) Bostwick, Joseph J. Bracewell, James Brown, Tom Watson Bryant, Sammie Burke, David Burton Camp, Freeman Coley, Ashley Collins, William Coney, Alvin T. Coxwell, Samuel Evans, James W. Flanders, Clarence David Fordham, Oscar Fulwood, John W. Green, James C. Hall, Archie Hinson, Syril P. Hodges, Delmar M. Howard, Ben F. Howell, Wallace C. Huffman, Jesse Kelley, Frazier Linder, Dewitt Lindsay, Ed McLendon, Walter E. Martin, James Mason, George McLoud, Jessie Mercer, Rayfield Meacham, George C. Mitchell, Robbie  New, Cecil Preston Perry, Wilbur Pope, John H. Sanders, Roger O. Sellers, John Stevens, Ed Stuckey, Louis M. Thompson, Edgar Towns, Fleming du Bignon Vaughn, Ed Washington, George Windham, James A. Williams, Henry K. Womack, Wayman Woodard, and McKinley Yopp. 

WORLD WAR II ERA - Robert T. Adams, Hardy B. Alligood, Connie Ashley, Jack Baggett, Charles E. Barron, Clinton H. Barron, Robert B. Bidgood, Cary H. Braddy, Palmer Lee Braddy, Eldridge D. Branch, Howard W. Brantley,  Bobbie E. Brown, Walter C. Browning, Gurvice A. Clark, James Coleman, Jerome W. Collins, Robert A. Colter, Hilton F. Culpepper, John C. Culpepper, John M. Dalton, Blanton T. Daniel, David G. Daniels, Jr., John R. Deamer, Walter B. Dixon, Daniel C. Fordham,  Thurman Foskey, James E. Fountain, Lester Graham,  Robert C. Graves, Horace J. Green, Joe R. Grier, Talman B. Hanley, Robert C. Harden, Freeman L. Harrison, Carice L. Harvey, E. Clay Hawkins, Hansford D. Heath, Edmond S. Hobbs, John C. Huffman, Willie T. Holmes, John W. Holt, Nathaniel Hooks, Billy Y. Horton, Robert L. Horton, James B. Hutchinson, Quien W. Johnson,  Henry Will  Jones, Wexell Jordan, Jr., Joel L. Keen, William A.  Kelley, Albert H. Knight, Peter Fred Larsen, Robert M. Leach,  Robert E. Lee, Otis C. Leverette, Embree W. Loague, Christopher C. Lowery, W. Carson McMullen, Chester C. Miller, Thomas L. Miller, Hugh M. Moore, Clem Moye, Carlton L.  Mullis, Albert F. Nobles, Harris O'Dell, Blakley A. Parrott, Jr., Martin H. Patisaul, J. Felton Perry, L. Cleveland Pope, Julian Rawls, Vernice Ricks, Randall Robertson, Henry V. Rogers, Jonnie F. Rowland, Roy C. Rozier, Thomas J. Russell, Jr., James Scarboro, Emory F. Scarborough, Hyram F. Scarborough, John Roy Scarborough, Roy W. Shepard, Jonnie W. Shinholster, John A. Shirley, Fred L. Smith, George B. Snellgrove, J. Frank Snellgrove, John H. Spivey, Hudson L. Stanley, G. Bert Stinson, Grady N. Strickland, Charles L. Taylor, Emil E. Tindol, Zollie L. Tindol, Willie J. Tingle, Jace M. Waites, Cleveland A. Warren, James R. Warren, John H. Warren, Columbus Watkins, Walter P. Watson, Rodger Watts, William R. Werden, Jr., Oliver W. Wester, Olson W. Wilkes, Robert E. Williams, J. Miller Windham, Luther B. Word, Jr., and  Frank R. Zetterower, Jr..

KOREAN WAR ERA - James E. Daniel, Robert H. Grinstead, Roy T. Hughes, Albert A. Lewis, Joseph E. McCullough, T.J. McTier, Walter E. Nesmith, James C. Rix, Bobby Robinson, Ralph B. Walker, Bobby R. Wood, and Lonnie G. Woodum.

VIETNAM WAR ERA - George W. Baker, Jimmy Bedgood, Tommy N. Bracewell, Billy E. Brantley, Harlow G. Clark, Jr., James E. Cook, James E. Cooper, David L. Copeland, Robert E. Davis, Jimmy Harlan Evans, Bobby L. Finney, Gerald C. Fordham, William Z. Hartley, Walter C. Hurst, Jr., James Linder, Jr., Edward B. Lindsey, J.D. Miller, Billy Mimbs, Felton Lee Mimbs,  Eddie L. Smith, Bobby Stanley, Donald E. Stepp, Ralph W. Soles, James A. Starley, and William C. Stinson, Jr..

IRANIAN CONFLICT 1980 - Dewey Johnson.

