NOW AND THEN : Realities of WW II cast shadow over rural Madison County family
Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008
There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary about Carl Samuels. He was born in 1914 and grew up pretty much like other kids in the hills and hollers north of Red Star in Madison County. People around there were isolated, but they were very much part of the larger, more complicated world.
Family was fundamental to Carl. It included parents Talitha and Ira David, four brothers, three sisters and nearby grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
The family lived in a three-room frame house on their 100-acre place. The house had a wide front porch overlooking fields that began the steep descent down to Felkins Creek.
Carl's youngest sister, Mable Sanders, recently shared memories of growing up there.
"We lived mostly on what we raised," she said, mentioning corn, cane, potatoes, cabbage and tobacco, a large vegetable garden, milk cows, pigs and chickens.
Their mother used a spinning wheel to make wool yarn that she knitted into winter socks. She used a treadle sewing machine to make shirts, overalls and dresses and made butter with a churn.
Two mules did hard labor on the farm. The mules had their own personalities and stories about them became part of the family folklore. Mable Sanders told one about her brother.
"Everett was plowing this old mule, and she was dragging along like she was half asleep. He unhitched her from the plow to go to the house. He thought he would get on her and speed her up. She wasn't expecting it, and she bucked him off on the ground ."
The family took time off for community activities, often associated with their enjoyment of music. They went to different churches each week depending on which would have a preacher.
Money was hard to come by, and the men worked "at whatever they could to make a dime," Mable said. They made stave bolts, hacked railroad ties, worked in sawmills and hauled rocks to a crusher as part of the Arkansas 16 construction.
After the growing season at home, Carl went to a farm on Kings River to work. Each Sunday he walked 7 miles to the Claud Bolinger place where he spent the week doing general farm chores. He was paid 50 cents a day, unless he was haying: Then he got 75 cents. Mable remembers Carl coming home Saturdays and giving the money he earned to his mother, saying," Now if you need anything, you use this."
Everything changed in 1941. Carl, 27 years old and unmarried, was a likely candidate for military service, and in September 1941, he was ordered to Little Rock.
Pacific bound After a community farewell dinner, Carl walked 12 miles to Kingston where he caught a bus. He passed his physical and was inducted into the U. S. Army. Carl completed basic training just as the United States declared war on Japan, and without even a pass to go home and say goodbye, he was sent to Hawaii. Carl began to write letters to anybody and everybody. They became his way of staying connected. "I don't know how he found time to write so many," said Mable.
Several were saved, and although he and the censors spared the recipients a lot of detail, his letters offer glimpses into his life as an infantry foot soldier.
No matter what Carl was experiencing along the way, the focus of his letters was home. Whether he heard about someone getting married, clearing a field or butchering a hog, he always had the same response. He wrote back that he so wished he could be part of it.
"But it can't be that way," he wrote his sister Mary who lived on Felkins Creek," for once this D. army gets you well you are just stuck. That is all there is to it."
He often said," Don't worry ! "But the war was on everyone's mind, and the family was sick with worry. His niece, Milbra Eaton, remembered how her father made sure that someone was home whenever radio war news was scheduled. Whoever got to listen would share the news with the rest of the family.
Carl was assigned to the 27 th Division, a New York unit full of city boys. The 27 th was committed to the Central Pacific campaign and was part of the islandhopping advance on Japan.
Carl saw his first action in the assault on Makin Island in November 1943. He was wounded when he and two buddies were attacked in their foxhole. He called it a "sakey"attack, explaining in a letter that sake "is something the Japs drink that makes them drunk and crazy and then they are not afraid of anything. "Carl was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for valor for action on Makin Island. After weeks in a hospital, Carl rejoined his unit in time for the invasion of Siapan in June 1944. He summarized the experience in two sentences: "I have been in battle and was on the front lines for 24 days, and I haven't had time to write. I am still alive, but it was a tough battle. " "I don't want to be in any more battles," he wrote, but in the spring of 1945, he found himself preparing for yet another. Carl was on the U. S. S. Dickens, one of 1, 600 seafaring boats that transported more than 500, 000 troops to Okinawa and the last battle of World War II.
' I am well'The 27 th Division was in reserve when the invasion of Okinawa began, and Carl spent the first weeks of the battle waiting. He attended religious services on his ship and wrote a message to Mary on the back of a church program: "I have been on this ship for quite a while. I am well and I hope that you are all well. I will write you as soon as I get a chance so don't worry. Love from your bud, Carl. "In late April his unit was ordered ashore. Carl's platoon fought its way up a no-name ridge and dug in. During the night of May 1, the Japanese counterattacked, and Carl was among the American casualties. His commander reported that he was "killed instantly by a burst of enemy machine gun fire."
The family was devastated.
Two of Carl's brothers who had been in the war in Europe, expressed their sorrow in letters to Mary.
Earl was on mine-clearing duty in France when he learned of Carl's death.
He wrote," It sure was awful to think what a tough time he has had then still not get back."
Everett, a highly decorated veteran of battles all across Europe, wrote," It was such a shock to me. I've seen hundreds of swell boys go to their deaths on the field of battle and it hurt me to see it. After this I have no ambition to do anything."
Mary took it hard. The mail was so upsetting to her that her husband, Ransom, began to worry about her health. He went to the country post office at Weathers and asked the postmaster to stop any war letters that arrived and to give them to someone else in the family.
Carl Samuels was very special to his family and friends who keep his memory alive. One thing that those who knew him always mention is that Carl was never allowed to come home for a visit in his four years of war, and no one in the family ever saw him again after he walked away in the fall of 1941.
Carl Samuel's body was returned to the U. S. in 1949 and was buried at the National Cemetery in Fayetteville. On May 26 an American flag will fly at his grave as he and 7, 600 others who have served their country are honored during Memorial Day ceremonies at the Fayetteville National Cemetery.
Patty Besom, a former English teacher and secretary, teaches piano. Bob Besom is director emeritus of the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History.
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