Tribute to CWO Robert Earnest Hathaway (1918-1961)

November 11, 2018

T/Sgt. Robert E. Hathaway arrived at Omaha Beach, Normandy, France, on June 14, 1944, 8 days after the big invasion on D-Day. The shooting battle for control of the beaches of Normandy was pretty much over. The combat units were moving on, and into France. His unit oversaw the military preparedness of the advanced section of the supply chain that supported the Twelfth Army Group, which ultimately consisted of the First, Third, Ninth and Fifteenth Armies.

The following is from a faded document found among his papers after his death, which appears to be the first ten pages of a draft of a history of his unit:

"The technical term applied to the process of feeding, arming, and maintaining the fighting soldier is logistics. The actual area of ground contact with the enemy is relatively slight compared with the total area necessary to maintain the striking force. This total area is known as the Theater of Operations. The Theater of Operations is divided into the Combat Zone and the Communications Zone. The link that binds the combat troops with the rear supply echelons is the Advance Section, Communications· Zone. It is the job of the Advance Section to see to it that the armies have the 'mostest' with which to get there the 'fustest'."

T/Sgt. Hathaway was assigned to the G-3 unit of the Advance Section, Communications Zone, or ADSEC, which was (from the same faded document) “assigned a bewildering array of units each of which had its particular part to play in the successful invasion of Europe. Truck Companies, Laundry Platoons, Depot Supply Companies, Bomb Disposal Squads and Engineer General Service Regiments were only a few.” While the name for the function of G-3 was “Plans and Training,” its primary role was to oversee and maintain the quality of the military proficiency of the 900 units that made up ADSEC. T/Sgt. Hathaway was stationed at its rolling headquarters during the second World War.

T/Sgt. Hathaway’s task on June 14, 1944 was to help establish his unit’s initial headquarters on the continent for the European Theater of Operations. He helped set up two Command Post tents on a large field in Grandcamp, and some pup-tents for sleeping. There was a large perimeter, made so to try and fool the German Army into thinking that nothing important was going on at the site. Until a week before, Grandcamp was the site of the Wehrmacht’s Maisy Battery, a very large German artillery site, with three batteries. Those German batteries were designated Allied targets 5, 16 and 16A, all shelled by U.S. Navy warships on D-Day and the days following. The U.S. 2nd and 5th Rangers cleared the area for occupation by the Allies on June 9, D-Day plus three. On June 16, the rest of G-3 assembled at their new temporary headquarters.

T/Sgt. Hathaway was in Grandcamp for only three days. G-3 moved on to Catz, which was the original targeted site for the headquarters of ADSEC. Catz had previously been occupied by German soldiers of the Grenadier-Regiment, 352nd Infantry Division. The Germans had been removed from Catz by the 3rd battalion of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment on June 10, reportedly “without encountering any particular difficulties.” When ADSEC arrived at Catz, they took over some very old buildings that had served as headquarters for the Germans, and G-3 was assigned a small structure that was thought to have been either a smokehouse or a bakery. It could hold six men, and the others worked in tents outside. They lived in an orchard. There were lots of bees.

Robert Earnest Hathaway was career military. On October 16, 1940, then-22 year old Robert made the trip from Girard, Pennsylvania, going east to Erie, with two of his brothers. The three of them registered for the draft. He was 6 feet 1 inch tall, and weighed 165 pounds. His brothers Ralph (“Happy”) and Jack were taller. At the time, he managed the Shadeland Gardens roller skating rink in Springboro, Pa. Prior to that, he worked as an usher at the Denman Theater, in Girard, and had seasonal employment at a company called Girard Manufacturing, where he stamped metal that would be incorporated into toy electric trains sold under the brand name Marx.

