 County, West Virginia: A Pictorial and Documentary Sampler |
Remember...Robert Lee Wolverton
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"A man I am--crossed with adversity." When Robert Wolverton wrote his motto for the high school yearbook, The Tiger, in 1932, as secretary of his class, little did he know how prophetic his words would be, twelve years later. While we cannot know what he was referring to at the time, the U.S. was in the midst of the Great Depression, so perhaps that was the source of his "adversity."
| Army Lieutenant Colonel Robert Lee Wolverton (known as "Bull") was born in Elkins, Randolph County, West Virginia, to parents Hattie Morgan Sharp Wolverton (1887-1976) and Wayne Jay Wolverton Sr. (1882-1960) on October 5, 1914. He grew up with one older sister, Ruth Maxine Wolverton (married name: Withers; 1912-1961). His younger siblings were Wayne Jay Wolverton Jr. (1918-1990) and Cornelia Wolverton (married name: Moler; 1922-2002). He graduated from Elkins High School and, as the first appointee of then-Representative Jennings Randolph, attended the United States Military Academy, from which he graduated in 1938. That same year, he married Leila Kathleen ("Kay") Goodwin (1913-1998). The 1940 Federal Census shows the young second lieutenant, now aged 25, living in Wahiawa, Honolulu, Hawaii, with Kathleen. They later had a son, Loch. |  |
After his West Point graduation, Robert Wolverton was on a straight and narrow path to becoming a leader of paratroopers. He was stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii for two years and served for a time with the 9th Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Transferring to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he attended a paratroop school, he was one of 18 officers of a class of 97 who qualified for such service.
An anecdote on the Project Vigil website attests to his leadership style:
Having completed their training at camp Toccoa, Georgia, in late 1942 the 506th PIR received orders to move to Fort Benning, Georgia to attend parachutist school. It was time to earn their jump wings and become bonafide parachutists.1st Battalion made the trip by train. In late November 1942, LTC Strayer's 2/506 left Camp Toccoa on foot and marched 118 miles to Atlanta. From Atlanta they took the train to Fort Benning. Not to be outdone, 3/506th's commander, Major Wolverton (soon to become LTC), who had learned of a world record held by the Japanese for the longest march, decided he wanted to beat that record and at the same time, show up the 2/506.
Major Wolverton gave the order for 3/506 to take the train from Toccoa to Atlanta. Then, at Atlanta, 3rd Battalion detrained and, wearing packs and carrying weapons, began a foot march to Fort Benning. The great leader that he was, Major Wolverton chose to march with his men and led the 700 soldiers on the gruelling 138 mile march from the front of the long green line.
Like many of his men, Major Wolverton suffered terribly from blisters that formed on his feet. His feet began to swell and constantly bled from the raw, open flesh. When the Battalion would stop for breaks, medics attended to his feet, applying bandages and ointments. He carried on marching with his men, and when the pain was too great for him, he took brief rides in an ambulance. It is said that by the end of the march, he no longer wore his boots, because his feet had become so swollen that he couldn't get them into them, so he wore several pairs of socks instead. Whether this is true or not does not matter, what matters is that he led from the front, he encouraged his men and set the example. He proved that he would never order his men to do anything that he wouldn't do himself. He showed them he wasn't a stereotypical West Point "Ring Knocker," but a true soldier's soldier. As the 3/506 arrived at Fort Benning, Major Wolverton gave the order for his men to march double time. And they crushed the Japanese record. ("Robert Lee Wolverton," 28 May 2018, accessed 16 June 2022, http://www.projectvigil.com/robert-lee-bull-wolverton.) [It should be noted that the Project Vigil website includes a more comprehensive biography with numerous photos.]
Robert would go on to attend the Army Command and General Staff school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. ("Lt. Col. Robert Wolverton Is Reported as Missing in Action," Elkins Inter-Mountain, 30 June 1944.) Then it was on to England to prepare for the invasion of the mainland. While in England he was able to meet his younger brother Wayne, who was a Navy lieutenant at the time.
