When a War Changed a Family’s Trajectory

My father was from Winston County in Northwest Alabama. He was one of eight siblings in a typical rural farming community. By finishing high school, he became a rarity in his family. But there were limited opportunities for getting out of the farm life he was living. He was 26 when he was drafted into World War II.

Somehow, none of his brothers went to war. Dad had been helping in a general store in Haleyville, and knew about stocking items. In their wisdom, the Army Air Corps sent him to be a supply sergeant with the Hundredth Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force in Eastern England. When he left for training it was his first time outside Winston County.

The Bloody Hundredth was the group featured in the TV series Twelve O’clock High. They were the most awarded and honored B-17 group of the war. Almost daily they did bombing runs to destroy Hitler’s war machine in Europe.

Dad was responsible for obtaining and making available the supply items for the base. It was not a glamorous war job, but he felt good about doing his part.

Their base at Thorpe Abbots in Norfolk was the Easternmost English base with a long runway. Often planes from other bomb groups would return from a run needing to land as quickly as possible because of damage that occurred on the mission. Dad quickly realized that some of the other groups had better Norden bombsights or wheels or other parts. He would lose sleep helping his buddies quietly change out the parts for the benefit of the Hundredth before the planes went back to their group’s base. He had some great stories that we heard about a dozen times each. I grew up hearing details about base life in England. It was a far-away world I’d never see.

After the war he went back to Winston County but jobs were scarce, and having seen what he’d seen, a farm life was not going to do it for him. On a whim he went to Auburn University on the GI Bill, which paid for college for returning WWII veterans. He was the first and only Cummings from Haleyville that ever went to college.

He did a four-year degree in 12 consecutive quarters, not taking a summer off but going straight through. For a major, all he knew to do was major in Vocational Agriculture. He met and married my mother who was ten years younger and happy to catch a veteran. After graduation he got a job at Dallas County High School near Selma, Alabama. Within three years he was principal of the school. They still talk about his time at the school. In 1955 when I was a year old he did a career change and moved us to Birmingham and became a land agent with Alabama Power Company. He did that corporate job until retirement in 1980. His brothers became a barber, a truck driver, and a farmer. Going to reunions in Winston County was like going into another world. It was still The Country.

Some of my earliest and most lasting memories are the many times Dad would soliloquize on the need for my brother and me to do better than he did. He was acutely aware of how his circumstances had changed by going to college. He was determined to see his sons do even more in life. He made sure that we knew he expected us to go to professional school. He and Mother worked hard to send us all the way through as much schooling as they could talk us into. We got it.

My brother practiced medicine in Birmingham for over forty years, and I was a dentist in Anniston for 42 years. We know the effects of ambition and education. And it was because of Houston Cummings and World War II.

In 2021 I arranged a visit to Dad’s base at Thorpe Abbots in Eastern England. Volunteers gave a tour, showed my dad’s picture in the archives, and took me to the very barracks that he and friends almost burned down one night in that hilarious oft-told story. I thought I’d never see it. The locals acted totally appreciative about “The Yanks’ Time” in their community.

This is the American Experience I know and treasure. And we must all remember that we have to Go and Get It. It works.

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