US Army Sergeant German R. "Slim" Chancery was born in Owen, Escambia County, Alabama on August 30, 1911, the son of William "Will" Allen Chancery (1885-1946) and Viola Howard (1884-1966). He was born and raised in Owen, a small community near Foshee, Alabama and north of Flomaton. His family would move to McDavid, Escambia County, Florida sometime after 1930 where they continued farming.
German would enlist in the US Army on August 29, 1930, and apparently reenlisted on August 20, 1935. Somewhere along the line he married Ida Bernice Thompkins (1915-1974) in Phenix City, Alabama on February 5, 1942. By this time, America was embroiled in WWII where he was attached to the 67th Armored Regiment of the 2nd Armored Division.
He and his regiment were sent overseas in 1942, and saw their first action in Operation Torch, after landing at Casablanca. He would see combat during the invasion of Sicily in 1943, before sailing for England. There, his regiment trained for Operation Overlord and would land in Normandy on June 9, 1944. They operated in the Cotentin Peninsula and later formed the right flank of the Operation Cobra assault. They slammed into the Germans at Avranches on July 25 with heavy losses to the enemy. By August 15, Chancery and his regiment overran Lonlay L'Abbaye and by August 23 were located in the vicinity of Eure-et-Loire, France. Here during a German artillery barrage, Chancery was killed in action. His body was turned over to the graves registration company and buried in a military cemetery.
After the war, his wife requested that his remains be returned to her. His body arrived in Pensacola on Friday March 18, 1949, and was buried in the Little Escambia Cemetery in Flomaton, Alabama. Ida would never remarry and would eventually relocate to Austin, Texas where she would become a public-school teacher. In the Austin city directory of 1955 and 1958 she continually listed herself as the "widow of German R. Chancery." In the 1955 directory, there is listed a "Ida B. Chancery" living at a separate address. We know that Ida was born in Houston, Texas and was living in Austin on 8-11-1956 when she boarded the USS Ed Patrick bound for Okinawa/Yokohama where she stated she would reside for one year. She would pass away on June 11, 1974, in Bexar County, Texas and was buried in the Nichols Cemetery, in Ingram, Texas.
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