Pvt. Raymond F. Thompson (December 31, 1924 – September 7, 1944)
517th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 13th Airborne Division
by Brandon Kirk and Elizabeth Klements
Early Life
Raymond Franklin Thompson, the youngest son of James Monroe Thompson and Lucy Mae Thompson, was born in the town of Lloyd in Jefferson County, FL, on December 31, 1924.1 Raymond had two older brothers, James Elmer (1920) and Sidney Fleming (1923).2 Raymond and his brothers grew up in rural Jefferson County, known as the Keystone County, which is situated in northern Florida and, at the time only reachable by US Route Ninety. Among its most well-known landmarks, it features Florida’s oldest brick railroad station, built in 1858, when it became the northern extension of the Fernandina Beach-Cedar Key Line. The Aucilla River cuts through the county, which made the region well suited for agriculture. Tung trees were an important regional crop; they are extremely poisonous but produce nuts that, once processed, were turned into oil used in paint, varnish, ink, and linoleum, especially before the advent of synthetic products. Florida farmers planted thousands of Tung trees after the non-native tree’s introduction to the area in 1906.3 Raymond’s father, James Thompson, managed a farm that produced Tung oil.4 Jefferson County Tung oil production peaked during World War II when China, weakened by a protracted civil war and occupied with defending the country during the Sino-Japanese War, could no longer supply U.S. industry.5
James Thompson was fairly successful in the Tung oil industry. Between 1930 and 1940, he rose from being a farmer to a farm manager for the General Tung Oil Corporation.6 Despite the economic instability of the Great Depression, his income sufficiently supported his family to allow Lucy Mae to stay at home and take care of her family, and to permit all the boys to finish, or nearly finish, high school before entering the workforce.7 By 1940, Elmer and Sidney moved out of their parents’ house and worked at a Tung oil plantation, Elmer as a manager, and Sidney as a laborer.8 Raymond attended a college or trade school to become a welder, and moved to Mobile, AL, in 1941, where he worked at the Alabama Dry Dock Ship Company, as indicated in his draft registration card here.9
Military Service
In April 1942, Raymond’s father James died at the age of forty-one.10 Two months later, Raymond registered for the draft.11 Given the discrepancy between census data and military records, it seems that Raymond was only seventeen in June 1942, but claimed that he was eighteen in order to qualify for the draft. At this point, the U.S. had been at war for almost a year; it is likely that patriotism, the call of heroism, and his very recent loss may have all motivated Raymond’s decision to lie about his age. On February 20, 1943, he entered the US Army at Camp Blanding, FL, where he volunteered to become a paratrooper.12 A dangerous and physically challenging position in the armed forces, World War II paratroopers tended to be adventurous, determined, and seemingly fearless.13
Raymond passed the screening process for paratrooper volunteers and began training at Camp Toccoa in northeast Georgia where he was assigned to the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team, 2nd Battalion, Company H.14 As part of the 13 Airborne Division, the 517th trained alongside the 101st Airborne Division. The vigorous training created a bond among these men that they called “The Toccoa Cadre.”15 Paratrooper training had several stages. At Camp Toccoa, the recruits worked on physical conditioning, often running seven miles up and down the nearby Mount Currahee. In late summer of 1943, the 517th moved to Fort Benning, GA, for parachute training. They practiced jumping off of mock towers before graduating to live airplane jumps.16
Here, the men received a taste of the danger of being a parachutist. Inexperienced pilots, inaccurate aerial controls, and unpredictable weather all contributed to paratrooper injuries during the practice jumps. In one instance, the planes flew as low as 400 feet, at which distance the parachutes did not have time to open before the paratroopers reached the ground. While accidents like these pushed many potential paratroopers to go AWOL, request a transfer, or refuse to jump, all the men of the 517th successfully completed their paratrooper training. Their regiment commander, Lt. Col. Louis A. Walsh, characterized the 517th as “happy go lucky types” who did not suffer from the so-called “weak nerves” of the ex-paratroopers.17
After a few months, the 517th moved to Camp Mackall, NC, for combat training. Commander Walsh required all the paratroopers to be expert marksmen and familiar with all types of firearms – bazookas, mortars, and machine guns. He was determined to prepare the 517th to survive under any circumstances.18 From February to March 1944, the 517th participated in War Games in the Tennessee wilderness in order to test their skills. The weather, miserably cold and damp, likely contributed to a middle ear infection that hospitalized Raymond for a short time in April.19 Around this time, the regimental commander Louis Walsh transferred to a Marine regiment in the Pacific Theater. Col. Rupert Graves replaced him as their leader.20
