Pvt. Van Buren Porcher (January 27, 1914 – September 2, 1944)
448th Quartermaster Troop Transport Company
by Abraham Dones and Elizabeth Klements
Early Life
Van Buren Porcher was born on January 27, 1914, at Live Oak, Suwanee County, FL.1 His mother Iola Mitchell (1882) was born in Florida and had graduated high school, which was a significant achievement for an African American woman living in Jim Crow South in the early twentieth century.2 Iola married an unknown Porcher and had three children: Johnson (1912), Rosalie (1913), and Van Buren (1914). Sometime between 1914 and 1940, the children’s father died, as Iola identified herself as a widow in the 1940 census. At that time, she worked as a laundress and lived in Ocala, FL, with Rosalie, and Rosalie’s child, Christopher Cotton.3
During this period, Van Buren completed grammar school and then entered the workforce. On March 26, 1933, he married Taresa May Alridge, at the age of nineteen.4 Taresa may have passed away, or the two divorced, because Van Buren remarried six years later, to Hattie Smith, on October 24, 1939.5 By 1940, Van Buren was living in Gainesville, FL, with his wife’s family, and working as a bell hop at the White House Hotel.6
Military Service
Van Buren registered for the draft in 1940, and the Army called him into service in 1943. On May 28, 1943, he arrived at Camp Blanding, FL, for a period of training, before the Army sent him to France as part of the Troop Transportation Company of the 448th Quartermaster Troop, which was connected to the 10th Army Division.7 The quartermaster companies provided support for the combat divisions. Transportation companies, like Van Buren’s, were responsible for bringing food, gas, water, and ammunition to the US Army divisions, as well as transporting troops to and from the front lines.8 Other quartermaster companies build roads, fought fires, cooked, and cleaned the camps. The US Army commonly assigned African Americans to quartermaster companies to keep them out of combat roles.9 On September 2, 1944, Van Buren died somewhere in France. He was thirty years old. The details of his death are unclear: the Army hospital records state that he was shot in chest, but not in the line of duty.10
Legacy
After the war, the US Army moved Van Buren from a temporary cemetery to the Epinal American Cemetery in France. He is buried at grave 53, row 3, block “H.”11 He left behind his widow Hattie, his mother Iola, his sister Rosalie, and his brother Jonathan. Jonathan also entered the Army during the war, where he rose to the rank of Private, First Class, before they discharged him in 1946. He died in 1989 and is buried at the Tucker Hill Cemetery in Ocala.12
1 “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2238/images/44005_11_00036-01993?usePUB=true&_phsrc=Uqp3165&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=12722407: accessed June 11, 2021), entry for Van Buren Porcher.
2 “1940 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-00600-00178?treeid=&personid=&rc=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Uqp3188&_phstart=successSource&pId=130313317: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Iola Mitchell.
3 “1940 U.S. Census,” entry for Iola Mitchell; “1935 Florida State Census,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1506/images/CSUSAFL1867_089283-00778?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.230676505.443249687.1623690737-1015739953.1595381018&pId=1968169: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Iola Mitchell. See also “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2238/images/44005_11_00036-01985?usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true&pId=12722403: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Johnson Porcher.
4 “Florida Marriages, 1830-1993,” database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9392-MNS4-LC?i=1489&cc=1803936: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Van Buren Porcher and Taresa May Alridge. See image at the RICHES Epinal American Cemetery Collection here.
5 “Florida Marriages, 1830-1993,” database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9392-ML9M-96?i=1981&cc=1803936: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Van Buren Porcher and Hattie Smith. See image at the RICHES Epinal American Cemetery Collection here.
6 “U.S., World War II Draft Cards,” entry for Van Buren; “1940 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-00573-00328?treeid=&personid=&rc=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Uqp3193&_phstart=successSource&pId=135997915: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Van Buren Porcher.
7 “U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records,” database, Ancestry (https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=8939&h=314420&tid=&pid=&queryId=c1d2e7c4c466734d137a8ef9520c8cac&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Uqp3194&_phstart=successSource: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Van B. Porcher, 34785777; “U.S., Headstone Inscription and Internment Record,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9170/images/42861_647350_0543-00827?treeid=&personid=&rc=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Uqp3195&_phstart=successSource&pId=18655: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Van B. Porcher.
8 War Department, Quartermaster Truck Companies (Washington, 1945), 1 – 8.
9 Bryan D. Booker, African Americans in the United States Army in World War II (Jefferson: McFarland & Co., Inc, 2008), 60 – 87.
10 “U.S., World War II Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-54,” database, Ancestry (https://search.ancestry.com/1-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=61817&h=16427382&tid=&pid=&queryId=c1d2e7c4c466734d137a8ef9520c8cac&usePUB=true&_phsrc=Uqp3196&_phstart=successSource: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Van B. Porcher.
11 “U.S., Headstone Inscription and Internment Record.”
12 “U.S., Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File,” database, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/9358461:2441: accessed June 14, 2021), entry for Johnson Porcher; “PFC Johnson Porcher,” Find a Grave (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18901967/johnson-porcher: accessed June 14, 2021).