Today marks the beginning of a new blog series in which you can follow my father, who as a teenager, entered and fought in World War II. These blogs are the result of nearly 16 years of research and also led to the publication of a multi-award-winning book, At First Light: A True World War II Story of a Hero, His Bravery, and an Amazing Horse. So, let’s begin. Where was Philip B. Larimore, Jr. 80 years ago today?

PRIOR TO THIS DAY: A timeline for Phil:

• 1/4/25, Philip B. Larimore, Jr., was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Philip B. Larimore, Sr. and Ethel McClanahan Larimore
• 5/30/30, Graduated from Miss Lee’s School of Childhood
• 5/29/36, Promoted to the seventh grade
• 2/6/37, Joined the Boy Scouts of America
• 9/7/38, Entered Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Mississippi, as a 13 year-old freshman
• 5/17/42, Graduated from Gulf Coast Military Academy in Gulfport, Mississippi, While there he meets and falls in love with Marilyn Fountain from Des Moines, Iowa
• 9/21/42, Entered Infantry Officers’ Candidate School (OCS) at Fort Benning, Georgia
• 12/17/42, Graduated as the youngest-ever graduate from OCS
• 1/4/43, Phil’s 18^th birthday
• 1/20/43, Commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant at age 18 years, 16 days, as the youngest commissioned Army officer in WWII
• 1/22/43, Sworn into the Army
• 1/25/43, Entry into Active Duty at Fort Wheeler, Georgia
• 2/6/43, Phil’s mother accepted his Eagle Scout award in his absence
• 2/15/43, Transferred to Glider Troops of the 82^nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina
• 2/15–7/1/43, Platoon Leader, Company C, 1^st Battalion, 326^th Glider Infantry, 82^nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
• 3/1/43, Left for Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for Army Air Base, Alliance, Nebraska, serves as Train Quartermaster
• 3/3/–6/30/43, Infantry training at the Army Air Base, Alliance, Nebraska
• 7/1/–7/19/43, Battalion S-2, HQ Company, 1^st Battalion, 326^th Glider Infantry, 82^nd Airborne Division, Alliance, Nebraska
• 7/20/–10/26/43, Battalion S-1, HQ Company, 1^st Battalion, 326^th Glider Infantry, 82^nd Airborne Division, Alliance, Nebraska
• 10/27/–10/31/43, Platoon O, Company C, 326^th Glider Infantry, 82^nd Airborne Division, Alliance, Nebraska
• 11/1–11/20/43, Parachute Demolition School at Fort Benning, Georgia
• 11/25–12/4/43, Company C, 1^st Battalion, 326^th Glider Infantry, 82^nd Airborne Division, Alliance, Nebraska
• 12/4/43, Took train back to Fort Bragg, North Carolina
• 12/7–12/31/43, awaiting assignment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina

JANUARY 1, 1944, NEW YEAR’s DAY, FORT BRAGG, NC

Dearest Mom.

This Christmas and New Year’s have been the quietest that I have ever spent. On New Year’s Eve, I went to bed about 2130, and that was all. I slept the New Year in and think it did me a lot better than if I went out anywhere. Just a note to tell you that the Box came. Darling it was swell of all of you to be so nice and put all that swell stuff together. You seemed to have put a little bit of everything that I love in there. Tell Mom King that her cake was swell down to the last crunch. Everything was so nice. I love the pipe. Tell Dad he sure is a good pick of pipes. I love ya all. How was N.O. and all the people down there?

Love, Phil[1]

[1] Handwritten post card. Post Marked 30 Dec 1943, Fort Bragg, N.C.

Dear Grandmother,

I’m sorry I wasn’t home for Christmas with the rest of the folks. I missed you all. But maybe next year it will be different. Your card came a few days and it was sweet. I love things like that. I hope by now Aunt Linnie is feeling much better, you can’t keep that good old gal down. Tell Grandad not to work too hard, and also say hello to Buster for me. I got a nice letter from Aunt Leota and a Christmas card and $10 for Christmas. I had a nice one. Did you?

Love Phil[1]

[1] Handwritten letter, with no envelope. In Rick Larimore’s photo collection. Likely written to his dad’s mother (Mary Elma Bonham Larimore who had a older sister, Lena “Linnie” S. Bonham).

ARMY PREPARATIONS IN EUROPE

On January 1st, 1944, Lieutenant-General Mark W. Clark replaced General Patton as commander of the Seventh Army, and under his direction planning for ‘Operation Anvil’ went ahead rapidly. Allied Force HZ had revealed some details of the proposed operation to senior Seventh Army officers. It involved a series of of landings along the south coast of France, to be launched in conjunction with ‘Operation Overlord’—the assault on north-west Europe—and was designed to create a Mediterranean bridgehead.[1]

[1] Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, 19.

THE TYPICAL SOLDIER IN WWII

Just over eight million men had been inducted into the U.S. Army and Navy during the past two years—eleven thousand every day. The average GI was twenty-six, born the year that the war to end all wars had ended (1918), but manpower demands in this global struggle meant the force was growing younger: henceforth nearly half of all American troops arriving to fight in Europe in 1944 would be teenagers. One in three GIs had only a grade school education, one in four held a high school diploma, and slightly more than one in ten had attended college for at least a semester. War Department Phamplet 21-13 would assure them that they were “the world’s best paid soldiers.” A private earned $50 a month, a staff sergeant $96. Any valiant GI awarded the Medal of Honor would receive an extra $2 each month.

The typical soldier stood five feet eight inches tall and weighed 144 pounds, but physical standards had been lowered to accept defects that once would have kept many young men out of uniform. A man with 20/400 vision could now be conscripted if his sight was correctable to at least 20/40 in one eye; toward the end, the armed forces would make 2.3 million pairs of eyeglasses for the troops. The old jest that the Army no longer examined eyes but instead just counted them had come true. A man could be drafted if he had only one eye, or was completely deaf in one ear, or had lost both external ears, or was missing a thumb or three fingers on either hand, including a trigger finger. Earlier in the war, a draftee had had to possess at least twelve of his original thirty-two teeth, but now he could be utterly toothless. After all, the government had drafted a third of all civilian dentists in the United States; collectively they would extract 15 million teeth, fill 68 million more, and make 2.5 millions sets of dentures, enabling each GI to meet a minimum requirement of “masticating the Army ration.”

Men with malignant tumors, leprosy, or certifiable psychosis still were deemed “non-acceptable,” but by early 1944, twelve thousand venereal disease patients, most of them syphilitic, were inducted each month and rendered fit for service with a new miracle drug called penicillin.[1]

[1] Atkinson, The Guns at Last Light, 19-20.

In case you haven’t read or listened to Dad’s book, you can learn more or order it here.

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