Sgt. Thomas Winchester Hendrick was born on September 5, 1924 in Montgomery, AL, son of Julius Leonard Hendrick (1886-1961) and Agnes Thurman Winchester (1887-1955). His father moved to Pensacola sometime before 1916 and rented a house at 518 North Baylen Street. His new position was as the manager of the Southern Cotton Oil Company located on North Palafox Street in Goulding. The company manufactured cotton and peanut oils as well as fertilizers. Four years later, he traveled to Arkansas to marry Agnes Thurman Winchester and returned to move into #5 East Desoto Street shortly thereafter. Julius was transferred to Demopolis around 1930 as the district manager and then to Birmingham afterwards as a sales manager. By 1942, his son Thomas was finishing his studies at the McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Established in 1905, Thomas had transferred from Ramsey High in Birmingham to the more military style of McCallie. The school is located on Missionary Ridge, the site of the great Civil War battle bearing its name.
Thomas Winchester Hendrick would enlist in the US Army on September 17, 1943 and was sent to the Ft. Oglethorpe, Georgia induction and processing center. After basic training Thomas was assigned to the 178th Combat Engineer Battalion. The role of the engineers was to erect bridges, both floating and permanent, across the many rivers throughout the war zones. They worked under combat conditions to clear lanes for landing craft, which involved clearing mine fields and obstacles. They also used bulldozers to widen roadways or even destroyed bridges to deny their use to the Germans. Many times, these tasks were performed under heavy enemy fire. Thus, they were transferred to France in August 1944 to join the breakout forces battling inland from Normandy. They were attached to the VIII Corps of the 9th US Army and in October, they were given a section of the front lines in the Ardennes along the Our River. This assignment proved to be an exceptionally quiet area. So quiet, that they were used as an "orientation and rest area" for newly arriving divisions plus those divisions that had taken heavy casualties while fighting in the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest.
But this was about to change very quickly! On December 16, the Germans struck the American troops with an overwhelming force that began the Battle of the Bulge. Germans had attacked the VIII Corps with over twenty divisions that they were not prepared to repel. Faced with overwhelming odds, the northern units of the corps were pushed back or encircled. Over 6,700 inexperienced soldiers of the Corps were taken prisoner by the Germans. But to the south, the Corps was able to establish a cohesive withdrawal that successfully delayed the enemy long enough for reinforcements to come to their aid.
Units of the corps, in particular the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, earned undying fame after their last ditch stand at Bastogne. After a five-day siege, they were relieved on December 26, 1944 by Patton's Third Army. Four days later, the VIII Corps counter-attacked toward the Belgium town of Houffalize. It was in this general area that Sgt. Thomas Winchester Hendrick was killed in action on January 8, 1945. His family was notified of their son's death and he was buried in the Luxembourg Military Cemetery where he rests with honor today.
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