By Volpe Boykin

Guest columnist

 

Memorial Day is the time when we remember the sacrifice of our fellow citizens who gave their all to preserve the freedoms we currently enjoy. 

This year being the 80th anniversary year of the end of World War II, 1st Lt. Shirley T. Holland Jr. of our county should be remembered for his ultimate sacrifice in that war. 

1st Lt. Holland was born in Isle of Wight County to Shirley T. Holland Sr and his wife, Gladys Joyner Holland, of Windsor and spent his childhood there. In 1938 he graduated from Windsor High School and, being an exceptional student, attended the Virginia Military Institute, graduating on May 15, 1942, in the midst of World War II. He immediately volunteered for flight training, was accepted and attended flight school at Ellington Field in Texas, graduating and receiving his pilot’s wings on March 20, 1943. 

He was deployed overseas as the pilot of a B-25 Mitchell bomber in September of that year and flew at least 45 combat missions before his final one. On Sept. 18, 1944, 1st Lt. Holland was returning from a combat mission in Bhamo, Berma, when his squadron of bombers was ordered to disperse from formation because of a storm and proceed flying by instruments. That was the last time anyone ever saw his aircraft or any of its six-man crew. No search could be made because when last seen, the plane was 100 miles behind enemy lines. 

1st Lt. Holland’s parents were notified that he was “missing in action” along with the rest of the aircraft’s crew, then the awful pain of not knowing what happened to him began for his parents. His father immediately began corresponding with military and government officials along with the family members of 1st Lt. Holland’s crew to get any information available on what happened to his son. In reading these letters, his pain and worry can be felt by the reader and make anyone with a heart sad to know what the Holland family was going through.

In 1946 Shirley T. Holland Sr. finally found out what happened to his son. It must have been an agonizing wait, not knowing if his son was alive or dead. 

After the war a search-and-recovery team went to the area of the last location the plane had been observed and began looking for anyone who may have information. They located a native described as the “Headman of a native village.” He told them he had seen the plane crash and that it had burned for several hours. When possible the natives went through the burned wreckage of the aircraft and recovered the remains of all six crew members and buried them in a common grave near the crash site, marking it with a wooden post. 

The search-and-recovery team recovered the remains and they were again buried in a common grave in the U.S. Military Cemetery in Barrackpore, India. The only item found with the remains to identify them as the crew members of 1st Lt. Holland’s plane was the identification tag of co-pilot 2nd Lt. Thomas R. Hanley. In May 1948 they were moved to a mausoleum in Hawaii, where an unsuccessful attempt was made to individually identify them. 

1st Lt. Holland and his crew remained together in death as in life and their remains were removed to Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, where they were finally interred with full military honors on Aug. 20, 1949. 

It is left for us to imagine what Shirley T. Holland Jr. would have accomplished had he not made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, Isle of Wight County and his beloved Town of Windsor. Knowing what his father and other family members have accomplished and given to their community, I am sure from what I have learned about this young man from documents and reading his personal writings, this was a huge loss for our community and country. 

I will close with one sentence he wrote in a letter to his friends: “If day by day we are careful to fill our lives with noble deeds, at the end will stand a fair temple admired by man.”