Contributed by Gerald Harlow
When the United States began mobilizing for WWII, two of the Hamm boys from the Ferncliff and Kents Store area were pressed into service. Stanley and Linwood (“Lin”) were called to serve in the Army, and both were sent to Europe. Tech 5 Stanley Hamm of the 113th Cavalry Group (mechanized) was severely wounded in Germany, and spent months recuperating from the wound. Younger brother Lin served with G Company, 331st Infantry Regiment of the 83rd Division. The 83rd, known as the Thunderbolt or Ohio Division, was driving the Germans back across France, Belgium and Germany in the summer of 1944.
The 83rd had landed at Normandy on June 18, 1944. The first contact with the Germans occurred on June 26, 1944. From then on, the 83rd was constantly in combat. Regimental commanders in the 331st Regiment were continually being lost; at one time they lost 11 in two weeks. On July 4 the 83rd launched its first major attack, and from then on, they were constantly moving forward, losing men each day. Daily they withstood artillery, enemy bullets, and German tanks including the dreaded Tiger tank, which was almost impossible to defend against.
That December the 83rd Division took part in the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes Forest, fighting for ten days and nights with little or no sleep in the bitter cold of winter. On March 2, 1945 Lin distinguished himself near Brucke, Germany. Acting as a scout for his squad, PFC Hamm’s progress was halted by a machine gun firing at close range. Lin fired a white phosphorous grenade, and under the cover of the smoke, advanced and threw a hand grenade, eliminating the machine gun. For his actions Lin was awarded the Bronze Star.
On March 12, 1945 Lin wrote his mother Effie Melton Hamm: “Write and tell me how Stanley is getting along every letter that you get from him…”
The 83rd Division had crossed the Rhine on March 29, and although Nazi Germany was on the verge of collapse, the resistance was strong. On April 11 the 83rd liberated the horrors of the Langenstein-Zwieberge concentration camp where forced laborers in the mines died at a rate of 500 per month. Sadly, on Sunday April 15, 1945, just 23 days before the surrender known as VE Day, Linwood was killed instantly by a German bullet. In a letter to the Hamm family, Venters Keen of Portland, TN, wrote of the heartache of seeing his best friend killed, a friend that he had fought, slept, and eaten with for the past year under continuous combat. Brother Stanley was able to visit Lin’s gravesite. At the family’s request, Lin was later removed from the cemetery in Margraten, Holland and returned to Beulah Baptist Church in Kents Store to be buried near his grandparents. Linwood Joseph Hamm was awarded the Purple Heart, posthumously, and died before his promotion to sergeant came through. On the Sunday that Lin was killed, his mother Effie Melton Hamm told a family member, that one of her boys had fallen. Thousands of miles away and without any means of communication, the story would seem both improbable and impossible except for the fact that she shared it with another family member.
The expected invasion of Japan required more men and another brother, George, was given his draft notice. Luckily the war ended before he was called into active service. Stanley would return safely to his home, but the missing brother Lin, is still missed even today in the Hamm family of Fluvanna and Louisa counties.