After fourteen months of training, the 517th deployed to the Italian Theater in May of 1944. When they arrived, they were supposed to participate in the combat near Rome, but their new commander, Graves, requested a delay in mobilization because the 517th was only equipped with rifles, as the units specialist weapons, artillery, and vehicles had not yet arrived. After a short delay, the 517th participated in Operation Strangle – the Allied attempt to halt and trap the retreating German forces in Italy. The 517th’s losses were fairly low during this period: the paratroopers had a taste of combat, but their baptism of fire took place in August on the French coast.21
In early July, the U.S. military leadership gave the green light for Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France, to begin on August 15, 1944.22 The first “D-day” Allied landings in France took place on June 6, 1944, on the beaches of Normandy in northern France. The motive of this “Second D-Day” in August was to divert German reinforcements headed to Normandy by making two fronts in France. The Allied command knew that the Germans were anticipating an Allied attack from Italy. On the morning of August 15, they pretended to aim for the port cities of Marseille and Toulon while landing at their intended target: a long stretch of beach near Saint-Tropez.23 The airborne units played a key role in this operation. The Allied commanders dropped over 5,000 paratroopers about ten miles inland along the landing zone between Saint-Tropez and Saint-Raphael. There, they secured key terrain features and neutralized the villages of Le Motte, Les Arcs, and Le Muy, which lay on Highway 7N, in order to prevent or disrupt German attacks on the Allied forces landing along the coast.24 Codenamed Mission Albatross, the initial airborne assault employed a “hodgepodge” of parachute battalions and regiments, including the 517th.25
On the day of the invasion, the 517th landed in the hills around Le Muy. Thompson may have had difficulty landing, as he was hospitalized in August with a broken ankle joint – an injury for which he earned a Purple Heart.26 His injury, similar to those men received during training, was consistent with planes dropping men fast and low due to heavy fog.27 It was so common that even one of the commanders, Colonel Thomson Cross, an instructor at Camp Toccoa and later Fort Bragg, broke his ankle when he landed at the Chateau Sainte Roseline, less than a mile west of Thompson’s initial drop site. Cross remembered that he fell “at speed” into a ditch.28
Despite the bad weather and navigation errors that landed many companies beyond their drop zones, military historians consider Mission Albatross as the most successful airborne operation of the war. Within three days, the paratroopers and their reinforcements seized the key towns, destroyed two enemy battalions, and opened up fifty square miles of territory in advance of the seaborne troops. They achieved this at the cost of 560 casualties: among these, the 517th had nineteen men killed in action, and 126 wounded.29
By August 20, the 517th joined the U.S. 7th Army as it moved directly north into the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, where the Allies intended to cut off the German retreat in a flanking maneuver that extended all the way towards the Italian border.30 This could not have been accomplished without the FFI (Free French of the Interior) or Maquis. Named after a type of bush native to southern France, the Maquis were guerrilla bands of French resisters who operated in the forests and hills of rural France and were especially valuable to the Allied troops because they knew the terrain.31
In late August, the Allied commanders ordered the 517th to relieve the Special Service Force holding the region around Col de Braus, an important high mountain pass in the Alps near the Franco-Italian border.32 The Special Service Force vacated the area before the 517th arrived, and German forces took this opportunity to retake the Col de Braus. When the 517th arrived on September 2, they immediately engaged in a series of skirmishes to recapture the region. Sergeant Phil di Stanislao of the 1st Battalion remembered that “most of the skirmishes were small arms fire, although occasionally the Germans dropped artillery shells on us. We started to realize we were suffering slow attrition, a few killed and wounded each day, enough to diminish our ranks.”33 During the week’s long assault in September 1944, the 517th suffered 147 casualties with twenty-one men pronounced dead, including Pvt. Raymond Thompson.34 He died on September 8, reportedly from a gunshot wound below the eye. The soldiers had to leave his body behind during a withdrawal, but after the counterattack his comrades returned and identified him from his coveralls, as he was the only soldier in the unit to have worn them during the assault.35 After Operation Dragoon and the campaign in the Alps, the 517th went on to take part in the Battle of the Bulge and participated in the assault on Germany itself – which ended on May 8, 1945, securing the Allies’ victory in Europe.36