In his 1915 poem Canadian soldier John McRae wrote,

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

      Between the crosses, row on row,

   That mark our place; and in the sky

   The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

   Loved and were loved, and now we lie

         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

   The torch; be yours to hold it high.

   If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

         In Flanders fields.

         The poem became a rallying symbol for the war effort of Canada and Great Britain in World War I.  After the United States entered the war and began to experience a high number of casualties in the trenches of Europe, University of Georgia professor, Moena Michael, took up the cause of remembering the fallen heroes of our country as well as those serving over there.  

Inspired by McRae’s hauntingly beautiful words, Michael penned her own  poem, “We Shall Keep the Faith,” in which she wrote, 

“We cherish, too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led;

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies,

And now the Torch and Poppy Red

We wear in honor of our dead.

Fear not that ye have died for naught;

We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought

In Flanders Fields.

In Flanders Fields we fought.”

.

Michael became known as “The Poppy Lady.”  It was her patriotic vision which lead  to the tradition of wearing poppies, which still continues today.   

TEE HOLMES: THE SHADOWS OF HIS SMILE

       With seventy summers behind him, William “Tee” Holmes, was forever young. Beneath that graying hair was still the same boyish face and the same impish grin.  Rarely did anyone ever walk away from him without a smile on their face.  Few people I have known have been so admired and loved by so many.

  Tee Holmes never knew his daddy.   They were both cut from the same cloth of one of Laurens County’s oldest families.  One was called “Willie T.,” the other simply, “Tee.”  And, they were both lieutenants.  

Willie T. Holmes joined the Georgia National Guard before his 20th birthday.   Holmes was transferred to  the 77th Division, which was heavily engaged in the siege of Guam and the deadly Battle of Leyte Gulf, where 1st Sergeant Holmes received a battlefield commission to 1st Lieutenant  for his heroic actions. 

The 77th was sent into Ie Shima, Okinawa to root out entrenched Japanese fortifications.  Before dawn on April 21, 1945, Japanese soldiers counter attacked in mass.  Holmes’  company, holding the left wing of the battalion’s position,  was overrun. The entire company was nearly wiped out.  Among the dead was Willie T. Holmes.  Several years later in the late 1940s, Willie’s body was brought home for burial in Northview Cemetery.  Willie’s brother took Willie’s son down to the depot to meet the train.  “I never knew my father,” said the boy.  “I knew it was a sad day.”

That young boy, born in the middle year of World War II, was William T. Holmes, forever known to all that knew him  as “Tee.”  “Tee” grew up in the in the Fabulous Fifties, the last decade of American innocence.  He lived on the edge of downtown Dublin and knew every spot in town and the places to have fun.  

“One of my friends threw a firecracker into what he thought was an empty drum at Laney’s Service Station,” “Tee” remembered.  “All of a sudden, it went ‘ka-boom!”  The empty drum was filled with something that exploded.  “We spent most of our Saturdays at the Martin Theater,” “Tee”  fondly remembered of the days when he and his friends roamed the town looking for fun things to do.   “There was always something to do downtown.”  Tee graduated from Dublin High School in 1961.  

“Tee,” after his graduation from Dublin High in 1961 and Middle Georgia College,  joined the Marine Corps and trained as a helicopter pilot.  In his book “Bonnie Sue, A Marine Corps Helicopter Squadron in Vietnam,” Marion Sturkey described “Tee” as  having a slow and nasal southern drawl, which no one could ever mistake as coming from a Yankee.  “ ‘Tee’ loved to play his guitar and sing.  In times of real and perceived crises, he always wore his perpetual and impish grin,” Sturkey fondly remembered.  

In early December 1965, “Tee” was sent to Vietnam.  When he arrived, he was told he would replace his friend Lt. Johnson, whom he had seen only eight days before back in the states.  “Tee” was devastated when he learned that his buddy had been killed in action in his first week in Vietnam.  “Tee” was assigned to HMM-64 to fly UH-34 helicopters.  Since “Tee” hadn’t flown a UH-34 in three and half months, he was told to wait and to go back to Okinawa for more training before he could fly any missions.  An operations officer came in the room looking for a copilot to fly on a “milk run” to Da Nang.  “Tee” felt comfortable in the UH-34, so he volunteered to go along for the experience, a decision he soon came to regret.

On the morning of December 8, 1965, the copter, with Capt. Jim Givan in command, took off for Da Nang.  It was raining.  Fog cut the visibility way down.  Givan and Holmes piloted the helicopter at a low altitude, just far enough off the coast as to avoid ground fire.  The weather took a turn for the worse.  While winds were gusting up to thirty-five knots, the flight to Da Nang was completed without any incident.  The crew unloaded their cargo, helicopter parts and equipment, and the necessary liquids, eighty cases of beer, before returning to their base.  The weather went from bad to worse.  Clouds had dropped down to two hundred feet above sea level.    While flying just above the wave tops with automatic controls, something went wrong, terribly wrong.