Robert did not wait to be drafted. In January 1941, he set aside his roller rink job and joined 56 Erie County neighbors who were a mix of enlistees and draftees at Erie’s Union Station for a train ride to Pittsburgh, where he was sworn in, on January 23. He was then dispatched for basic training to the Ninth Infantry, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. The U.S. Army questioned the spelling of his middle name, “Earnest,” but he assured them it was the spelling that his father, Pearl Leroy Hathaway, had given him. He had taken commercial courses in high school, though he dropped out midway through his senior year – the story was that he wanted a job so he could buy his then-girlfriend a ring (a bad decision with lasting impact). But he could type, and so he was assigned to clerical duties, initially personnel. He was promoted to Corporal in September 1941 and to Sergeant in April 1942. We were in the war by then.

In June 1942 he was transferred from Fort Sam Houston to Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania, with orders to bring full field equipment and clothing for temperate climate. He was promoted to Staff Sergeant. On August 6, 1942, he boarded a ship headed for Scotland, and he arrived there eleven days later. He wound up in the Headquarters for the Services of Supply, European Theater of Operations. He was promoted to Technical Sergeant. In 1943, Technical Sergeant Hathaway was angling for Officers Candidate School, and gathered an impressive collection of impressive letters of recommendation from impressive officers. But being a high school drop-out did not serve his application well, despite those strong letters. He remained a Technical Sergeant for the balance of the war. That rank was later recategorized by the U.S. Army as Sergeant First Class.

ADSEC was spun out of the Services of Supply, and was initially attached to the First Army. His personnel file has a “Commendation on Personal Appearance” dated March 16, 1944, the third day of ADSEC’s existence, signed by Major Littleton T. Dryden, Infantry, Commanding, remarking upon his well-polished brass and his neatly pressed uniform. This, during a war. But the responsibilities of his G-3 unit included making sure that all ADSEC units exhibited military discipline, which includes polished brass and neat uniforms where practical. Lead by example. The planning of supply for D-Day and beyond occurred at its first headquarters, opened on March 20, 1944, in what was then a newly built cooperative bakery in Bristol, England. That building in Bristol is a bakery today, in 2018.

On D-Day, ADSEC was detached from the First Army and became its own entity, closely supplying all U.S. Armies involved in the invasion and occupation of Europe. From our faded document:

The Advance Section is in direct support of the Combat Zone. As the armies moved forward their rear areas cease to be zones of hostility. The relative security of the rear area changes the problem from that of contact with the enemy to that of administration and supply. In order not to hinder the armies in their operational mission by attention to administration and supply detail the rear areas are successively ceded to Advance Section which thereupon assumes that function. Advance Section in its turn cedes its area to Base or Intermediate Sections which are permanently established in what becomes in toto the Communications Zone. The Advance Section continues to move forward in the rear of army area. The process of “pealing [sic] off” areas of responsibility is a continuous one.

In Catz, there were two types of aircraft identification. “If it flew by day it was a friendly plane; if by night it was unfriendly.” The nocturnal disturbances diminished in time. They were not in Catz very long. When the First Army finally cleared St. Lo, the marching orders for ADSEC G-3 were initially for Mayenne, but just as G-3 got started, they were redirected to Le Mans. There had not been a Le Mans sports car race since 1939, but there were enthusiastic villagers quite pleased to see the different uniforms coming into their town, on August 18, 1944.

They were not long in Le Mans, and in early September, they set out for Reims, passing through Étampes, along the way. In Étampes, they caught a U.S.O. show starring Dinah Shore, Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. There were also mosquitoes. Enormous mosquitoes. From Étampes, the journey to Reims continued, passing through Paris on the way. ADSEC established its headquarters in Reims on September 9, 1944.

Reims is an important part of our family’s story. Pauline Turpin Hughes was the widow of Joseph Thomas Hughes, an American doughboy from Philadelphia who fought in World War I, and stayed in Fismes, France after that war. He died in 1933. When the Germans came around the Maginot Line in May 1940, the ever-practical Pauline decided to get herself and her two children (and her boyfriend) out of her small town of Fismes, and moved 30 kilometers to Reims, where she opened a restaurant, living above it. The Germans were fond of champagne, and so their occupation of the champagne district was not particularly hostile, and certainly not as brutal as it was elsewhere in France. They took a lot of champagne out of the country, and they needed the locals to keep making it. They also did not know what to do about the three American citizens, Pauline and her two children, living above a popular restaurant, so they just let them be.

