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Remember...Harry Dabney Caudill
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Harry Dabney Caudill was born August 20, 1917, at Mercers Bottom, Mason County, West Virginia. His middle name reflected his mother's heritage, as his parents were Willard Benton Caudill and Carrie Ellen Dabney Caudill. Willard and Carrie's large brood consisted of ten siblings, nine of whom lived to adulthood, some living into their nineties. Harry would have grown up with brothers Marvin Dale, Grover Russell, John Henry, and Dallas Lee. His sisters were Garnet Beatrice (married names: Allbright, Pearson), Margie (married name: Kinnaird), Jewel (married name: Boardman), and Wilma June (married name: Nibert). Margie's name was Marguerette or Marguerett, spelled variously depending on which "official" document one is accessing, but she always went by Margie, and that's the name on her headstone. One son, Worthy Sylvester, born in 1912, died in infancy. (Family information obtained from 1920, 1930, 1940, Federal Census documents, Harry's Find A Grave Memorial, and the Dorman-Boyd Family Tree on Ancestry.com. Steve Halstead, a Mason County historian with much knowledge of veterans, also contributed.)
On September 26, 1939, Harry married Ruth Elizabeth Crump in Gallia County, Ohio. In 1943, they had a daughter, Sharon Lynn (married name: Doss). Both the marriage record and the 1940 census indicated that Harry was a laborer (class of worker: wage or salary worker in government work) and had completed the eighth grade in school. While Harry and Ruth were settling in and starting their family, World War II was looming, and, of course, Harry was required to register for the draft, which he did at Point Pleasant on October 16, 1940. His draft card sheds light on the type of "government work" he was doing, as he states he is employed by the "State Road." When he enlisted in the U.S. Army on March 25, 1944, at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, however, he stated that his civil occupation was that of "farm hand." It is quite likely that he was both a farmer and state road worker, not uncommon for the time in which he lived.
| Private Harry Dabney Caudill was assigned to the 22nd Infantry Division and was headed to the European Theater of Operations. The 22nd participated in the assault on Utah Beach on D-Day (June 6, 1944). As the battlefront moved north and east, the regiment fought through Belgium, and, on November 16, 1944, became involved in a major European battle that preceded the Battle of the Bulge. According to the website of the Pritzker Military Museum & Library, "The 22nd Infantry Regiment entered the Hurtgen Forest on November 16, 1944 as one of two infantry regiments representing the 4th Infantry Division. They fought for 18 days gaining 6000 yards of territory before being relieved on Dec. 3. In total the men of the 22nd Infantry Division suffered 2,773 casualties, losing nearly 60 percent of their officers and 54 percent of their men." ("22nd Infantry Regiment in the Hurtgen Forest, near Grosshau, Germany," accessed 1 April 2025, https://www.pritzkermilitary.org/explore/museum/permanent-current-upcoming-exhibits/allied-race-victory-air-land-and-sea-ca/22nd-infantry-regiment-hurtgen-forest-near-grosshau-germany.) One of those casualties, on the last day of the Hurtgen battle, would have been Harry Caudill. U.S. World War II Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954, show that Harry was a battle casualty who died in the line of duty. |  The 22nd Infantry Regiment in Hurtgen Forest. Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration |
 Military marker for Pvt. Harry D. Caudill in Zion Baptist Cemetery in Mason County, West Virginia. Find A Grave photo (Memorial No. 86114027) courtesy of "Jim and Elizabeth" |
Like many of his comrades in arms, Pvt. Caudill was first buried in a European cemetery, but in 1949, his remains were returned to the States, where he was buried in the Zion Baptist Cemetery at Arlee in Mason County. Ruth Crump Caudill remarried to Elmer Griffith Sayre and had two more children; she was deceased in 2004. Sharon Caudill Doss died in 2015. |
Article prepared by Patricia Richards McClure
April 2025
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.