Tee (left) and his buddies in Vietnam

With no warning of any kind, the engine died.  Enemy fire from the beach riddled the air craft.  Being less than two hundred above the water level, there was no time to get out.  Within seconds, the UH-34 hit the water.  “Tee was the last one of the crew to safely exit the aircraft.    “I struggled for some time before I realized I had not released my seat belt and shoulder harness.  I was going to the bottom.  When I finally got out, it was a long way to the surface and it seemed an eternity to get there,” remembered Holmes.  The waves were eight feet high.  The salty ocean spray pommeled the four crew members.  The men were scattered and not able to see each other unless they were on the crest of wave at the same time.  The other ships in the flight returned to pick up their comrades.  The men in the water were in a dilemma.  If they waved their arms, they would alert the gunners on the beach.  If they didn’t, they might not be seen.  “It was an easy choice, I waved and splashed like a maniac!”  “Tee”, the captain, and the crew chief, Sgt. Glenn, were hoisted to safety.  Cpl. Corle, the gunner, didn’t make it. 

“Tee” survived his tour of duty in Vietnam.  After the war, Holmes worked a successful 25-year stint as a  sales representative of the Cram Map Company, followed by 17 years of service to Home Depot.   

As one of the ageless ones, “Tee’s” death from cancer  on June 16, 2013 came as a mind numbing shock to his scores of friends, who still see his perpetual smile and remember his endless wit.  

  “I shall forever on my days left on this earth miss ‘Tee’ Holmes and his smile and his stories and his friendship and his gentle ways,” wrote Anna Montford Shepard.

“Tee's” classmates in Paul Wilkes' chemistry class at Dublin High can remember the famous ‘Tee’ Holmes method" of problem solving, when he would sometimes arrive at a correct answer by an illogical injection of irrelevant numbers into an heretofore-unknown formula. There must have been a genius hiding in Tee somewhere, commented Phillip Haynes, who as a ground soldier in Vietnam, saw “Tee” and the chopper pilots  (and medics) as the heroes of the war..

           Outside of his wife Peggy and daughter Carrie, no one knew “Tee” Holmes better than high school classmate and friend of more than six decades, Earl Vaughn.  Holmes and Vaughn grew up in the exciting, carefree years of the 1950s in Dublin.  

They laid Tee’s body to rest, fittingly in the Georgia National Cemetery in Canton, on Monday.  In his last final words to his best friend, Vaughn told “Tee’s” mourners what they already knew.  They had all listened to stories (laughing, crying or learning from them,) they all had listened to his music and everyone  present fondly  remembered the friend they had known since the first time they met him.

         

         “I'm fairly certain I have never used the word "precious" to describe Tee Holmes before,” Vaughn remarked.  But, I think it's safe to say that Tee was precious to all of us.  He was a loving husband and father to Peggy and Carrie, and a treasured friend to the rest of us,” concluded Vaughn.

Pete Jernigan and Tee Holmes

ca. 1960

It was in the year 1965, when we almost lost “Tee” for the first time,  when Johnny Mandel and  Paul Webster’s “The Shadow of Your Smile” was awarded the Grammy’s Song of the Year and the Oscar’s Best Original Song.  Webster’s opening lyrics perfectly capture the sentiment of the friends of the young boy whom they came to know and love; “The shadow of your smile when you are gone will color all my dreams and light the dawn.”

Steve Rainey, Tee Holmes, Pete Jernigan

ca. 1960

THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR

THE SPANISH - AMERICAN WAR


This month marks 115th anniversary of the climax of the Spanish-American War.   The combat in Cuba lasted only a few weeks.  Consequently, only a few Laurens Countians saw any action during the war.  The origin of the war goes back to the early 1890s  when Cuban political parties were formed to seek independence from Spain.  Before it was over, the United States would spend four years fighting a war which did not officially end until July of 1902, when hostilities in the Philippines finally ceased.

On the day after Valentine's Day in 1898, the U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana Harbor.  After an investigation determined that the explosion had been caused by a mine, cries for war and "Remember the Maine!" were heard over the entire country.   U.S. Naval Forces under the command of Commodore George Dewey began moving toward the Philippines.  On April 19th, 1898, Congress approved a resolution declaring war against Spain.  After months of training, U.S. Marines landed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on June 10th.   Ten days later, the main U.S. force arrived in Santiago Harbor.  

On July 1st, the battle for control of Cuba took place in the heights of San Juan.   Col. Henry K. Carroll commanded the 3rd, 6th, and 9th (Colored) Cavalry regiments.   Colonel Leonard Wood commanded the 1st and 10th Cavalry regiments together with the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, known as the "Rough Riders."   Gen. Joseph Wheeler, namesake of Wheeler County, Georgia and a former Confederate Cavalry General, was originally in command of the American Cavalry in Cuba.  Wheeler fell ill early on in the fighting.  It was said that, at the sight of the retreating Spanish soldiers  dressed in their blue coats, Wheeler yelled "Hurrah!  We've got the d... Yankees on the run!"  

