The late Dr. William Downs, Jr., a professor of journalism at Ouachita for more than 40 years, wrote a book entitled “The Fighting Tigers: The Untold Stories Behind the Names on the Ouachita Baptist University WW II Memorial”. In the introduction to his book, he recounted this story.
“Since coming to Ouachita Baptist University in the fall of 1966, I must have passed by the World War II monument on our campus at least once a day, which adds up to thousands of times. And I did so without stopping even once to pay any more than casual attention to the names and prayer engraved in granite.
That changed two years ago, however when I noticed that one of the names on the monument was George Shell Grant. Out of curiosity, I asked my good friend Dr. Daniel R. Grant, who served as Ouachita’s president from 1970 to 1988, if he was related to the Grant whose name I had seen on the monument.
“’He was my brother,’” Dan replied and proceeded to tell me about George’s life and death.”
This was the inspiration for Dr. Downs to seek a faculty grant to pursue the research of all the names on the monument which he details in his book. The story of George S. Grant, the life he lived, the way he served, and the fateful day of his passing is just one of the many profound and touching stories of those Fighting Tigers who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Copied below from his book is the story of Major George Shell Grant who died on D-Day, June 6, 1944
Major George Shell Grant, Class of 1939
Hometown: Arkadelphia, Arkansas
Died: June 6, 1944
0=351088, Third Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.
Maj. George Shell Grant was born on December 7, 1915, in Little Rock to Dr. and Mrs. J. R. Grant when his father was state supervisor of rural education with the Arkansas Department of Education. George was the middle child of five children, two brothers, Richard and Daniel; and two sisters, Harriet and Elizabeth. Daniel, the youngest would become president of Ouachita in 1970.
George attended grades five through eleven in the public schools of Russellville where his father served as president of Arkansas Tech University from 1926 until 1932. In 1933, Dr. J. R. Grant moved his family to Arkadelphia where he served as president of Ouachita until 1949, a tumultuous period that included both the Great Depression and World War II. George graduated from Arkadelphia High School with honors and later graduated magna cum laude from Ouachita in 1937 with a bachelor of science degree in mathematics. While at Ouachita, he was cadet captain of the ROTC and a member of the Sigma Alpha Sigma social club, the Pi Kappa Tau scholarship society, and the Mathematics Honor Society. George also played football and was assistant manager of the team.
He and his wife, the former Melba Smith of Hot Springs, who he married while they were both students at Ouachita, had two children, George Shell Grant, Jr. and Judith Grant Botter, also of Hot Springs. Judith recalled during a recent conversation that her mother and father were born on December 7, 1915, but that George was two hours older than Melba. “He wouldn’t let her forget that,” she said, still amused by the memory.
How He Lived
The following remembrance of George Grant was written by his brother Daniel, in 2001:
We moved to Arkadelphia in 1932 where George finished his senior year in Arkadelphia High School, and they went on to Ouachita. He loved all sports *football, basketball, track, tennis, golf, and wrestling) and competed fiercely with his one-year older brother Richard, much to the consternation of his mother and father, who had to separate them and make peace, not infrequently. Richard was already a student at the University of Arkansas when we moved to Arkadelphia, so I began to receive more attention from George.
George taught me to play tennis, starting me out with the correct “handshake” grip on the racket for the forehand, and showed me how to put just a little top spin on the ball. He started me out hitting practice balls against the west side of the president’s home, which had a lot of smooth brick space, with strong warning to avoid the one window that kept it from being a perfect tennis practice wall. That’s probably when control became an important part of my tennis game.
George liked to sing, as did all members of our family, and Mother and Daddy encouraged him with some formal voice instruction along with earlier band training on the trombone. He was a pretty good baritone soloist and high school quartet member, although I always thought he went flat just a little when he belted out Invictus with great enthusiasm. That particular theme, “I am the master of my fate,” seemed to have a pretty strong influence on his life, although his Christian conviction ultimately prevailed.
George excelled in math and the sciences at Ouachita, a had a strong interest in being an inventor. Even during his college days, I can recall he tried out several ideas on the other member of the family, including a four-wheeled cart whose back wheels would turn when the front wheels turned, and a flat compass that could be stored in the math textbook much more easily than the traditional one. He had a strong attraction to modern gadgets, and he loved to give Christmas gifts that were new and unique and would cause the other members of the family to “oo” and “ah,” such as an unusual lemon juicer or a double-decker waffle iron.
George’s first job after graduation from Ouachita was to coach and teach at Piggott High School for two years. He coached “seven-man football”, which was a new experiment for small high schools.
