Thursday, January 24, 1946
Our Army and Navy Boys
Sergeant Robert S. Williams, of Durbin, survivor of the Bataan Death March and prisoner of war in Japanese concentration camps for three years and five months, was given an honorable discharge at Fort Meade, Maryand, January 1946, with a total of 125 points…
Sergeant Williams will attend West Virginia University the second semester. His brother, John Hunter, was honorably discharged as a Navy pilot on December 20, 1945. He will enter the University at the same time.
Fort Knox, Kentucky – the following enlisted personnel have been given discharges from the Army of the United States… Sergeant James W. Howard, Buckeye; Staff Sergeant Ralph J. Malone, Frank; T-4 Herbert T. Mace, Mace; Corporal Robert Glen Shrader, Marlinton; Private First Class Ronald L. Armstrong, Durbin; Sergeant Rex B. Beavers, Renick; T-4 Gayle W. Sharp, Frost; T-5 Lyle E. Tracey, Mace; Private First Class Samuel H. Sharp, Mingo; Corporal Nelson W. Tacy, Durbin; Corporal Henry L. Harper, Hills- boro; T-4 Raymond A. Waugh, Minnehaha Springs; Staff Sergeant William H. Barrett, Buckeye; Sergeant James P. Mack, Durbin; T-5 Coran F. Rhodes, Marlinton; T-4 Lawson S. Cutlip, Marlinton.
Private First Class Manuel McNeill, son of Mr. and Mrs. Arnot McNeill, arrived home Sunday with his honorable discharge. He has been in service since November 1943 and has been overseas since May 1944…
Lieutenant Norma Mae Kellison Mikesell, of the Navy Nurse Corps, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clairborne H. Kellison, of Huntersville, received her honorable discharge on January 17, 1946, at Washington, D. C. She reported for active duty in the Navy on November 24, 1943…
Darius Loudermilk is home from the Navy with an honorable discharge.
Staff Sergeant Edward E. East, of the Army Air Service, is at home with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Everette East, at Durbin, with an honorable discharge. He had been in service 43 months. He will resume his position with the railroad company in Roanoke, Virginia.
Loy Sharp, of the Navy, son of Elmer Sharp, is home from the Pacific with an honorable discharge after two years’ service.
Norman Edward Wagner, MaM 2-c, of the Navy, is home with an honorable discharge.
Clarence R. Davis, S. S M. B. 3-c, son of Mrs. Lucy Davis, is home from the Navy with an honorable discharge after 32 months’ service. He was overseas 29 months.
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With the 32nd Infantry Division in Japan – Private Zed E. Weatherholt, former Marlinton, West Virginia man, has arrived in Japan with the veteran 32nd “Red Arrow” Infantry Division and has started a search for a brother he has not seen in 23 years.
“I was only one year old when Stat left home, so I really do not remember seeing him at all,” he says. “We have not heard from him now for some time, but he is someplace in the Pacific, and I hope I can find him.”
Stat has been in the Army for twenty years and was always stationed in camps some distance from home. He is now a Japanese language interpreter.
There are four other brothers in the service: Edward is an Infantry Corporal in Germany; Frank is an Anti-Aircraft Corporal at Fort Bliss, Texas; Reuben is an Infantry Private in the States; and Ray is a T-5 in the States.
Zed has been assigned as an ammunition truck driver in the 120th Field Artillery Battalion. The 32nd has been overseas since April 1942. It saw action at Saidor and Ritape in New Guinea, Morotai in the Netherlands East Indies, Leyete and Luzon in the Philippines.
In civilian life, Weatherholt operated a farm and trucked draft horses to all parts of the country… His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Weatherholt, live on Route 1 in Marlinton.
FIELD NOTES
Last Sunday morning, the ice went out of the Greenbrier. Down at the mouth of Spice Run, M. B. Small had his boat tied up, and he went down early to keep the ice from crushing it or carrying it away. While watching the ice go by, one thing he noticed was the carcass of about the biggest buck deer he had ever seen. It was one of those big gray northern deer. The antlers were remarkably heavy, wide spread and well formed, with four points to the beam. The carcass was frozen deep in a big cake of ice. Mr. Small figured the ice had not come many miles, as the cake was still large and not ground up much. The ice from the upper reaches of the river flowed by that point until late afternoon.
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On Monday morning, January 14, a bulldozer uncovered a pair of copperhead snakes when grading a road on the A. G. Killingsworth farm below Buckeye. The thermometer was hanging around twelve above zero, so the snakes were not active nor mean.
DEATHS
Stanley Harold Simmons, infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Arlie Simmons, of Huntersville, aged 3 months and 23 days. Burial in the Beaver Creek cemetery.
Mrs. Edith Ruckman Hiner, 64, wife of J. S. Hiner, died at her home on Browns Creek, burial in the Huntersville Cemetery. Survived by three children. The deceased was a daughter of the late Wellington and Mary Landis Ruckman. Her brother is Everett Ruckman.
Gerald McKenney, aged 19 years, a son of Mr. and Mrs. Joe McKenney, of Marlinton. His brothers are Cameron and Eugene; his sister, Mrs. Francis Skaggs… Burial in the Indian Draft church cemetery.
Winters Gibson, aged 59 years, died at Clover Creek Camp; burial in the Varner Cemetery. He is survived by his children: Mrs. Ernest Simmons, of Durbin; Mrs. Charles Blackhurst, of Washington, D. C.; Dale Gibson, of New York… He was a son of the late James Gibson and Martha Hannah Gibson. His surviving brothers are Forrest Harlan, Summers and Dock. His sisters, Mrs. Mary Miller and Mrs. Harry Varner.
Taken away at the height of his usefulness, he will be greatly missed.