Along the Santiago Road near the San Juan River Valley, Carroll's Cavalry was waiting to attack.  The 9th Colored Regiment held the right.   Their objective was Kettle Hill.  Behind the 9th, the "Rough Riders" were in held in reserve.   As the lead elements began to tire, the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th Cavalry became entangled with the "Rough Riders."   The 9th made it to a depression about half way up the hill.   Col.  Roosevelt told the commanding officer of the 9th to charge or get out of the way.  As Roosevelt galloped ahead, the soldiers of the 9th took to their feet and their horses and followed him.    The Spaniards were falling back, from one line of defense to another.  The cavalry swarmed to the top of the hill to plant their colors.

Spanish soldiers concentrated rifle and artillery fire on the victorious Americans.  The battle swung back and forth.  Roosevelt took four men and charged the Spanish line.  After their officers had deserted them, the men of the 9th  jumped into action and followed Roosevelt, who led the men to victory and became immortal in American history.

One Laurens County man was a member of the Buffalo Soldiers of the United States Army.  William Little was born in Baldwin County, Georgia on April 4, 1875.  Little enlisted in the army in 1898.  He was assigned as a cook in Company F of the  9th U.S. Cavalry.  Little remembered Col. Roosevelt as "a great fighter who would get on his horse and say 'follow me' which the men gladly did."  After the war, Little  re-enlisted on April 11, 1899 in the 1st Cavalry.  On September 16, 1900,  he was shipped overseas to the Philippine Islands.  Private Little was assigned as an orderly to Governor-General Arthur MacArthur.

Arthur MacArthur has served as adjutant of the 24th Wisconsin Infantry during the Civil War.    At eighteen years of age, MacArthur led his regiment up Missionary Ridge and won the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism.  He was promoted to major and then to Colonel at nineteen  years of age.  Col. MacArthur was promoted to Brigadier General during the Spanish American War.  He was appointed military governor of the Philippines in 1900.  Small insurrections took place until 1902.  He was subordinated to a civilian governor, William Howard Taft,  in 1901.   MacArthur was described by one colonel as "the most egotistical man I have ever seen until I met his son."  His son was the legendary General Douglas MacArthur.

After three years and twenty three days of service, Little was discharged from the service. Little returned to Dublin where he was living at 606 South Jefferson Street in 1946.  At the age of eighty five, Little was living alone but he loved piddling around in his garden and going to church.

The war continued in Cuba for a few more weeks.   President William McKinley signed a resolution annexing Hawaii as a territory of the United States on July 7th,  1898.  On July 17th, Cuban and Spanish forces surrendered at Santiago.  A month later U.S. forces occupied Manila,  the capital of the Philippines.   The Treaty of Paris was signed on April 11, 1899.  Some Spanish forces continued to resist until June.

  Those Laurens County men who did serve during the Spanish-American War saw much less action. Laurens County men actually began their training in the early 1890s when the Dublin Guards were formed.  The guards mustered in the hall of the Stubbs-Leitch Building during the Spanish-American War.  The building was located at the southwest corner of West Jackson Street and South Jefferson Street.   Most of the men joined units in Georgia.  William W. Ward, a river boat captain of wide repute, joined the Macon Hussars which were mustered into the U.S. Army as the 1st Georgia Regiment.  The Hussars trained at Fort Oglethorpe at Chickamauga Park, Georgia.  From there, the Georgians were sent to Puerto Rico in anticipation of a full scale battle in the Caribbean.  The war ended so quickly that Ward never saw any action.

Other Laurens Countians who served in the armed forces during the Spanish-American war were John D. McDaniel, William Lingo, Jule B. Green, Andrew J. Bass, "Pet" Pritchett, Neal Jones, J.E. Burch, Wesley Kea, and "Windy" Williams.  It is a shame that the newspapers of the era have not survived.  They would add many more details to our knowledge of the activities of our county's men during the war.

The Spanish-American War was one of the shortest, but also one of the most important, wars in our country's history.  It established the United States as a world power.  America began its territorial control over the islands of the Pacific Ocean.  Within forty years the control of the Pacific Ocean would become one of the main focal points of World War II.  The lasting reminders of the war in our community are streets named for some of the war's most well known participants.  Grateful Dubliners named streets for Gen. Joseph Wheeler, Adm. George Dewey, Adm. Winfield Scott Schley, and Col.  Theodore Roosevelt.  Roosevelt Street was renamed in the 1940s.  After  Lawrence Street was named in honor of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the city council changed Roosevelt Street in southwestern Dublin to Hester Drive.  That portion of North Calhoun Street north of West Moore Street was originally named Sigsbee Street after Charles Sigsbee, captain of the " U.S.S. Maine. "  The Dublin Guards, who intensified their training during the war, later became Company A of the 121st Georgia Infantry and the first National Guard company in the southeastern United States.

