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JAMES CALVIN BELL |
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Remembering
Her 'Baby' Brother at War My older sister, Bertha, Jack and I had grown
up in the hills of Tennessee, where the thought of the world being at war was remote and
hard to understand. We had lived in peace
among the tall trees and had grown up strong, never knowing the pain and misery that was
being felt in Germany. Bertha and I had always thought of Jack as our
"baby brother." At 24 he was no
longer a baby, but he was the father of a little girl who did not understand at all why
her Daddy was going away. Even at 24, he was
much too young to go to war. I remember how broad his shoulders were and how
much he loved to swim. His hair was curly, his
smile was broad and more than anything he loved to swim.
His chest was covered with blonde ringlets that glistened when he emerged
from the lake and he was always in search of a higher landing from which to dive and he
never underestimated the water. But, like all
the other able-bodied men in the country, he put his life aside and went. As we walked through Union Station there were
hundred of other young soldiers and their families, all facing the same separation that we
faced. Jack slung that dark green duffel bag
into the air and it reminded me of the bales of hay he used to heft onto the wagon. When he walked, it was as if there was no burden on
his shoulder. PFC Bell smiled a nervous smile
and I could tell that he was a little bit afraid. This
time he didn't know how deep the water was going to be and we didn't know if we would ever
see him again. Before my sister Bertha and I knew it, he was
on that train and gone. His big hand waved as
the train whistle grew dimmer in the distance and the huge black caboose disappeared into
the distance. Bertha and I were filled with
lonliness as we walked slowly back to the bus stand and waited in silence. His letters came regularly and were more
cheerful than I can now imagine they could be. Each
one counted the days until he would return and drive us once again, through the
countryside singing songs and laughing that full laugh of his. We listened to the radio and watched the newspapers
to see what was happening. We were
strengthened when we heard that Patton's Army was moving north toward the front and
saddened when the Allied Forces suffered great tolls in Berlin. Jack went to "sunny France" and wrote
that it rained for days. Then it was on to
Japan and finally to Germany where he served in the 142nd Infantry with General Patch. He sent a fine, silk kimono for Bertha and a
wonderful ring for me. I wore it with such
pride. His letters were light-hearted and simple. Reading them now, I find it hard to believe that he
was in the middle of such a brutal and agonizing war.
He was always so grateful to get our letters even though it sometimes took
weeks for them to catch up with him. Bertha's son-on-law, Dave Usher, had to go too,
and left his wife and family behind. Most of the men were gone, even if they had
small children. Many of them went because they
had children and wanted to make sure that the world would be free for them. Their wives worked in the Army's small arms plant
or rolling mills, often doing heavy work during the day and then going home to their
babies at night. I was grateful to God that my husband, Everett,
did not have to go to war. We lived with our
six children in a large rooming house at 4004 Delmar in St. Louis. Everett had served his country as a motorcycle
dispatch rider in France during World War I. His
job had been to ride an early model Indian motorcycle back and forth to the front carrying
messages from general to general. So during the Second World War he worked in the
Army's Small Arms Plant on Goodfellow. Our 16
year old daughter, Doris, worked in the rolling mill. We occupied one large apartment and rented the
rest of the rooms to the wifes of soldiers, married couples and to a few young men who
were far from home. For each soldier still in
action, a star was placed in the window. There
were as many as seven stars in our windows at one time. The war was long and hard. Jack was present when American troops crossed the
Rhine and forced German soldiers out. He also
earned the distinction of being present the day Germany's Reischmarschall Hermann Goring
was captured. Back home, everybody had to pitch in with the
recycling and rationing. It was hard, but one
day Jack and Dave appeared at our front door and the whole place went crazy! We screamed, we laughed, we hugged and we cried. Our boys were home safely at last. Now, fifty years later, my brother is 74 years
old and is in and out of the hospital because of diabetes.
Recently part of his foot had to be removed.
But he is proud of his service and happy to know that not one of his sons
has had to see or experience what he did during the "greatest war" of all. |