Legacy
The U.S Army buried Raymond in a temporary cemetery until the war ended, at which point they re-interred him at the Rhone American Cemetery, in Draguignan, France, where he will forever be memorialized in Plot C, Row 5, Grave 21.37 His mother Lucie Mae, who lost her husband in 1942, also lost her two youngest children to the war. Three months after Raymond died, his older brother Sidney went missing in combat. A Storekeeper First Class for the U.S. Navy, Sidney was stationed on the USS Liddle on a patrol in the Philippine Sea when enemy forces attacked the ship on December 7, 1944. He is commemorated on the Wall of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines.38 Lucy Mae Thompson, despite her grief, lived to the age of eighty, passing away in 1977.39 Her remaining son, Elmer, remained in Florida and died in 2010, leaving behind three children.40
When an enemy bullet cut Raymond’s life short at the Col de Braus, he was only nineteen years old. In less than two years of military service, he underwent exceptionally rigorous training in order to take on one of the most challenging roles in the U.S. Armed Forces and used this training to defeat enemy troops in Italy and France at the expense of his health, safety, and eventually, his life. During Operation Dragoon, his efforts in the Le Muy helped cut off Germany from reinforcing the coast and his final sacrifice in the foothills of the Alps contributed to the liberation of southern France: not long after Raymond’s death, his unit and other Allied troops pushed German forces out of the Vosges Mountains and the Rhone Valley. The French men, women, and children of the Riviera could live without persecution or fear, ending over four years of war and deprivation.41 In return for his service and sacrifices, the U.S. Army awarded Pvt. Raymond Thompson a Purple Heart for his first injury and an Oak Leaf Cluster for the injuries that led to his death in combat.42
1 “World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/12552528:2238: accessed March 25, 2021), entry for Raymond F. Thompson, service number 34545137. While Raymond indicated that he was born in 1923 on his draft registration card, the census records suggest that he lied about his age and claimed that he was 18 when he was really only 17 in order to register for the draft of 1942. The inconsistency about his age in his army hospital records also support this theory.
2 “1930 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed March 25, 2021), entry for Elmer and Sydnee Thompson, Jefferson County, Florida. Elmer’s full name was James Elmer, as demonstrated by this draft registration card: “U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/12428265:2238: accessed July 9, 2021), entry for James Elmer Thompson.
3 Eleanor B. Hawkins, “History & Culture,” Jefferson County Florida, accessed March 25, 2021, http://www.jeffersoncountyfl.gov/p/history-culture.
4 “1930 U.S. Census,” entry for James Thompson.
5 Duane W. Hadsell, Tung Oil Industry in Florida (Tallahassee: State of Florida Department of Agriculture, 1955), 19 – 21, https://palmm.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/uf%3A92897#page/cover1/mode/1up.
6 “1930 U.S. Census;” “1940 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry.com ((https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2442/images/m-t0627-00594-00270?usePUB=true&_phsrc=zJj7&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=129250038: accessed March 21, 2021), entry for J.M. Thompson, Jefferson County, Florida; “U.S., Word War II Draft Cards, 1940 – 1947,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/12428300:2238: accessed July 5, 2021), entry for James Monroe Thompson.
7 “1930 U.S. Census.” Sidney was recorded as having three years of high school while the other boys had four.
8 “1940 U.S. Census,” database, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed July 5, 2021), entry for Elmer and Fleming Thompson, Precint 6, Jefferson County, Florida. Elmer and Sidney Fleming lived together and likely worked on the same plantation.
9 “U.S., World War II Draft Cards,” entry for Raymond Franklin Thompson; “World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946,” database, Ancestry.com (https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv=1&dbid=8939&h=1812377&tid=&pid=&queryId=8ccc02e5a0c98ee8fc04c309e2d35691&usePUB=true&_phsrc=zJj10&_phstart=successSource: accessed March 25, 2021), entry for Raymond Thompson, service number 34545137.
10 “James Monroe Thompson,” Find a Grave, accessed March 25, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39300142/james-monroe-thompson.
11 “U.S., World War II Draft Cards,” entry for Raymond Thompson.
12 “World War II Army Enlistment Records.” All paratroopers were volunteers who had to pass a rigorous screening process before entering training.