KORIEAN POWs WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN

The Korean War officially ended on July 27, 1953 sixty years ago.  They were prisoners of war in the so called "Forgotten War."  Under the truce agreement, prisoners of war were to be returned.   Decades later it was revealed that about a thousand American POWs were never returned to their country.  This is a story of three  who made it back home, and one who didn't.
 

Master Sergeant Wesley Hodges had been in a war before.  In World War II, Hodges was a member of the 38thMechanized Cavalry Recon Squad that repelled German counteroffensive in Monscham, France in Dec. 1944.  He was a bantam driver, and his squad was the first to enter Paris on August 25, 1944.  Hodges was awarded three bronze stars for actions in North Africa, Normandy, and France.   On Nov. 2, 1950, Sgt. Hodges was with the First Cavalry group at Unsong.  All of his battalion, including the commanding officer, were taken to Pyoktong, where they were held until August, 1951.   From there they were moved to Camp No. 3, Chansong.  Hodges remained at Chansong until he was moved to Wervon.

Sgt. Hodges, who was awarded the Silver Star for his heroism in Korea,  told of a terrible life in ten by ten huts. "We were crowded and slept on mud floors.  We had no haircuts, no shaves, and few clothes.  We did get some trousers and jackets in July, 1951. " When asked about medical treatment, the sergeant just shook his head.   While in the prison, Hodges dropped from one hundred seventy one  pounds down to 90 pounds.   Hodges and thirty three hundred other POWs signed an appeal for peace, and act for which he and others were later chastised by the American government.  Of that group, half made it out.  One thing that kept him going were the letters which starting coming from his wife in October, 1951.   Hodges, who had three brothers in the service, said "I'm just happy to put my feet under mama's table in Dublin."

Left to right: In soldier's uniform (tie, with cap) Emerson Burns,  center (with tie and hat) Wesley Hodges and right (in dark long sleeve shirt between flags) 

Emerson Burns  left Adrian, Georgia at the age of eighteen  when he joined the Army in 1949.  Burns was sent to Korea on August 4, 1950.  While in Korea, Sgt. Burns worked as a radio operator and truck driver.  In November 1950,  Burns and his unit barely escaped capture when the Chinese Army overran his division.   A member of HQ Company, 38th Regiment, 2nd Division, Burns was in Wanju in January of 1951 when he and seven hundred fifty other soldiers were taken prisoner.    Burns and his unit had gotten through the roadblock at Kunure, where many of the 2nd Division troops had been killed.    Burns' six by six truck had its gas tank shot out.  The men were forced to march for three months.  On the seven hundred mile march the men were given twelve total days of rest.   One in five of the men would live to see the end of the war.  Burns and the others were taken to Camp Number 1 near Chonwon.  When they first arrived,  the prisoners were fed twice a day.  Their diet mainly consisted of soy beans and millet.   Later the meals were changed to dry fish and rotting eggs.  They had to eat it.  It was their only food.

Temperatures in the Korean winter often fellow to thirty degrees below zero.  Burns (left)  recalled that the men were allowed to have a fire in a home-made furnace for about an hour a day.  The men lived in mud huts with mud floors.   Eventually Burns was stricken with beri-beri, a disease caused by vitamin deficiencies.    When truce talks began in 1951,  the prisoners were allowed to write letters home.  In the long days in the mud huts, Burns dreamed of living in Dublin.  He did not know that his parents, Mr. and Mrs. R.D. Burns, had already moved to Dublin.  Burns wrote home several times, stating that he was doing as well as could be expected.

Tyrois Odom, another Adrian boy who eventually moved to Laurens County, was a cannoneer in Battery C, 555th Field Artillery.    On the night of July 13, 1953, Odom was wounded in the hip during fighting between Kumhwa and Kumsong.  "We had been firing pretty regular.  We had been hit quite a bit in return.  About 1:30 a.m. we got a direct hit.  We had to leave our guns and take cover on the side of the mountain, " Odom said.   Odom remembered hearing bugles, but had no idea that his position was about to be attacked.  His battery was surrounded.  All that didn't surrender were killed.  The Associated Press called the action "one of the worst massacres of Americans in the Korean War."   The artillery was providing support for the South Korean army when three Chinese divisions smashed the U.S. lines from three directions.

