PIECES OF OUR PAST - AND SO GO THE GALLANT APRIL 1943 - MAY 1943

AND SO GO THE GALLANT
April - May 1943


At the end of the first 18 months of World War II, the news began to change from what was happening on the home front to news of local men who were participating in major actions in the war.   Reports of promotions came in with pride, reports of death with cries.  With every passing day, the war was becoming all too real. 

Claudius Beall was promoted to Lt. Colonel after graduation from Command School in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. John M. Couric, Jr., father of television news personality, Katie Couric, was commissioned an ensign at the University of Chicago. Horace Bashinski, who trained at Notre Dame and Harvard University, was promoted to 1st Lieutenant.  Lt. Emory Beckham was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant.

Moody Brown, Jr. was accepted as a mid-shipman to the United States Naval Academy.  Brown would graduate four years later along with classmates, President Jimmy Carter, CIA Director Stansfield Turner, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral William Crowe, and Medal of Honor recipient, James Stockdale. 

Dr. William Osler Bedingfield, of Rentz, was promoted from captain to major.  Serving as the chief surgeon at the Army hospital at Bainbridge, Major Bedingfield was joined by his brother Dr. Walter H. Bedingfield, an army captain serving overseas.  The physician brothers were the sons of Dr. W.E. Bedingfield and his wife.

Sgt. William Beckham, who entered the army in 1940, was cited for valor.  At the young age of twenty-three, Beckham was Air Medal with an oak cluster.  Beckham’s first citation follwing a raid which 130 pound bombs were dropped on enemy positions in the Solomon Islands.  An oak cluster was added when Beckham’s bomb destroyed 34 enemy surface craft in just one of his 33 missions. 

Sgt. Joe Williamson Grier, a member of the medical corps who had been captured during the fall of the Philippine Islands, died in a Japanese prisoner of war camp on May 7, 1942.  Little information has ever been disclosed as to the circumstances of his death.

PFC Bernice L. Gause of Cadwell was reported injured in late April.

Roscoe Harden collected 1464 of the 4306 tin cans by students the Four H Club of Lowery School as a part of the ongoing scrap metal collection projects throughout the nation.

Jean Larsen, the 11-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W.W. Larsen, was cited for being the youngest and first knitter in the local Red Cross chapter’s program of knitting garments for soldiers,  sailors, and airmen.  Carolyn Hall, blind from birth, was the chapter’s most proficient knitters.  Other champion knitters cited were Mrs. T. J. Trammell, Mrs. T.T. McMullan, Mr. C.E. McKiney, and Mrs. L.A. Phillips.

There was big and important news of long lasting importance in the air.  Congressman Carl Vinson, who for more than a year pressed a pet project in his sister’s hometown, assured the people of Laurens County that construction of the U.S. Naval Hospital on the old Captain Rice place in western would begin very soon.   Rep. Vinson, the powerful, veteran chairman of the United States Naval Armed Services Committee was definitive in his assertions, despite previous reports to the contrary.  In conjunction with the hospital was the near completion of the Laurens County Airport, which would be used primarily by the government until the end of the war at a minimum.

Not only were young men and women serving around the country in overseas, but quite of few of them served in civilian positions in Dublin High School’s Victory Corps.  The boy’s captain,  Randall Robertson, was a big strapping boy who caught the attention of Georgia’s legendary football coach, Wally Butts.  Randall opted instead to joined the armed forces.  Tragically was lying dead on the rocky beaches and hills of Iwo Jima some 18 months of his graduation in May 1943.  Dorothy “Dot” Chapman “Seaton,” the gregarious favorite of her class mates served as the girls captain.

The Victory Corps performed in front of a large crowd on May 7.  Reviewing the performance was Marine Gunner Robert Wilson, husband of Marjorie Wilson of Dublin.  The Wilsons were eye witnesses to the Japanese air force’s bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  

Lt. Sandy Brunson and Capt. Dorothy Chapman led the drills.  The winning units were Joe Durant’s and Betsy Hatchcer’s  Platoon One, Co. A. and the Junior High platoon commanded by Sonny Vaughn, and Betty Butler.
The second local War Bond Loan started in April 1943.  C.U. Smith, the President of Citizens and Southern Bank, Lehman P. Keen, the President of Farmers and Merchants Bank, and  insurance agent John Mahoney led the drive.  The leaders set a lofty goal of $249.000.00.

In a moment of light and levity, future superstars of County Music, Minnie Pearl, Eddy Arnold, and Ernest Tubb performed under a very large tent show under the auspices of the Grand Ole’ Opry’s touring shows.  

Second Lt. Graham Dowling was promoted to first lieutenant of the District 24, Headquarters Company of the Georgia State Guard in Dublin.  Harry Johnson was promoted to second lieutenant. 

Members of the local state guard staged a one-day maneuver while the South Georgia sun wasn’t scorching yet.  Under the command of Lt. Morris Hankin and Cortez Andrews, the guards , composed of some recent high school graduates and  men ineligible for the draft or military service, engaged in map reading to facilitate attacks, as well as the use of hand grenades, Molitoff cocktails, machine guns.  The men were instructed in the use of gas masks as well.

Present were Sgt. Walters, Sgt.Prescott, St. L.E. Hatcher, Sgt. McMullan, Corporals Gene Scarboro, Randall Robertson, Harry Johnson, Sellers, Privates, Billy shuman, Bobby Shuman, Osburn. Louis Prescott, W.E. Manry, Faircloth, Clifford Etheridge, Baum Wilkes, Friend, Lamar Rutland, Carter, Young, Durant, Hendrick, Neal, Edwards, Garnto, Hilliard, Clark, Keen, Howll, Masters, Scarboro, and Gne Andrews.

With forty percent of  of the duration of the war already behind them, the people of Laurens County had still had a lot of dying, suffering and sacrificing to go.  Challenges were met with increasing determination.  And, so go the gallant.

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