Page 98 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2024 - Online Magazine
P. 98
W.E. Rainwater
Patriotism in the Face of
Discrimination
by Larry Williams
This article (from 2022) is the ninth of ten articles
we are reprinting to celebrate Senior Link's decade
of honoring area veterans.
and is the last living sibling. His supplies to the 82nd and 101st
youngest brother served during Airborne. We’d make two to
the Korean War. W.E. said, three trips a week into Holland.
“Dad kept moving west toward The British troops began to move
California but only got as far as in, but a lot of them got wiped
Slaton, Texas, where I grew up. I out."
didn’t complete high school. My
father died after a car and wagon “We got all our trucks and
.E. Rainwater received collision, so I left school at an supplies ready for the Battle of
his draft notice on early age to help my mother take the Bulge in Brussels, Belgium
WSeptember 2, 1943, care of the eight children who and fought our way into
and was inducted into the Army were still at home.” When young Germany. We moved everything
on September 27 in Denver, Rainwater was 18 years old, he from ammunition, fuel, supplies,
Colorado. Rainwater was one was drafted. “I started basic live soldiers, and dead soldiers;
of 1.2 million African Americans training in Leavenworth, Kansas, we moved it all. We were
who served during WWII. Black and completed it at Camp Lee, in assigned to the 2nd Armored
soldiers have served with Virginia, where I learned to drive Division. I recall driving between
valor in every conflict since a 2 1/2-ton truck. From basic, tanks. They’d be firing those big
the Revolutionary War. They I was sent to Camp Campbell, guns over us. The Germans had
fought for democracy overseas Kentucky and was assigned to a secret weapon; they called it
but were mostly treated like the 3458th Quartermaster Truck ‘Big Bertha.’ It was so big it was
second-class citizens by their Company." mounted on two railroad flat
own country. Famed black units, cars. They would roll it out of
like the Harlem Hellfighters, "We were only there for three a mountain, fire it, and roll it
the Tuskegee Airmen, the 761st weeks, and they put us on a back in. We had special trucks
Tank Battalion, the 320th Barrage train to Staten Island, New to carry fuel, and I would keep
Balloon Battalion (during the York; I remember seeing the some five-gallon ‘Jerry cans’ on
D-Day Invasion), Women’s Army Statue of Liberty. In July 1944, my truck. One time, I drove
Auxiliary 6888th Central Postal we were put on the troopship
Battalion, and the Truckmaster S.S. Argentina. We landed in
Truck Company, served with Scotland and then in England,
distinction during the war. where we picked up our trucks.
There were about 150 of us,
Mr. Rainwater was born on April mostly truck drivers. We loaded
25, 1925, in Dallas County, Texas, everything by hand, boarded
60 years after General Robert E. our boats, landed at Normandy
Lee surrendered at Appomattox, beach, and headed inland. Our
Virginia. His father Edward was first engagement was in France,
a sharecropper, and his mother not far from Normandy. Later,
Estella ran the household of we drove our trucks through
ten children—four girls and six France. Orders came down from
boys. W.E. was the eighth born Quartermaster HQ to carry
98 Lubbock Senior Link