Odom was lying down when the attack came.  He sat up and saw a Chinese soldier firing.  The shots were coming toward him.   The little puffs of dirt were getting closer.  He whirled around.  A bullet hit him in the hip, causing Odom's leg to double up.   Odom decided to lay motionless, what he learned as a child as "playing possum."  It worked.  The Chinese soldiers kept moving, leaving Tyrois lying dead, or so they thought.  Two other Americans were dead, each within fifty feet of Odom.   Odom and another soldier, Austin, who wasn't wounded,  "played possum" for sixty hours.   Austin had his helmet kicked off, but didn't move a muscle.  The pair survived on a case of c-rations and creek water for eight days.   They may have never been detected until  an American bomb blast buried them in dirt.  "Then we had to move and they captured us," Odom explained.   Unable to walk, he was carried by stretcher and truck for several days.  He spent only a few days in a camp before the war ended.

After the war, POWs were being released daily.  The members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars,  under the leadership of R.T. Peacock, Jr., W.M. Towson, Johnny Floyd, Lamar Thornton and W.G. Hanley, and the American Legion, represented by H. Dale Thompson, Harold E. Ward, Murray Chappell, and Horace Hobbs,  began plans to honor the hometown heroes with a welcome home parade.    A large banner welcoming home the trio was placed downtown.  Merchants displayed American flags prominently throughout the downtown area.

A celebration was held on October 2, 1953.  It was one of the largest crowds ever assembled in Dublin.  Bill Courson was the master of ceremonies.  Speaking that day were W.W. Jordan, mayor pro tem  whose only son was killed in World War II, and Guy Stone, National Executive of the American Legion.  The families of the three men were honored guests at the event.

Albert Arnau Lewis, of Laurens County,  served for six years in the United States Army through all of World War II.  When the United States entered into the Korean War, Lewis re-enlisted in the Army.  Sergeant Lewis, of the 503rd Field Artillery,  fell into the hands of the North Koreans and was sent to a prison camp.  Word was sent to the American government that Lewis died of pulmonary tuberculosis on April 30, 1951.  Nearly three years after his death the truth was revealed about the his death.   Lewis did not die from tuberculosis, but from malnutrition.  He starved to death.  There were no parades for Sgt. Lewis.  His name on the war memorial on the courthouse lawn and a short story in The Courier Herald are the only public memorials to the fallen soldier.

This is the story of four unforgettable men of the so called "forgettable war."  They are reminders of what we are, or what we should be, as Americans.  Let them never be forgotten.

And now, let us remember those Laurens Countians who gave their lives during the Korean War Era: James E. Daniel, Robert H. Grinstead, Roy T. Hughes, Albert A. Lewis, Joseph E. McCullough, T.J. McTier, Walter E. Nesmith, James C. Rix, Bobby Robinson, Ralph B. Walker, Bobby R. Wood, and Lonnie G. Woodum.

COME YE BACK WHEN SUMMER IS IN THE MEADOW

For 68 years, the family of PFC Arthur Louis Schoelman Jr. kept a tan parcel post box in their home. Everyone in the Schoelman family knew exactly how it got there, but they never quite understood why it was there.  And, to whom did the box's contents belong to?

Schoeleman, (LEFT) a native of Texas, was born in 1925 as the oldest of eight children of Arthur Louis Schoelman and his bride, Opal Elizabeth Jones. Before Arthur enlisted in the Army in June 1943 after his 18th birthday, he worked in a local gas station. By Christmas 1943, Arthur found himself in the volcanic islands of the South Pacific as a member of the 169th Infantry Regiment of the 43rd Infantry Division.

On the last day of January 1945, Arthur was mortally wounded when a tree, struck by a mortar, exploded, sending a deadly shrapnel missile into his back. Schoelman died the next day at a hospital of the 118th Medical Battalion. His mortal remains lie in a green field covered with white crosses in Grave 96 of the 11th row of Plot F in the American Memorial Cemetery in Manilla, Philippines. 

One might think that the story of Private First Class Arthur Schoelman, Jr. ended with his burial. In fact, nearly seven decades later, Arthur's story is now being told again.

Members of the Clearing Company unit, assigned to such matters, gathered his belongings, or so they thought,  and shipped them off to the War Department's Personal Effects Bureau, Kansas City Quatermaster's Depot in Kansas City. There, a clerk took a bundle of belongings and placed them inside a 9-by-13-by-3 inch cardboard Crook Paper Box Company box and sent them to Mr. Arthur L. Schoelman at his home on West 34th Street in Houston.  

When the box arrived, the Schoelmans knew what was inside - it was clearly typed on an official army label, "Pfc. Arthur L. Schoelman, Jr. ASN 38549214, Case No. 451966."  As they opened the box, they found a 48-star casket flag, together with an official government publication containing instructions on the proper use and display of the flag along with the words of "The Pledge of Allegiance." Printed right on the inside of the booklet was a highly impersonal form letter from The Administrator of the Veteran's Administration conveying the deepest sympathy of the country "for the bereavement caused by the death of the veteran." 

Wrapped inside the banner of red, white and blue, there was an assortment of personal belongings. One by one, the Schoelmans tentatively looked through the box, looking for something that belonged to their son.  Very soon, Arthur's puzzled, grieving parents decided that the contents of the box did not belong to their son, but to some other poor soul who had lost his life in the war.