When ADSEC arrived in Reims on September 9, a sign appeared in the restaurant window at 62 rue Gambetta, hung by a waitress, Jacqueline, Pauline’s daughter. The sign said, “English Spoken.” That sign was hung over the objection of Pauline, and it caught the eye of T/Sgt. Hathaway, as did its creator. He made nightly visits, ordering champagne every night, and shared the bottles with Jacqueline. They quickly fell in love. Jacqueline wanted to get married, but Robert pointed out that there was a war going on, and his unit was always within striking distance of enemy bad intent. He could be killed. They dated. They regularly walked together to the Pommery champagne caves. Then ADSEC HQ left Reims for Namur, Belgium in mid-October, with Sgt. Hathaway arriving earlier, on September 26. Now that was a whirlwind romance.

Robert once took a leave from Namur, and visited Reims in November. Jacqueline was pretty happy to see him. Then back to Namur (after what Jacqueline later recalled to be a proper kiss good-bye), and in Namur, ADSEC G-3 heard and saw their first V-1 flying bombs. Sgt. Hathaway was not lying to Jacqueline – he could have been killed. He also saw his first German prisoners, and they kept coming, and coming. The activities of ADSEC had become so stabilized by Thanksgiving that G-3 formed a band. But then things changed. The Battle of the Bulge began on December 16, 1944, and the fighting was close by. The German POWs were evacuated, backward. Namur was an objective of the German army. They failed. By February, ADSEC had handled over a quarter million German prisoners. In April G-3 moved into Germany. Then the war was over, and ADSEC was disbanded.

T/Sgt. Hathaway was reassigned to the 6921st Labor Supervision Company to oversee and process German prisoners of war, and he left Germany in July 1945, returning to France. He found his way back to Reims, and that same month, Jacqueline declared, on official U.S. Army papers, her intentions:

"I hereby certify, Jacqueline Anne Mary HUGHES, born in FISMES, MARNE, FRANCE, on 19th August 1923, having read and understood the provisions of Cir. 41, Hq: ETOUSA, dated 17th April 1944 and W.D. letter, 24 Nov. 43, file A.G. 291.1 (11 September 43) OB-S. SPGAL-M, Subject “Overseas marriages of Military Personnel”, wants to be united with T/Sgt Robert E. HATHAWAY

REIMS, 26th July, 1945

Jacqueline A. HUGHES"

How romantic! 1st Lt. John H. Hearne declared that after examining papers, Robert was to the best of his knowledge not married. That was signed on the same day as Jacqueline’s declaration. After some more certifications by more officers, and a Roman Catholic Baptism on August 15, by a U.S. Army Chaplain (Jacqueline was Catholic, and she would not marry a non-Catholic, nor would the Church marry them), they were married on August 20, 1945 in the Cathedral of Reims. She had just turned 22 the day before, and he would turn 27 a few weeks later.

Robert separated from service on October 13, 1945 at Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, from where he started his journey to Europe a little over three years before. He became a member of the U.S. Army Reserves. He had come home on a troop ship. Jacqueline followed a few months later. Their housing in Girard was not ready when the French war bride arrived. They lived with Robert’s parents, Pearl and Carrie, in a modest structure with no indoor plumbing, other than the hand-pump in the kitchen for water from a well, and no heat other than the potbelly stove. There was a three-hole outhouse in the back. Robert was one of nine brothers raised in that home. Robert and Jacqueline moved into their own home a few months later. He went back to making toy trains, this time as supervisor/quality-control, at the Louis Marx and Company, the former site of Girard Manufacturing. His son Richard was born in June 1947.

Robert did not last long in civilian life. He went active service (Army Reserves) on February 16, 1948, with an expectation it would last a year. He was assigned to Philadelphia, Second Army, and he and Jacqueline moved to Philadelphia with their son, Richard. Robert converted from Technical Sergeant to Sergeant First Class on August 1, and he rejoined the Regular Army the next day. His work in Philadelphia related to returning war dead from Europe.

