Private Rufus H. Lennon Jr. (1921 – September 21, 1944)
180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division
by Hampton Hovey and Elizabeth Klements
Early Life
Rufus H. Lennon Jr. was born in Florida in 1921 to Bertha and Rufus H. Lennon Sr.1 Rufus Sr. (1886) was born in North Carolina, and Bertha née Proveaux (1900) was born in South Carolina, but both families moved to Florida when the two were children.2 Rufus Sr. worked in the turpentine industry before enlisting in the US Army from 1912 to 1915.3 He then returned to Florida and worked as an ice dealer for the Wauchula Development Co.4 When the US entered World War I in 1917, Lennon Sr. was drafted into service a year later, on June 27, 1918.5 He was then thirty-two years old. He served overseas in the 331st and 159th Infantry Regiments. Given his prior military service, he rose quickly in the ranks, and was a sergeant at the time of his discharge, on April 23, 1919.6 A few months later, he married Bertha Proveaux in DeSoto County, FL, on July 2, 1919.7
Rufus Sr. and Bertha had four children: Lucille Amanda (1920), Rufus Jr. (1921), Gloria Juanita (1926), and George Dallis (1931).8 In 1926, they moved from Plant City to Bradenton, in Manatee County, FL.9 By 1940, Rufus Sr. was working on a bridge crew for the Florida road system while Rufus Jr. had left high school to work at a truck stop before enlisting in Florida’s National Guard.10 On November 25, 1940, the US Army ordered his National Guard regiment into active military service.11
Military Service
From the Florida National Guard, Lennon entered the 180th Infantry Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division as a private. The 45th Division began as part of the Oklahoma National Guard in 1924, and its members adopted the Native American symbol of the swastika as its emblem until it became associated with Nazi Germany, after which the Division changed their emblem to the “Thunderbird.”12 From 1940 to 1943, Lennon’s 180th Regiment trained heavily in camps across the US, before leaving for North Africa on June 8, 1943.13 From there, the 180th participated in the Allied invasion of Italy. From July 1943 to June 1944, it and other Allied troops launched attacks on the Italian coastline from North Africa, starting in Sicily and working up the peninsula toward Rome. When the Allied forces finally took Rome in June, Lennon’s division rested and trained for a month before the next big campaign: the liberation of France.14
The Allied leaders decided to attack the German forces in France from two fronts. Their troops first landed on the beaches of Normandy in northern France on June 6, 1944, while another force, including Lennon’s regiment, landed on the coast of southern France on August 15th, in “Operation Dragoon.” Both forces moved inland and eastward toward the Franco-German border in the summer and fall of 1944, pushing the German troops back town by town. On September 21, 1944, Lennon’s regiment launched an attack on the French city of Epinal in northeastern France, which was heavily defended, not only by three enemy battalions and anti-aircraft guns, but also by the Moselle River which surrounded the city.15 On the first day of combat, artillery shells struck Pvt. Lennon in the back and he died in action. He was twenty-three years old.16
Legacy
The 180th took the city of Epinal after four days of combat, and in October, the US 7th Army established a cemetery there for the American soldiers who died in combat in the surrounding area.17 This also became Lennon’s final resting place. For his sacrifice, the US Army posthumously awarded him a Purple Heart.18 Lennon left behind his parents, his little brother George Dallis, and his sisters Lucille Amanda and Gloria Juanita. Rufus Sr. passed away in 1958, and Bertha much later, in 1989.19 Possibly inspired by his father’s service and his older brother’s sacrifice, George Dallis also entered the military in the 1950s and became a sergeant in the US Air Force.20
1 “1940 U.S Census,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 27, 2021), entry for Rufus Lennon Jr.
2 “1940 U.S. Census;” For Bertha, see “1910 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/186324384:7884: accessed May 27, 2021), entry for Berth Lee Proveaux; For Rufus Sr. see “1910 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/174822279:7884: accessed May 27, 2021), entry for Rufus H. Lennon.
3 “1910 U.S Census,” entry for Rufus Lennon; “U.S., Army, Register of Enlstments, 1978-1914,” database, Ancestry (https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=1198&h=155404&tid=&pid=&queryId=0fc0cfa4998633fc8a661a39f529cf6d&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Uqp3017&_phstart=successSource: accessed May 27, 2021), entry for Rufus H. Lennon.
4 “U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards,” database, Ancestry (https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=6482&h=156596&tid=&pid=&queryId=0fc0cfa4998633fc8a661a39f529cf6d&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Uqp3020&_phstart=successSource: accessed May 27, 2021), entry for Rufus H. Lennon.
5 “U.S., Lists of Men Ordered to Report to Local Board for Military Duty, 1917-1918,” database, Ancestry (https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=4906&h=28673&tid=&pid=&queryId=0fc0cfa4998633fc8a661a39f529cf6d&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Uqp3018&_phstart=successSource: accessed May 27, 2021), entry for Rufus H. Lennon.
6 “World War I Service Cards,” Florida Memory (https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/217808: accessed May 27, 2021), entry for Lennon, Rufus H.
7 “Florida, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1823-1982,” database, Ancestry (https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?dbid=61369&h=900062278&indiv=try&o_vc=Record:OtherRecord&rhSource=2442: accessed May 27, 2021), entry for Rufus H. Lennon and Bertha Proveaux.
8 “1940 U.S. Census.”
9 “Obituaries: Lennon, Rufus,” Tampa Bay Times (St. Petersburg, Florida), July 26, 1958.
10 “1940 U.S. Census.”
11 “U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 27, 2021), entry for Rufus H. Lennon; “U.S., Adjutant General Military Records,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 27, 2021), Report of the Adjutant General of Florida, 1941-1942, p. 21.
12 US Army, 180th Infantry: a Regiment of the 45th Infantry Division (1945), 10, https://digicom.bpl.lib.me.us/ww_reg_his/48.
13 Ibid, 11.
14 Ibid, 11-22.
15 Ibid, 27; “45th Infantry Division – Thunderbirds,” US Army Divisions, https://www.armydivs.com/45th-infantry-division: accessed May 28, 2021.
16 “U.S., World War II Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 28, 2021), entry for Rufus H. Lennon.
17 “Epinal American Cemetery,” American Battle Monuments Commission, https://www.abmc.gov/Epinal: accessed May 28, 2021.
18 “U.S., Headstone Inscription and Internment Records,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 28, 2021), entry for Rufus H. Lennon.
19 “Rufus Henry Lennon,” Find a Grave (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/98621422/rufus-henry-lennon: accessed May 28, 2021); “Bertha Lee Proveaux Lennon,” Find a Grave (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/98621490/bertha-lee-lennon: accessed May 28, 2021).
20 “Obituaries: Lennon, Rufus;” “U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995,” database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed May 28, 2021), entry for George D. Lennon, Bradenton, 1951.