Something deep in the soul of Opal Schoelman told the Texas housewife to hold on to the box. One day, maybe some day, the Army would discover the mistake and the effects would be rightfully returned to the family of another lost, all too young soldier. Certainly she believed that in her care they would have a better chance of finding their way back home than in the care of the corps of clerks who could easily once again mislay the once opened box.

Nearly 20 years elapsed before the senior Arthur Schoelman died in 1964. Opal held on to the box until she died in 1980.  

The package was passed along to Opal's daughter, Dolores Wicker, who was only 13 years-old when her dear brother Arthur was killed a world away in the Pacific. For more than three decades, Dolores kept the aging box, still bound together with its original tape and marked with its original labels and postal marks.  

When Delores died on March 14, 2012, her daughter Renee Leslie  began going through her mother's possessions. Renee had long known the story of the mysterious box, but her desire to find the family of the dead soldier was stronger than ever.  

Renee logged on to the Internet and searched Google and ancestry.com for clues as to the identity of the missing man. She found a hand-written name and an army serial number pasted on a darkened label inside a glasses case, containing the mystery man's eye glasses. After a thorough search, Arthur's niece Renee found the location of the grave Charles L. Taylor, who was buried in the cemetery of Oconee Baptist Church at the northern tip of Laurens County just inside the Wilkinson County line.

Charles L. Taylor, who went by his middle name of Lamar, was also a member of Company B, 169th Regiment, 43rd Division. Taylor, a son of Eli and Nona Dominy Taylor born on Feb. 1, 1920, grew up in hard times - his father died when he was four. Lamar entered the service on May 15, 1942 at Fort McPherson near Atlanta. He trained at Camp Shelby, Miss. before going overseas where he served in New Zealand, New Caledonia, New Guinea and Luzon. 

On Jan. 9 1945, the division conducted an amphibious landing in the San Fabian area, Lingayen Gulf, Luzon. Sgt. Taylor was killed in heavy fighting five days later on Jan. 14.

Renee Leslie and her cousin, Rebekka Barker, thought that since Taylor was buried in a small church cemetery, there would still be relatives in the area or attending the church. So, Renee wrote to the church, "This letter may seem a bit strange, but please bear with me," as she proceeded to briefly explain the story of how her family came to possess Taylor's effects and their efforts to find surviving members of his family. When the church received the letter, they put Leslie in contact with Brenda Taylor Holloway, a niece of Taylor, who received the package on behalf of the sergeant after all this time.

Brenda, who was born a year or so after her uncle died, still lives in the area, but knew very little about her uncle Charles, known to his friends as "Little Doc." She had heard the stories about her uncle and how he was killed in that now distant war.  

As Brenda carefully opened the package, the discovery process began. Inside, there was a trove of personal mementos; a wallet filled with pictures of his mother, his sisters, his army buddies and a sweetheart or two - the usual photo collection of an American GI. A Good Conduct medal, an Asiatic-Pacific medal and the badge of a combat infantryman which once adorned the dress uniform of Sgt. Taylor were inside as well. A small leather craft clip, once a part of his combat gear, was placed inside Sgt. Taylor's moth-eaten dress hat, complete with a rain cover. Two panoramic photos of Taylor's unit, Company B, were neatly rolled up in the package, one marked "Send to Dock" and the other "The Boys of Company B taken in New Zealand."  

"My grandparents would be so thrilled," Holloway exclaimed.

And the flag that was intended for her Arthur Schoelman's casket, but never sent to Nona Taylor was there too.  On this Memorial Day, that flag will momentarily fly in front of the Dublin Laurens Museum as a tribute to the memory of Arthur Louis Schoelman, Jr.  and Charles Lamar Taylor and our country's continuing gratitude of their service to the country.  

To all of our fallen heroes,  simply sleep in peace, for we'll be here in sunshine and shadow until ye come back when summer is in the meadow. 

JULIAN RAWLS AND THE WRECK OF THE FLYING BOATS

In their early days, PBYs, or patrol bombers, were the fastest thing in the sky.  Designed to float on the seas and fly in the skies, the floating bombers were used for a variety of missions from bombing to patrolling to search and rescue missions.  

PBYs were not designed to fly in close formation.  That was the case seventy five years ago off the coast of San Diego, California. Two ocean skimming  planes collided in mid air.  Ten naval airmen were killed. One of them, Julian Rawls, was a Dublin man.  At the time, it was the worst air disaster in the history of the United States Navy.

The Navy brass in Washington were planning for a possible invasion along the western coast of the United States in the latter years of the 1930s.  Although the true amphibious attack never materialized, the Navy kept preparing for the worst case scenario. 

