Jimmie Marshall Goes to War! (Continued...)
- In 1943 and 1944, Jimmie was in South Carolina where was he trained
to be a medic in the 4th Infantry Division; he received additional medical
training in England when he arrived over there.
Question: Why did they put him in the medical corps?
- Answer: She didn't know, but he always said it was "because
his brother-in-law was a doctor!" He had assumed that he would be assigned
to the Quarter Master Corps because of his experience in the dry goods business,
but no. "We had a minister who commented that Jimmie had the grace
to see men die, so he felt that that is where God wanted him to be,"
Ginger commented.
Question: Did you ever visit him while he was in training?
- Answer: Yes, while Jim was in South Carolina, he finally got
orders to go overseas; they were told that their wives could come to stay
with them before they left. I spent 6 weeks with him in SC; I went on the
train from Longview, after Christmas in 1943. A sister-in-law of the local
Baptist Church minister rented us a private upstairs room with twin beds;
the lady's sister had told her it was "her Christian duty to take us
in....Of course, I gave her my ration stamps to buy whatever food she needed."
The lady became so found of the Jim and I she let us invite his mother and
father to come over to Charleston for a visit towards the end of January,
1944. This was just before Jimmie went over seas.
Question: How were communications during the war?
- Answer: I heard from Jimmie regularly, but not a word really
of where he was. Just based in England. Later, I found out that he spent
the longest time at Newton Abbot in Devonshire; Jim and I returned to Newton
Abbot on the 30th anniversary of D-Day to visit the row house where the
medical corps had been housed; on manouvers, they did not know where they
were, but they were semi-permanently placed in the house at Newton Abbot
in a home. We found it difficult to locate 30 years later, but the woman
who now owned the house had turned it into a boarding house. We were invited
to look around, however, and the very cordial lady finally came into focus
that it was June 6, 1974. "Oh my! This is D-Day. You will never know
how much we appreciate what all you Americans did for us during the war."
The lady was very complementary and very gracious.
Question: Where did Jim serve?
- Answer: Jimmie went into Europe on D-Day Plus One, that is
on June 7. The medics were needed immediately. He never talked much about
the horrors of action; he would talk to the other men who were personally
involved when they met on reunions, but not much to others. Interesting,
however, Jimmie thoroughly enjoyed the TV program "Mash" in the
1970s. The funny incidents of that series brought back so many memories
to him: the mixture of horror, camaraderie, and even the hilarity of the
absurdities of the war situation in the medical corps were what he would
relate to. He always said that the feeling that you have for those other
men was different from anything else he ever experienced in his life.
Jimmie Marshall in Europe in 1944. 
Europe, 1944.
Europe, 1944. 
- From Normandy, Jimmie made his way into France and was with the first
Americans to enter Paris. Later, he was caught up in the Battle of the Bulge.
As a medic, he saw the worst side of the war; the Normandy Beaches were
the most horrible. Walking among all those bodies and then having to deal
with them as a medic was horrible.
Question: How did you write him? Where did you send your letters?
- Answer: Our letters were sent to a central clearing house and
then forwarded; there was an APO number; we could send him packages, too,
by air mail. Jim always wanted tins of Nabisco cookies which were light
weight and could be mailed. "Jimmie wrote a lot." His letters
were as important for us as our were for him. His would sometimes bunch
up and come all at once; some were censored, some weren't, but he was careful
not to write anything he shouldn't.
Question: When did he leave the service?
- Answer: At the end of the war in Europe, Jim came home on furlough
in the summer of 1945. Although he was expecting to have to go to the Pacific,
while he was home he heard that the war was over. He did return to Durham,
N. C. They had to have so many points to get out; he had to stay in more
weeks to get his points. I went up to North Carolina to stay with him for
a while.
Question: What did you do during the war, Ginger ?
- Answer: "Mostly, I worked at the store in the shoe department."
Before the war, she had only worked occassionly at the store. Of course,
shoes were rationed, and people bought the shoes whether they fit or not.
Clothes were not rationed, but shoes were; dealing with the ration stamps
was tedious.
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