HomeMy WebLinkAboutW.S. Edmonds, Brazos Valley HeroesBy Bill Youngkin
Special to The Eagle
As a career postal employee, W. S. Edmonds of
Bryan has been carrying messages for a good portion
of his life. At one time he carried his nation's secrets to
those who needed and would act on those secrets. As a
courier service officer he rubbed shoulders with those
who shaped our nation's history during World War II.
Edmonds, now 93 years young, was born in College
Station in 1913. As he recalls, "There wasn't much to
College Station back then, including no hospital, so I
was born at home. Except for a short period of time in
San Antonio, I grew up in College Station, graduating
from Consolidated in 1931. It was the height of the
depression, so it took me quite a while to go through
A&M, but I finally graduated in 1938.
"After graduation I got a job as a cotton classifier
in New Orleans but soon lost that job to technology.
I came home and was able to get a job with the post
office in College Station. Little did I know that job would
dictate what I would later do in the Army.
"After Pearl Harbor was bombed, I volunteered in
March 1942 for entry into the. OCS program. I was
accepted and sent to Camp Roberts in California and
then to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, for OCS. I received my
commission as an artillery officer in November of 1942
and became part of the instructor staff at Ft. Sill.
"From there, I was assigned to the 102nd Division,
which was training in Ft. Polk for deployment. I became
part of the division headquarters as a fire direction
officer. Just before we were to go overseas, I received
an order from the War Department. ,
"I was called in and was told I was being transferred
to the Adjutant General Corps and instructed to go to
New Orleans to be trained as a postal officer. The Army
had checked our records, and anyone who had postal
experience was being reassigned. One guy had been
pulled out of flight school and most of us were upset
about the situation. If we had wanted to run a post
office, we could have all stayed home. .
"I was told the only way out was to volunteer for the
courier transfer service, where I would be delivering
classified documents. I volunteered but found out you
needed a birth certificate before you could get atop-
secret clearance, which we were required to have. The
Army contacted my mom, who brought out the family
Bible which contained our family's records. The Army
prepared a birth certificate, gave me atop-secret
clearance and sent me to Washington, D.C., where I
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would be sent to deliver documents to other places, ".
quite often to New York, on the overnight train.:!:
Sometimes you didn't get back until 3 or 4 o'clock in i'
the morning but were expected to report for duty at ''.
7:30 a.m. the next day. I've probably been to New York '>
25 times but never saw it in the daylight.
a
"In Washington, D.C., we were in the presence of
men who were shaping our war effort. On more than -''.
one occasion, 1 had to deliver documents to the Map ,
Room at the White House, which was in the basement. ''.
I would be cleared through the White House and would '!.
deliver my document to the Map Room. I would knock '!'.
on the door, it would be cracked open, my documents `".
taken and I was then escorted out of the White House.:"
I never was able to see who was present in the Map
Room, but you were not allowed in unless you were !I
pretty important.
"I was eventually assigned for duty in the Pacific. My '',
first duty station was in New Guinea, but I served and
visited most sites we held in the Pacific. As a courier
you held `superior orders,' which meant if you needed =°
to get on a flight and it was full, you could bump people ',
off the plane. That didn't set too well with senior
officers. Sometimes we would require an officer on
the plane to accept and deliver the documents we had.
That didn't go over too well either with senior officers,
but one - a lieutenant colonel -was very gracious
and took possession of my documents for delivery
at his destination point. His name was Col. Charles
Lindberg."
Edmonds' (ast duty as a courier in the war was to
deliver the maps that were to be used by the troops to
invade Japan.
"We sailed on a Liberty ship with the maps in my and
two sergeants' possession, to deliver to the Philippines.
Just before we got there, a Japanese sub surfaced and
fired two artillery shells at us, fortunately missing. We
managed to outrun the sub and when we got to Manila
Harbor, I found out the bomb had been dropped and the
war was over. I thought:'We could have been sunk over
maps that would never be used."'
Edmonds would also serve in Japan before returning
home to be discharged. He returned to work at the post
office and worked there until he retired.
"Looking back, I'm glad I did what I did," he says. "I..
lost a lot of friends during the war, but other than that,
I have no regrets."
W.S. Edmonds' name can be found on the Brazos
Valley Veterans Memorial. For more information, to
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