Rain was forecasted on a cool, cloudy Ground Hog Day evening on February 2, 1938.  With a  moderate northwesterly wind was blowing in to the shoreline, it was not going to be a good day for flying.  Flying at night would be worse, much worse. 

More than 100  sea going vessels, 250 planes  and 40,000 men were engaged in war maneuvers some 70 miles southwest of Point Loma, California.  The San Diego Union reported that nearly all of the personnel in San Diego were out at sea participating in the war games. 

The time was 20:37 hours.  Pitch black, moonless skies, permeated with low lying, rainy, rapidly moving clouds and augmented by  heavy squall winds,  obscured the visions of the flying boat pilots. Lt. Elmer Cooper, (LEFT) flying 11-P-3 and Lt. Carlton Hutchins flying 11-P-4 began to drift dangerously close to each other.  Then in a deadly instant, the two flying boats became entangled.

Sailors as far away as San Clemente Island saw the brilliant flames illuminating the dreary night sky.  Crash boats of the U.S.S. Pennsylvania picked up the four survivors; D.B. McKay, V.O. Hatfield and L.S. Carpenter, all from the crew of 11-P-4.  J.H.  Hester, Rawls’ counterpart aboard the other doomed plane,  survived the initial collision but later died aboard a hospital ship.

Chief Machinist’s Mate, V.B. McKay, one of the three survivors, told friends, “We were flying through a rain squall with no visibility. We were flying in close formation between 3000 and 4000 feet above the ocean.”

“The plane 11-P-3 nosed into our tail.  The other ship caught fire. Ours went into a spin and fell toward the ocean,” said McKay, who suffered a broken leg.

“Lt. Carleton Hutchins (the commander of 11-P-4) ordered all of the crew to abandon ship. All of them got free either by using parachutes or in some other fashion. Two or three of us tried to hold Lt. Hutchins above water.  He was unconscious.  We managed to keep him up for about half an hour and then we finally had to let go,” McKay recalled. 

Lt. Hutchins, (LEFT) who remained at the controls until his men bailed out of the crippled plane, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism.  The ultimately noble citation read, “Although his plane was badly damaged, Lieutenant Hutchins remained at the controls endeavoring to bring the damaged plane to a safe landing and to afford an opportunity for his crew to escape by parachutes. His cool, calculated conduct contributed principally to the saving of the lives of all who survived.  His conduct on this occasion was above and beyond the call of duty.”

Lt. Hutchins was further honored in 1942 when the destroyer, the U.S.S. Hutchins was named in his honor.  Lt. Cooper was also honored with a destroyer, the U.S.S. Cooper named in his honor. 

The seven-man crew of 11-P-3 never had a chance.  Radio man Rawls barely had time to send out a Mayday message. P-3 Pilot  Cooper did all that he could, never having the time to think about his beloved wife Frances and son Petie back at home.  The 105-foot wide plane burned and exploded into unrecognizable pieces. 

Four fortunate survivors of 11-P-4 had enough time to don their parachutes and jump to safety.  There were no survivors aboard 11-P-3. The bodies of the ill-fated crewmen of 11-P-3 were found except for Julian Rawls, John Neidsweicki and Martin Woodruff. 

Julian Rawls, (LEFT)  a native of Dublin and then a resident of Chula Vista, California, had been in the service for seventeen years, two years in the Army and fifteen years in the Navy.  Rawls, a radio operator, was eligible  for retirement in 1940.

Rawls, the husband of Evelyn Prince Watson, was born in Dublin in 1901 .  A son of O.H.D. Rawls and Julia Rawls, Julian grew up in a couple of homes on North Jefferson Street.  

All movements of the fleet ceased. Radio silence was lifted to initiate a search for survivors.  The search lights of 98 ships illuminated the crash zone in hopes of spotting survivors, any survivors.  At dawn, every ship, boat and plane were pressed into search and rescue operations.  No signs of survivors, victors, or Rawls’ PBY were ever found. The search was called off the following evening.    

The war games resumed.

Admiral Charles Blakey instituted an investigation of the cause of the collision and promised that the regrettable and costly accident would help the navy to prevent future accidents like this one.

The collision and resulting crashes of two PBYs were reported to be the greatest loss  of a heavier than air aircraft disaster in the history of the United States Navy.  Eleven men died that fateful night. 

Training accidents, a fact of life in the service, were common in World War II.  The collision was the third in six months in the area, leaving an even two dozen men dead.

The body of Dublin’s Julian Rawls, was reportedly never found. There is a cenotaph marker in North view Cemetery (Sect. D, Row 3) to mark the life of this man, perhaps our county’s first casualty of World War II.  

Yet, his grave marker does not indicate that he was a member of the U.S. Navy - only a worn tattered flag indicates that he was a patriot.  And,  Rawls’ name is not inscribed on the World War II monument on the courthouse lawn.  Now and forever, let us  remember Julian Rawls and his fellow men who gave their lives to protect our country, seventy five years ago this week.