“On December 7, 1941, sixteen-year-old Turner Thompson, born July 3, 1925, was walking near the Doe Run section at the foot of Groundhog Mountain in Ararat, Virginia, carrying his family’s laundry to be washed by another local family, when he encountered Sam Boyd, who told Turner about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. World War II changed the lives of Turner Thompson and many others. Turner went to school with Theodore Guynn, who served on the USS Princeton, Dr. Eric Jarrell, who was a US Marine Medic in the Pacific, and others such as Emily Clement, daughter of Carrie Sue Culler.”
“Turner was one of ten children—three girls: Mildred Glenn, Mattie Young, and Maybelle Smith, the latter two were teachers at Blue Ridge High and Elementary School. The seven boys: Alvis, who had diabetes and couldn’t serve in World War II; Claude, who was too young to serve during WWII but later served in the Army Air Corps; Turner, Lawrence, and Benton, who went to Europe; and Ralph and Fred, who went to the Pacific. They all came back alive. The Thompsons were one of the earliest families to settle near Jar Gap, where Thompson Creek flows into the Ararat River. Turner said his family came to Ararat via Norfolk, Richmond, and the top of the Blue Ridge before descending back down into the Piedmont. While interviewing Turner in May of this year at Boyd’s Restaurant, I discovered that Rodney Boyd was Turner’s cousin about three generations back through the McMillians. I remembered and told Turner that my paternal great-grandmother was a Thompson, and we might be cousins, too, even though she lived outside Augusta, Georgia.”
LTC Adam Thompson, U.S. Army, says that his grandfather enlisted in the Army as a Military Policeman (MP). He was the last of five brothers to join the military. They found themselves stationed overseas in Europe or the Pacific. He followed Lawrence (Army), Benton (Army), Fred (Army), and Ralph (Navy).
He first reported to Fort Lee, Virginia, then to Fort Meade, Maryland. His first extended stop was at Fort Custer in Michigan, where he attended MP school for 17 weeks, learning tactics, techniques, and procedures for being a police officer in the Army.
After graduating, he traveled to Fort Ord, California, where he joined Company C, 524th Military Police Battalion. After the battalion consolidated in California, they moved to Camp Howze, Texas, in June 1944. There, Turner and his unit packed equipment into the ship and completed their overseas training program.
“Turner says he guarded President Franklin D. Roosevelt in California, walking beside his car. He said FDR waved at him. Turner remembered the president smoking a cigarette.”
In August, they headed east by rail through Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, to Camp Miles Standish in Massachusetts. There, they completed overseas processing and orientation. Grandpa spent time at Camp Shanks, New York, and Fort Dix, New Jersey, before his unit boarded the USS West Point in September 1944. They joined several thousand other troops aboard. During the voyage, his battalion was responsible for police and guard duty.
Seven days later, the ship arrived at Liverpool Harbor in western England. After one night aboard, they disembarked, took buses to the rail yard, and loaded another train. After a day-long ride south, they arrived in Southampton, marched to the pier, and bivouacked for the night. The next morning, they boarded the Llangibby Castle, an English vessel, and crossed the English Channel to mainland Europe.
After two days, they boarded Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs) and landed at Omaha Beach in northwestern France on September 17. Near the town of Valognes, they stayed for two months, hiking, attending classes, and wading through camp mud. They then left Valognes by train, traveling through France to Belgium, and finally to Maastricht, Holland. Here, his Combat Military Police duties began.
“Turner spoke of 1,100 men who lost their lives on Omaha Beach. Turner thought that Eisenhower made a mistake with the air cover by overshooting the German defenses. As a Military Police officer, Thompson met Generals Eisenhower and Patton. The latter talked to him and was friendly. Turner remembers when Patton’s car was hit by a speeding driver, paralyzing the general, and eventually Patton died from his injuries. He said the future president was a little more standoffish. Turner met Eisenhower’s female driver, Kay Summersby. He said she was nice and friendly and would come lie down in the grass beside his guard shack when not driving the European Supreme Allied Commander. Turner got a corporal to drive him over to visit his brother Benton, a staff sergeant, who was a cook in a field artillery outfit in Germany. Benton was wounded, getting shrapnel in a leg.”
They trekked through Holland and Germany on the heels of advancing American armies. The air was filled with the sounds of artillery and anti-aircraft fire (AAA). At night, they slept by the light of tracer rounds crisscrossing the sky. They were assigned to the 83rd Infantry Division (also known as the ‘Old Hickory Division’) of the 9th Army. As American forces advanced, traffic bringing supplies to the front increased. Thanks to their stateside training, his unit was able to police and secure the area with efficiency, utilizing supplies, materials, troops, and equipment.
They made friends with locals, visited homes and churches, and learned to distinguish between safe and “off-limits” areas. In January 1945, during the Battle of the Rhineland, they began moving one platoon at a time, passing Corps MP units and relieving Division MPs, leapfrogging so that these units could rejoin their divisions as American forces pushed toward Berlin.