His next football coaching job was in Fordyce, Arkansas, where their first child, George Shell Grant, Jr., was born. After a year and a half, he moved his family to a Kansas City Kansas high school where he served as professor of military science and tactics.
He liked R.O.T.C., which was a two-year requirement at Ouachita, and took the additional two years of Advanced R.O.T.C., leading to a lieutenant’s commission in the Army Reserve when he graduated in 1937.
Not long after the Pearl Harbor attack, George’s Army Reserve unit was called up. Dr. Wayne Ward (Class of 1943) credits George Grant as the major factor in his decision to bypass the University of Arkansas for Ouachita. Although George had been give the option of remaining in Kansas City to teach ROTC rather than to go into battle, Ward said George told his dad, “Somebody has to go and I will do it.” He volunteered for paratroop service in August 1942 (because advancement would be faster and paratroopers receive fifty dollars more pay per month) and trained at Toccoa, Georgia, Fort Benning, Georgia, and Camp Mackall, North Carolina. He was promoted to captain in April 1942 and to major in January 1943.
Continuing his memories of his brother, Dan Grant wrote: “not long after that training was completed, he was order to England where he trained with the 101st Airborne Division for the D-Day invasion of Europe at Normandy. As I recall, their second child, Judy, was born while he was in England, and he never saw her before his death.
“Before leaving for England, George gave his watch to Daddy, explaining that it had a ‘stretch band’ that was not suitable for parachute jumps because it could come off in mid-air. Daddy always cherished the watch and frequently told friends the story about it, including that George wanted him to have something for a remembrance in case he did not return”.
Dr. Andrew Hall, Dan Grant’s brother-in-law, recalls how his wife, Harriet Grant Hall, had intended to respond before her death in September 2002 on the influence of her brother George. “I heard her say, ‘He taught me to swim, play tennis, and many other things.’ She also delighted in telling the story about when George was football coach at Fordyce. Her dad, Dr. J. R. Grand, pulled into a filling station and innocently inquired as to who the coach was.
“’Was he a good one?’ he asked. He ‘cased’ the town about his own son”.
How he died
As reported in D-Day With The Screaming Eagles by George E. Koskimaki, 101st Airborne Division associate, Major Grand served as the executive office of the Third Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, commanded by Lt. Col. Robert Wolverton. The unit had been given the assignment of capturing the two wooden bridges across the Douve River to the northeast of Carentan. The paratroopers were also to seize the high ground overlooking the bridge positions on the east bank near Brevands. This was to be a meeting point for the Allied forces advancing from the Utah and Omaha beaches.
As the plane that carried Grant’s men to the assigned drop zone, Staff SGT. William Pauli, who was the message-center chief for the 3rd Battalion at the time, describe what happened next. “Col. Wolverton was in the door and grumbling as he knew we were not on our Drop Zone. It was a shock to see how light it was, with the enemy flares illuminating the countryside…All the occupants of the plane were destined to be killed or capture as the men were dropped over St. Come-de-Mont half mile southwest of Drop Zone “D” in fields heavily fortified by German troops who had been preparing a defense line in the area. Col. Wolverton…was killed on the drop.
As the paratroopers approached the area from the west in their low flying troop carrier planes most of the D-Day jumps were made from about 400 feet and from planes that filed to slow to the normal drop speed… the Germans lighted a house which had been doused with kerosene. The holocaust illuminated the entire area… On the ground, a small group of American pathfinders (paratroopers dropped earlier to assist in directing the troop carriers to their assigned drop zones) watched helplessly as the silently dropping men including Major Grant and his commander, Lt. Col. Wolverton were picked off by machine gun and rifle fire as they entered the circle of light.
Of the 800 men in the Third Battalion, only 117 reached the objective, the bridges across the Douve River. Although the bridges were later knocked out by American planes, the Germans were unable to use them to bring up troops toward Utah Beach.
“I have the bittersweet memory,” says Dan Grant, “of being with my father and mother at the Siloam Springs Baptist Assembly where Daddy was teaching a seminar on ‘The Christian Home’ when the news was received of George’s being killed in action on that first day of the Normandy invasion. We were standing under a beautiful tree at the time and, after having a time of family prayer, my father and mother made the decision to stay at Siloam Springs and finish the week before returning to Arkadelphia. More than a half century later I still have people tell me what a strong Christian testimony it was to stay and finish that seminar in spite of the sad news.
The link below further details the events which led to his passing.
https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=14613
Major George S. Grant is buried at Plot F Row 17 Grave 26, Normandy American Cemetery, Colleville-sur-Mer, France. This is an American Battle Monuments Commission location.