His mother-in-law, Pauline, had also left France and moved to Philadelphia, where she had two sisters-in-law from her marriage to Joseph. Her daughter, son-in-law and grandson moved in with them, in the Feltonville section, on Ella Street. SFC Hathaway by that time had become an Army instructor. His son Michael was born in March 1950.

Robert finally got his GED in June 1950. His commanding officer recommended that Robert be promoted to Master Sergeant, in March 1951. His son George was born in June. He applied for promotion to Warrant Officer in December 1951, and he was promoted to that rank in February 1952. He was still in Philadelphia, and still with the Second Army. The next month he was transferred to the 141st Tank Battalion, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, as a personnel officer, a position he maintained for the balance of his military career.

The 141st Tank Battalion was assigned to be part of the NATO forces, based in an old German barracks in Hanau, near Frankfurt. They were there to deter an invasion of Europe by the Soviet Union. Warrant Officer Robert Hathaway arrived in Germany in July 1952, with his wife and three sons following in September. Richard started school. Robert’s son Gerald was born in August 1954. Jacqueline’s brother Guy was at the time doing a stint in the U.S. Army, and he happened to be stationed in Europe. He paid a visit.

Robert was promoted to Chief Warrant Officer in April 1955, and in June 1955, CWO Robert E. Hathaway was transferred to the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. Jacqueline and his four sons moved to Georgia, after paying a visit to family in Girard, Pennsylvania.

He was then transferred to Headquarters, 7th Infantry Division, in South Korea in April 1959, and stayed there for a year, close to the border of North Korea. They were there to deter an invasion of South Korea by North Korea. His family lived in Philadelphia during his absence. Upon his return, he was assigned to the Second Armored Division, Fort Hood, Texas. The family paid another visit to Girard, and they all drove in a green Ford station wagon along the Atlantic Coast down to Florida, and then west through the Southern States, along the Gulf of Mexico, to Killeen, Texas.

Robert was formally advised in November 1960 that his service in the United States Army would come to an end on June 30, 1963, and he was urged to become a teacher. He indicated that he likely would retire in Texas or California, leaning toward California. He didn’t make retirement. He died at the Station Hospital at Fort Hood, Texas on March 17, 1961, from stomach and pancreatic cancer. He left four sons aged six to thirteen, and a pregnant widow. A big family mystery is that the death was deemed to have been service-connected, which entitled his dependents to some Veterans Administration benefits. Either something happened in Korea (which his widow Jacqueline strongly suspected), or a sympathetic commanding officer ticked a box to make things easier for the family Robert left behind.

His pregnant widow Jacqueline and sons Rich, Mike, George and Jerry moved to Philadelphia, initially to Ella Street in Feltonville, and later to D Street in Olney. Jacqueline’s mother Pauline, and Jacqueline’s brother Guy were close by. Jacqueline gave birth to Robert’s and her daughter, Evelyn, on her own 38th birthday, August 19, 1961. Jacqueline died peacefully on August 21, 2009, the day after what would have been her and Robert’s 54th anniversary.

Chief Warrant Officer Robert Earnest Hathaway’s medals were:

Army Commendation Medal (two oak leaf clusters)

Good Conduct Medal

American Defense Medal

American Campaign Medal

European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal

5 Bronze Battle Stars for: Normandy, North France, Rhineland, Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge) and Central Europe Campaigns

World War II Victory Medal

Army of Occupation Medal (Germany)

National Defense Service Medal

Armed Forces Reserve Medal

Though he was awarded five battle stars, the photos of him in uniform after the war show him wearing only three on the ribbon for the medal. Regulations would have allowed up to four stars on a single ribbon, and a duplicate ribbon to carry the fifth. My guess is that he felt he did not personally earn all five. That would have been him, though I only knew him when I was very young. I am his youngest son, six when he died (he was 42), but he sure left an impression. His last words to me, on his hospital bed in the days before he died, after I showed him my first grade report card, were that education was very important, and I should advance as far as I can in school. I am a law school graduate, and the first in my Hathaway line to have a post-graduate degree. I am not the last.

All of his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren honor him this Veterans Day, 2018.

© 2018 Gerald T. Hathaway

Robert E Hathaway