Most of their time was spent securing American-controlled areas of Germany. They performed traffic duties, returned stragglers to their units, manned roadblocks, searched for parachutists, conducted patrols, guarded installations, investigated crime, and guarded prisoners of war. One group of prisoners Grandpa guarded was the family of the Luftwaffe Commander, responsible for all German air forces. He also helped liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany.
“I believe Turner guarded the family of Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering), who was the second-highest-ranking official behind Adolf Hitler. This included Goering’s wife, Emma ‘Emmy’ Johanna Henny Sonnemann Goering (1893–1973), and their daughter, Edda Goering, who was born on June 2, 1938. Online sources indicate that Emmy served as Hitler’s hostess at numerous state functions before the war. This and her claim to be the ‘First Lady of the Third Reich’ created much animosity between her and Hitler’s future wife, Eva Braun, whom she openly despised. Turner was guarding some highly placed people of the Third Reich.”
“Turner spoke to me about Mrs. Goering and how he sat and talked with her. ‘She was a nice lady to be a Nazi.’ Turner laughed and said, ‘She spoke better English than I did.’ Hermann Goering killed himself via a potassium cyanide capsule after being found guilty at Nuremberg in 1946. ‘After the end of the war, she was arrested at her home in Sackdilling and was imprisoned at Straubing camp, 90 miles from Nuremberg, with her daughter, sister, niece, and a servant. I believe this is where Turner Thompson guarded them. A German denazification court convicted her of being a Nazi and sentenced her to one year in jail. After her release, she lived in Munich and wrote an autobiography, My Life with Goering, published in English in 1972, the year before her death.’”
After Germany surrendered in May 1945, Grandpa’s unit stayed in occupied Germany to provide security. They continued patrols, manned checkpoints, and handled fewer incidents but remained on alert.
“Turner spent time on the Danube River and even went swimming in it. He met a couple who owned a bicycle shop along the river, and they became friendly with him. He went to eat dinner with them on Saturday nights. During guard duty, he remembered a German lady whose brother brought her a cake. They had to cut into it before giving it to her, sampling it for security reasons. One time while in Poland, Turner walked into Russia but was warned not to carry a gun, as Russian soldiers would take it.”
Grandpa (Private First Class Thompson) and his unit left Germany in March 1946, nearly a year after the surrender. After train and boat travel through England and across the Atlantic, he arrived in New York City, where Americans greeted them with a big party. After a few days, he returned to Fort Meade, then Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he was demobilized and finally returned home to Ararat.
“While at Fort Bragg, Turner told me he had to bring some AWOL soldiers back from as far away as Texas and New Jersey. He gave them the choice of using handcuffs, and he never had to restrain them—they came back peacefully. Turner had to retrieve an AWOL soldier from Ararat and bring him back. The father asked Turner if there was anything they could do to keep his son in the Army, as this wasn’t the first time he’d gone AWOL. The Army sent the son overseas. Zeb Scales, who Turner describes as ‘a real nice guy,’ was an artilleryman in Korea and an MP in Vietnam. Zeb, my neighbor growing up in Ararat, was one of the most decorated soldiers to come out of Patrick County, as the naming of the bridge over the Dan River attests to. Another MP who ended up in Ararat was Owen Isaac.”
“Turner got married to Virginia Montgomery and had one son, Turner E. Thompson. Turner went to work at Dan River Mills before returning to Ararat to raise tobacco—fifteen acres—hiring every girl and boy in the neighborhood. Turner’s property was the site of the Mount Airy and Eastern Railroad and was once part of Laurel Hill, the birthplace of James Ewell Brown ‘Jeb’ Stuart.”
“Turner’s son and his wife, Linda, had twins, Adam and Aimee. Aimee married Michael Culler, and they are the parents of Fallon and Dalton. Adam married Kayla White of Virginia Beach, and they are the parents of Sadie Thompson.”
“Turner stays active by attending STEP programs at Fellowship Church in Ararat, playing Rook, and walking at Mayberry Mall, as an article from the July 13, 2023, Mount Airy News reports. You might find yourself in Boyd’s Restaurant in Ararat and notice an unassuming man eating. If you do, go up and thank him for his service, because he is one of what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation. He, like many others, saved the world from the evil oppression of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.”
“I always say, find the oldest person you can, and talk to them. You might be surprised at what you discover. On Saturday, July 5, a group of friends and family came to the Willis Gap Community Center to celebrate the 100th birthday of Turner Thompson. It was standing room only—a great testament to what his community thinks of him.”
Watch Tom Perry’s interview with Turner Thompson on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shq0otS6DyI&t=8s
Read the article about Turner Thompson in the Mount Airy News, July 13, 2023:
https://www.mtairynews.com/…/article_a267bd17-6249-5a8d.