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Lt. Col. Wolverton would become part of the General Dwight Eisenhower's "Great Crusade," otherwise known as D-Day, the largest land invasion known to civilization at the time. Paratroopers were not only integral to the success of the entire operation, they were also the first to arrive, and their success ultimately depended on those who were to follow. |
According to the National D-Day Memorial Foundation website,
A massive airborne operation preceded the Allied amphibious invasion of the Normandy beaches. In the early hours of June 6, 1944, several hours prior to troops landing on the beaches, over 13,000 elite paratroopers of the American 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, as well as several thousand from the British 6th Airborne Division were dropped at night by over 1,200 aircraft. Almost 4,000 more paratroopers would later be brought in by gliders, known as Waco Gliders, during daylight hours. In total 23,000 paratroopers and glider troops would be used in Normandy. They were all to land inland, behind the main line of German defenders on the beach, and were given the job of taking the town of St. Mere Eglise and securing key approaches to the Allied beachhead.While the operation was underway, heavy anti-aircraft fire from German guns in the trees and fields below, destroyed a number of the C-47 Skytrains (the transport aircraft used to deliver the paratroopers). The flak also forced the planes to evade and forced many off target, leading to most of the C-47s dropping their sticks of paratroopers at the wrong time and location. Also, in an attempt to avoid the flak, the C-47 pilots tended to not slow down to the proper speed for the troopers to exit. As a result, many of the paratroopers had their weapons or other pieces of equipment ripped off their person as they leapt into the prop blast behind their aircraft's engines. The situation became even more chaotic as German machine guns targeted planes and floating paratroopers alike. One paratrooper, as he descended, ended up having his parachute snag on a church steeple. He was left hanging in midair, and was forced to play dead for two hours as the Germans moved around beneath him.
Scattered all over Normandy, the paratroopers began to slowly link up with one another and conduct their missions. These small bands, affectionately known as LGOPs by today's airborne community, or Little Groups of Paratroopers, wreaked havoc on the German rear areas, often destroying German forces wherever they were encountered. The Germans stubbornly resisted, but were unable to monopolize on the chaos. They became engaged with paratroopers in many small actions, and ferociously defended pre-established strongpoints. These strongpoints were systematically destroyed by the paratroopers throughout the remainder of the week. The paratroopers captured St. Mere Eglise and were successful in securing most of their objectives, but it took them the better part of a week to successfully block a few of the causeways leading to Utah Beach even though that was an early objective. ("Airborne Operations," accessed 10 June 2022, https://www.dday.org/june-6-1944/#:~:text=Airborne%20Operations&text=In%20the%20early%20hours%20of,night%20by%20over%201%2C200%20aircraft.)
Robert Lee Wolverton was among the first to be killed on that fateful day, in an orchard outside St. Come-du-Mont. Half a century later, his grandson and namesake, Robert Lee Wolverton II, writes compellingly of the legacy of the grandfather he was never privileged to know:
My grandfather, Lt. Col. Robert Lee Wolverton, an Elkins native and the man for whom I am named, was the commander of the Third Battalion of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. On June 6, he led 750 men into the teeth of the mighty German military machine. Prior to boarding the glider that would carry him and others from the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions into Normandy, Wolverton gathered his battalion in an orchard 70 miles west of London. "Although I am not a religious man," he told his men, "I would like all of you to kneel with me in prayer--and do not look down with a bowed head but look up so that we can see God and ask His blessing in what we are about to do. We do not ask for favors or indulgence but ask that, if You will, use us as your instrument for the Right and an aid in returning peace to the world. We do not know or seek what our fate will be. We ask only this, that if die we must, that we die as men would die, without complaining, without pleading and safe in the feeling that we have done our best for what we believed was right. Oh Lord, protect our loved ones and be near us in the fire ahead and with us now as we each pray to You." After a brief silence, the colonel quipped, "That's all boys. We will meet in the Hotel Muehlenbach in Kansas City the first D-Day anniversary, after the war." And then Wolverton ordered, "Move out."
His grandson continues: "Long after his passing, Col. Wolverton's words and actions would have a far-reaching impact. Two years after the invasion, 46 survivors traveled to Kansas City to keep Wolverton's date at the Hotel Muehlenbach." He writes that the men of his grandfather's battalion remembered him fondly, quoting one as saying that "Col. Wolverton was the best damned commander in the Army," while another attested to the fact that "the colonel was the kind of guy who really loved his men." (Robert Lee Wolverton II, "Elkins Native Killed on D-Day Is Remembered by Grandson," Elkins Inter-Mountain, 6 June 1994.)
Among his commendations, in addition to the Purple Heart, Lt. Col. Wolverton received posthumously the Legion of Merit. The citation reads:
For exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services as Battalion Commander, Third Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, from 20 July 1942 to 6 June 1944. Lieutenant Colonel Wolverton exerted skillful effort and professional ability in the molding of his unit into a very effective fighting unit. He delved into map study, intelligence information and the compiling of technical data in order to insure perfect preparation and planning for the airborne operations of the European Continent. Lieutenant Colonel Wolverton landed at the head of his battalion on D-Day. He was mortally wounded in the early hours of the battle but in the ensuing days of vigorous fighting his troops wrote an indelible record of his outstanding leadership and sound tactical doctrine. ("Posthumous Award Made," Elkins Inter-Mountain, 14 September 1945.)
| Robert Lee Wolverton's remains were returned to the States, and he was interred in the U.S. Military Post Cemetery at West Point. |  |
Article prepared by Patricia Richards McClure
June 2022
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.
