Burleson County in World War II
Caldwell, Burleson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
During World War II, out of a population of 18,000, close to 1300 men and women of Burleson County joined the military, with 450 who attended Caldwell High School drafted or voluntarily enlisted. Many had never been outside the county before their service, but they deployed around the world in defense of freedom. Area residents sacrificed for the war effort abroad and at home from the onset of American combat. At Pearl Harbor, Seaman 2/C Thomas J. Gary of Somerville died aboard the U.S.S. California while giving his life to save his crewmates from burning. The Navy posthumously awarded Gary the Navy Cross and named two ships in his honor. Local National Guard Unit Company E, 143rd Infantry, 36th Division, sustained heavy losses at Salerno, Italy, with dozens of men killed, wounded, or captured. Other prisoners of war included 1st Lt. Hubert Womble, shot down over Romania during the Ploesti Oil Field raids, and USMC Major Paul Brown, who survived the Bataan Death March in the Philippines but died in a Japanese prison camp. The county’s citizen soldiers stormed Normandy Beaches on D-Day and fought in European and Pacific Theaters. Many women joined the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, and scores more worked in defense plants. Recycling drives around the county maximized the homefront war support effort. Some families received citations as “Agriculture Victory Leaders” for continuing farming operations during the war, even while short-handed at least five county families had five children at once serving in the military. Dozens of Burleson County men were killed during World War II, on battlefields overseas and in training accidents on American soil. Through countless heroic and unselfish acts, citizens demonstrated commitment to restoring liberty to the world. (2008)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the United States entered World War II, rural Burleson County answered far above its size: roughly 1,300 of its 18,000 residents put on a uniform, many leaving the county for the first time in their lives. Their war reached from the deck of the U.S.S. California at Pearl Harbor—where Somerville's Thomas J. Gary died saving his crewmates and earned the Navy Cross—to the bloody landings at Salerno, the Ploesti oil-field raids over Romania, the Bataan Death March, and the beaches of Normandy. At home, families ran short-handed farms, joined recycling drives, and sent their nurses and defense workers to the effort.
Why it matters
It captures how totally the Second World War reached into small-town America, where a single farming county sent its sons and daughters across every theater of a global war and measured victory in local sacrifice.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When the United States was drawn into the Second World War, the demand for men and women in uniform reached into every corner of the country — including rural Texas counties far from any coast or city. Burleson County, with a population of about 18,000, was exactly the kind of place where the war might have seemed distant, a landscape of farms and small towns like Caldwell and Somerville.
It did not stay distant. Close to 1,300 county residents entered military service — a staggering share of so small a population — and 450 of them had passed through Caldwell High School before being drafted or volunteering. For many, military service meant leaving the county for the very first time in their lives, trading familiar fields for troopships and training camps.
This was total war, and it pressed on the home front as hard as on the battlefield. A farming county could not simply send its young people away and continue as before; it had to keep producing food while short-handed, and it had to organize itself for a fight being waged on the far side of two oceans.
People & events
The county's war can be traced through the people the marker remembers. At Pearl Harbor, Seaman Second Class Thomas J. Gary of Somerville died aboard the U.S.S. California, giving his life to save his crewmates from the fire and chaos of that morning. The Navy awarded him the Navy Cross posthumously and later named ships in his honor — a rare and lasting tribute to a young man from a small Texas town.
The county's National Guardsmen served together in Company E of the 143rd Infantry, part of the 36th Division, and paid a heavy price at Salerno in Italy, with many men killed, wounded, or captured. Others were taken prisoner in different theaters: First Lieutenant Hubert Womble was shot down over Romania during the raids on the Ploesti oil fields, and Marine Major Paul Brown survived the brutal Bataan Death March in the Philippines only to die in a Japanese prison camp.
The county's soldiers were also among those who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and fought across both the European and Pacific theaters. Nor was the effort confined to the men: many local women joined the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, and others worked in defense plants. At home, families ran recycling drives, kept their farms going while short-handed, and earned recognition as Agriculture Victory Leaders. At least five county families had five children serving at the same time. Dozens of Burleson County men died during the war — some on distant battlefields, others in training accidents on American soil.
Its place in the American story
Burleson County's story is a concentrated version of what happened to the whole United States in those years. The Second World War was the most total mobilization in the nation's history, and its reach is measured not in the capitals and headquarters but in places exactly like this: a rural farming county that sent roughly one in fourteen of its people into uniform.
The geography on this single marker maps the global scope of the conflict. From a battleship at Pearl Harbor, to the mainland of Italy, to the oil fields of Romania, to the jungles of the Philippines, to the beaches of Normandy — the sons and daughters of one Texas county turned up in nearly every theater of a war fought around the world. That is what "world war" meant in human terms.
Equally important is the home front the marker records. Victory was not won only by soldiers; it was won by farmers who kept producing while short-handed, by women who nursed the wounded and staffed defense plants, and by families who gave up ordinary comforts and, in too many cases, gave up their children. The measure of the war's cost was local, tallied family by family in a place small enough that everyone knew the names.
If you visit
This is a memorial, so approach it as a place for reflection rather than spectacle. Read the names and the deeds slowly, and let the numbers sink in: nearly 1,300 people from a county of 18,000, many of whom had never before left home. That ratio is the whole story, and it lands harder the longer you sit with it.
Let your imagination travel the way these residents did. Picture a young man from Somerville aboard a battleship at Pearl Harbor, or a hometown National Guard company thrown into the fighting in Italy, or a family back in Caldwell working a farm short-handed while five of their children served at once. The memorial gathers a global war into a single, human-scaled place.
Caldwell makes a meaningful stop on a drive through central Texas, especially for travelers interested in how ordinary American communities experienced the twentieth century's defining conflict. Give yourself a quiet moment here; the significance of this marker is not in grand architecture but in the depth of local sacrifice it records.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Thomas J. Gary
- · Hubert Womble
- · Paul Brown
Related events
- · Attack on Pearl Harbor
- · Battle of Salerno
- · Ploesti raids
- · Bataan Death March
- · D-Day Normandy landings
Themes & tags
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