The Grant Family and early life:

George Shell Grant was born in Prairie Township, Washington County, Arkansas on 7 December 1915. He was the son of Dr. James Richard and Mollie Gracey Sowers Grant. He was born into the family with an older sister, Elizabeth and an older brother, Richard. After his birth, a younger sister Harriet, and his youngest brother, Daniel, followed him.

His father, Dr. James Richard Grant, at the time (1912-1920) was a Professor of Education and the Director of the Teacher Training School at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He was the State Supervisor of Rural Education (1920-1926); President of Arkansas Tech (1926-1931); and President of Ouachita Baptist College (then known as Ouachita College) from 1933-1949.

George grew up in an academic environment and excelled in school, was interested in athletics as well. He adapted to the frequent moves by his family.

George’s mother, Mrs. Mollie Gracey Sowers Grant, was active in the church and at the schools Dr. Grant presided over. She was a major influence to her family and those around her. There was a very strong tie between religion and family in the Grant household.

Young George grew up with excellent role models in both parents and siblings and himself exhibited and lived by the values set forth by his family influences.

In 1926, the family moved to Russellville, Pope County, Arkansas, where Dr. Grant began his stint as the President of Arkansas Technical College (now known as Arkansas Technical University). The family settled in and continued their life together in the small town.

Russellville is located in the Arkansas River Valley between the Ozark Mountains to the north and the Ouachita Mountains to the south. The Russellville area is rugged, but beautiful country surrounded by many large lakes to include Lake Dardanelle and the Arkansas River.

Historically, the Osage from Oklahoma hunted the area, and clashed with the Cherokee, who had set up a reservation in the Russellville area. Subsequently, the Cherokee were relocated to Oklahoma. With the coming of settlers and eventually, the railroad, timber and agriculture became the main industries of the area. In 1909, Arkansas Technical College was initially an agricultural school, as while there are rugged hills in the area, there are many fertile plateaus in which to grow crops and raise livestock.

By all accounts, George S. Grant was an adventurous, studious and athletic young man. He stood on good, basic principles, no doubt learned from his parents. While he was the average boy of the times, he undoubtedly had certain expectations of him simply because of the family he grew up in. He not only had the excellent example set forth by his parents, but had two older siblings, J. Richard and Elizabeth, who spent a great deal of time with their younger brother. Only 2 years separated George in age from sister Elizabeth, and a single year from Richard, so while the siblings were just older, they were close enough in age to become close and have fun together.

George excelled at sports, both organized and simply with groups of other children playing various games. He had an appreciation for the outdoors and being part of a defined organization. His daughter, Mrs. Judith Grant Botter, states that George had been an Eagle Boy Scout prior to his military endeavors.

His youngest brother, Dr. Daniel R. Grant recalls him as loving all sports; football, basketball track, tennis golf and wrestling. Daniel states that he learned his proper tennis grip on the racket from George. George liked to sing, as all the members of the family did, and Daniel tells of George as having a good baritone voice, that with formal training, his father saw that he got, George became a baritone soloist and sang with the high school quartet. Daniel recalls George singing “a little flat” whilst singing “Invictus”. That particular theme, “I am the master of my fate”, seemed to have a very strong influence on his life, although his Christian conviction ultimately prevailed.

He was also an inventor and “tinkerer”, family members recall inventions he made by himself that were often give as gifts such as a flat compass that could be kept in a book as opposed to the type most of us remember from current day mathematics classes.

George Grants sister Harriett Grant Hall recalled in a letter to Dr. William David Downs, Jr. before her death in September of 2002 that George had taught her how to swim, play tennis and many other things. George Grant was evidently destined to teach as most of his family members were.

George began showing his studious side at a young age. He did very well in school, but his main interest, besides sports, was mathematics. As he grew, and advanced in school, math became of more importance to him, and would be one of his majors while in college. After graduating from college, and before fulfilling his military obligation, he would be a mathematics teacher as well as an assistant professor of Military Science and Tactics at several High Schools.

With having had a military relative, George would have found the allure of a military career quite appealing. George’s grandfather, Daniel Richard Grant, was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant with Company G, 16th Infantry Regiment, Army of the Confederate States of America. The Lieutenant mustered out of his military obligation on 8 April 1865 at Shreveport, Louisiana. Daniel R. Grant passed away on 4 September 1917, George was but 2 years old.

In 1933, Dr. Grant moved the family to Arkadelphia, Arkansas where he took over the Presidency of Ouachita Baptist College (University). George graduated from Arkadelphia High School with honors, where he played football, sang in the school quartet and had played the trombone in the school band.

He chose to attend Ouachita, where again he participated in sports, playing football and was the assistant manager of the team. He enrolled in the required (at that time), Army Reserve Officer Training Corps classes. George elected to take the additional two years of ROTC to obtain his commission in the Army Reserves. While at Ouachita, he was cadet captain of the ROTC and a member of Sigma Alpha Sigma social club, the Pi Kappa Tau scholarship society, and the Mathematics Honor Society. He graduated from Ouachita in 1937 magna cum laude, with a bachelor of science degree in mathematics, and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Reserves.

Like every other man or woman that graduates from college, George then sought out his career in teaching. In 1935, George married Ms. Melba Lorraine Smith of Hot Springs, whom he had met while they both attended Ouachita. Both George and Melba were born on 7 December 1915, however George was 2 hours older. His daughter, Mrs. Judith Grant Botter is still amused at the memory that her father would not let Melba forget his seniority by two hours.