13 Clark Archer, “Standing Alone,” in Paratroopers’ Odyssey: A History of the 517th Parachute Combat Team (Hudson, FL: 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team Association, 1985), https://517prct.org/documents/odyssey/odyssey_history.htm.
14 Archer, “Memorial Section,” in Paratroopers’ Odyssey.
15 Astor, Battling Buzzards: The Odyssey of the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team, 1943-1945 (New York City: Donald I. Fine Inc., 1993), 30.
16 Archer, “Standing Alone.”
17 Astor, Battling Buzzards, 60-63.
18 Archer, “Standing Alone.”
19 Archer, “Standing Alone;” “World War II Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954,” database, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed March 25, 2021), entry for Raymond Thompson, service number 34545137, April 1944.
20 Astor, Battling Buzzards, 82.
21 Astor, Battling Buzzards, 91; Archer, “Arrividerci Roma,” in Paratroopers’ Odyssey.
22 Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert R. Smith, Riviera to the Rhine: The European Theater of Operations (Washington D.C.: Center of Military History, 1993), 71-81.
23 Jacob L. Devers, “Operation Dragoon: The Invasion of Southern France,” Military Affair 10, no. 2 (Summer, 1946), 4-9, 22-27.
24 7N is a reference to a national road in France- it refers to a main artery, maintained by the national state, in this rural, hilly area. Its capture would have prevented the Germans from resupplying their forces near the coast.
25 Archer, “Arrividerci Roma” and “Dragoon: D-Day,” in Paratroopers’ Odyssey; Astor, Battling Buzzards, 113.
26 “U.S. WWII Hospital Admission Card Files, 1942-1954,” database, Fold3.com (https://www.fold3.com/record/705426924/thompson-raymond-f-u-s-wwii-hospital-admission-card-files-1942-1954: accessed March 23, 2021), entry for Raymond Thompson, service number 34545137, August 1944.
27 Clarke and Smith, Riviera to the Rhine, 71 – 81.
28 “Thomas Raymond Cross,” Veterans History Project, accessed March 23, 2021, https://memory.loc.gov/diglib/vhp/bib/loc.natlib.afc2001001.68208.
29 Archer, “Dragoon: Le Muy,” in Paratroopers’ Odyssey.
30 Astor, Battling Buzzards, 169.
31 “The Maquis,” Heroes of the Resistance, accessed July 7, 2021, https://heroesoftheresistance.org/profile/maquis; Robert Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 314-321.
32 Archer, “The Fight for Col de Braus,” in Paratroopers’ Odyssey.
33 Astor, Battling Buzzards, 189.
34 Archer, “The Fight for Col de Braus;” “U.S. Headstone and Internment Records,” database, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed July 8, 2021), entry for Raymond Thompson. The information about the bullet wound provided by Eric Ackerman, “Raymond F. Thompson,” Find a Grave, accessed March 26, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56511375/raymond-f-thompson.
35 The information about the bullet wound and the overalls provided by Eric Ackerman at “Raymond F. Thompson,” Find a Grave, accessed March 26, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56511375/raymond-f-thompson.
36 Archer, “The Ardennes,” in Paratroopers’ Odyssey.
37 “Raymond F. Thompson,” American Battle Monuments Commission, accessed July 8, 2021, https://www.abmc.gov/decedent-search/thompson%3Draymond-0.
38 “Sidney F. Thompson,” American Battle Monuments Commission, accessed July 8, 2021, https://www.abmc.gov/decedent-search/thompson%3Dsidney-0; “SK1 Sidney F. Thompson,” Find a Grave, accessed March 23, 2021, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56777910/sidney-f-thompson. The Navy officially declared Thompson dead a year after he went missing. To learn more about the December 7th attack that killed Thompson, see “USS Liddle DE/APD-60,” Pacific Wrecks, accessed July 9, 2021, https://pacificwrecks.com/ships/usn/DE-206.html.
39 “Lucy Mae Thompson,” Find a Grave, accessed March 26, 2020, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39300400/lucy-mae-thompson.
40 “U.S., Obituary Collection, 1930-Current,” database, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/22954500:7545: accessed July 9, 2021), entry for James Elmer Thompson.
41 Clark and Smith, Riviera to Rhine, 223 – 342.
42 “Headstone Inscription and Internment Record,” entry for Raymond F. Thompson.