Memories Of World War II: A Mississippi Farm Boy's Story
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To a remarkable degree, the universe external to our Mississippi farm was a Great Unknown to me at the time of my enlistment in the Army, on October 22, 1942, at the age of eighteen. It is true that, as a compliance reporter for the U. S. Agricultural Adjustment Administration in the spring and summer of 1941, and again in the spring of 1942, I had interacted with hundreds of farmers across my native Tate County. Beyond that, as a dormitory freshman at Senatobia’s Northwest Mississippi Junior College during the 1941-42 school year, I had lived and studied among dozens of collegians whom I had not previously known, albeit they too were generally rural Tate Countians. From mid-June to early August of 1942, my out-of-county acquaintanceships were expanded substantially when I took three accelerated courses at Memphis State College, boarding in a private home across railroad tracks abutting the southern boundary of the campus. Then, for two months immediately anteceding my army induction, I resided near the Memphis Fairgrounds while working as a warehouseman at Sears, Roebuck, and Company. Both Memphis dwelling arrangements required the sharing of a bedroom and double bed with a male lodger theretofore unknown to me, and, in each case, our sharing of a single bathroom with the household family. Earlier in life, I had made occasional one-day trips to Memphis, thirty miles from our eighty-acre place, traveled twice to our state capital, Jackson, attended meetings of the Future Farmers of America at Mississippi State College and at Greenwood, accompanied our high school basketball team to various game sites as much as forty miles distant (as a second stringer), and once visited for three or four days with an aunt and uncle in Forrest City, Arkansas--this being my sole pre-army excursion outside Mississippi and the Memphis area of Tennessee. A forty-mile round trip between Coldwater (in my county) and Sardis (in an adjacent county) was my only mileage on a railroad.
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About the Book
About the Book
The book provides an account of the author’s experiences in the army from October 1942 to September 1945, and, to a substantial extent, a narrative about the operations of the Army Air Force’s 404th Fighter Group from the time of its activation early in 1943 to September 1945–the thirty-month interval during which he served in it as a nonflying enlisted man and noncommissioned officer. From April 1944 until V-E Day, the group operated successively from seven bases and strips in England, Normandy, elsewhere in France, in Belgium, and in Germany, with its pilots completing an aggregate of some 30,346 combat hours. For its war activities, it became the recipient of a U. S. Presidential Unit Citation and a Croix de guerre with palm bestowed by the President of France. Each member of the group was decorated with a Belgian fourragere. Of the some 1,000 individuals serving in the group, forty–three lost their lives during the months of combat, almost all of them pilots. Though deactivated in November 1945, the unit’s survivors have retained ties through periodic reunions and through a newsletter entitled Poop Sheet, which continues to be issued several times a year.
About the Author
Kenneth Kyle Bailey
The author was born in rural Tate County, Mississippi, where he resided until his induction into the U. S. Army on October 22, 1942, at the age of eighteen. During most of his thirty-five months in military service, he was a noncommissioned officer in the army’s 404th Fighter Group, which became a contingent of the Ninth Air Force, operating successively from bases and strips in England, Normandy, elsewhere in France, in Belgium, and in Germany–altogether from seven stations situated in six combat zones. The group became the recipient of a U. S. Presidential Unit Citation and a Croix de guerre with palm bestowed by the President of France. Each individual assigned to the group was decorated with a Belgian fourragere.
Following an honorable separation from the army, the author enrolled at Vanderbilt University, where he earned B. A., M. A., and Ph.D. degrees, with majors in history. Afterward, he held faculty appointments at Indiana University, North Texas State University, and Louisiana State University before accepting an associate professorship in 1960 at Texas Western College of the University of Texas (now The University of Texas at El Paso). He was promoted to the rank of professor in 1963 and subsequently served twice as chairman of the institution’s department of history. He was given a leave of absence in 1966-67 in order to accept a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. Upon retirement from the faculty in 1991, he became a professor of history emeritus.
Southern White Protestantism in the Twentieth Century, published by Harper & Row, Inc., is the best known of his scholarly contributions, which also include articles in the American Historical Review, the Journal of Southern History, Church History, and other learned journals.. He has served terms on the Board of Editors of the Journal of Southern History and on the Organization of American Historian’s Pelzer Memorial Award Committee. Locally, he has served on the City of El Paso’s Historic Landmark Commission, of which he was chairman, and as President of El Paso Landmarks, Inc.