George’s first job after graduating was Mathematics teacher and football coach at Piggott High School, Piggott, Arkansas. With his bride, the couple moved to Kansas City, Kansas where he began his family as well as his teaching career as an assistant Jr. ROTC instructor and football coach.

The Grant family, now with baby, George, Jr., moved closer to home, when George took a job teaching mathematics and coaching football at Fordyce High School, Fordyce, Dallas County, Arkansas. The teams George coached were said to be some of the best ever fielded at the school.

Major Grant was a man of means. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he knew what he was going to come back from the war to do. When he resigned his teaching job at Fordyce High School in 1942 at the activation of his reserve unit, he could have easily gotten exemption due to the profession he was in…he did not.

Major Grant not only truly believed in patriotism, duty and his country, but he was also and above all else, a man of honor.

When his unit was activated and he found himself in the regular Army, he volunteered for the Paratroopers for several reasons. First, the Paratroops received an extra fifty dollars a month in pay, and he did have a family back home to support. As many who volunteered for Airborne Service, the extra money was quite an incentive, but mainly, at that time, airborne forces were the best of the best.

Rank came quicker for airborne troops than they did in a regular infantry unit. Therefore, his chances of gaining rank were much higher than they would have been elsewhere, which again, meant higher pay, respect and honor. Thinking of his family back home, this was an option to better take care of them.

Airborne troops were considered a cut above and the best of the best. An airborne soldier knew that the man next to him in the foxhole, and the ones four foxholes down could be counted on, trusted, and would readily would give their live to protect a comrade. Paratroopers were also held to a higher standard, and George Grant was a man of high standards that he not only expected of himself, but of all the men around him.

So instead of seeking a deferral, unselfishly, George put aside the life that he could have easily maintained and went off to the unknown to serve as he wished. He, and his contemporaries had no illusion that they would remain stateside and never see combat. He also knew the dangers of being in an elite combat force, and that his life expectancy would be greatly diminished as an airborne officer.

In the end, Major George Shell Grant leapt from the “Lady Lillian” along with his stick of paratroopers into hostile lands. When he exited the “Lady Lillian”, in his mind, he was confident of his men, his unit and himself. He knew what lay beneath him in the dark Normandy countryside, but like every other paratrooper that made the jump that night, not jumping into what well may be certain death, was never an option. It can be assumed that first and foremost, the mission ahead was the main thought in his head, but somewhere in the chaos of the mission, thoughts of his wife, son and unborn daughter were mixed in and hope that he would see them all again and meet his coming daughter were there as well.

Major Grant was a man with a definite future unlike so many of the young men that participated in the Normandy and many other campaigns. He had a career that would have taken him most likely very far in academia as it had his father. He had a family to come back to and children to raise. He was a brilliant man that enjoyed inventing and tinkering, and like so many, there is no telling what good he would have accomplished upon returning.

In September of 1943, he kissed his pregnant wife Melba and his young son, George Jr., goodbye and set sail on the HMTS (His Majesty’s Troop Ship) Samaria for England. While training took place all over the English countryside, Ramsbury was mainly home for his Headquarters Company.

Major Grant was promoted to the Executive Officer, 3rd Bn. Commanding Officer, Lt. Colonel Robert O. Wolverton, whom was also Killed in Action in his harness on D-Day, made this decision prior to the invasion. Most of the Headquarters Company were either killed or captured in their stick.

Late on the evening of 5 June 1944, the Major boarded the C-47 Skytrain “Lady Lillian” as Jumpmaster of his stick of Paratroopers that included three “Naval Observers” with heavy radio equipment. The three Artillerymen, known as Naval Observers, were to coordinate Naval gunfire from the ships in the English Channel with the ground troops.

The Major and his comrades jumped into Normandy, just southeast of St-Come-du-Mont. The Drop Zone (D) had been suspected by the German Defenders in Normandy and was ringed with machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, flares at the ready and an oil-soaked barn had been set ablaze when the Pathfinder troops landed 30 minutes before Grant.

The stick came down well illuminated and under heavy fire, at Rampan Manóir, which was a German headquarters, and suffered heavy casualties.

The Germans at Rampan Manóir were mainly SS Troops, augmented by Russian conscripts known as Östtruppen. The Östruppen operated the many MG-42’s under the watchful eye of the commanding SS Troops. Conscripts who did or would not perform exactly as ordered would be killed by their German commanders.

Lt. Colonel Wolverton, the Major and Naval Observers were illuminated by the burning barn as they came down and were fired upon in the air by the Russian Conscripts in the early morning hours of 6 June 1944, D-Day.

The men were killed in their harnesses but became tangled in an apple orchard towards the back of the manóir. After the initial drop was declared over by the German troops, they instructed their conscripts to utilize the hanging bodies for target practice, assuring the sights were accurate. Reports say that Lt. Colonel Wolverton’s body had over 80 holes in it when he was recovered.

Initially, Lt. Colonel Wolverton, Major Grant and most of the other members of the company killed that night were hastily buried in Hiesville, later, exhumed and moved to the well planned cemetery at Blosville, set up by an Airborne Chaplain with the 82nd Abn. Division.

Major Grant was permanently laid to rest in the Normandy American Cemetery, St. Laurent, Normandy in Plot F, Row 17, Grave 26.

Compiled with the help of many by Robert Houston