The grave marker for WWII paratrooper Bryant Hinson has been relocated in Shady Grove Cemetery. The marker and sign honoring fallen soldiers were successfully moved to a new spot on Monday, November 1.
“Last year, the grave marker had to be moved so that plot in the cemetery could be used, and the family didn’t mind because his body isn’t actually there. The funeral people just put the marker back up against the fence. A person who was visiting the cemetery one day took exception to the fact that that is what was done with it,” explained Bud Thomas, member of Shady Grove. “I contacted the proper authorities since it is a military marker and got permission to move it where we needed to. There is a big gate where the ambulances and hearses go in, and then there is a small gate towards the back where the Hinson family would go in to visit their graves. It’s right beside the small gate outside the fence.”
Pfc. Bryant Hinson bravely went into battle on D-Day. Much to his family’s distress, he never returned home.
“We were in Quitman, and a friend of my dad’s pulled up beside him in an automobile and asked him if he had been to the depot. My dad said no because he didn’t know he had a reason to go. This was back in 1944, and we certainly didn’t have a telephone. We went to the depot, and there was a telegram informing us that he was missing in action. It was just a few days after D-Day,” recalled Raymond Hinson, Bryant’s brother. “We didn’t get any more information for six months. Then, we got another telegram saying that he was presumed killed in action. There’s a marker over in Normandy with his name on it, but I don’t think that his remains are there.”
For a long time, the family didn’t know anything other than what the telegrams said. It was years later when Raymond’s nephew discovered the story of what occurred in a book titled Tonight We Die As Men: The Untold Story of Third Battalion 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment from Toccoa to D-Day by Ian Gardner and Roger Day.
The plane that Pfc. Bryant Hinson and his troop were on was badly damaged while flying over the drop zone, and the right engine was on fire. The wing had dropped, and it made it impossible for the paratroopers to jump. The pilot of the aircraft did everything he could to follow orders, but the plane was too badly damaged. While four men were able to jump out and survive while the burning plane crashed into open water, 15 men did not make it. Pfc. Bryant Hinson was one of the ones who tragically lost his life that day.
Shady Grove Church of God has done its best to honor Bryant and other fallen soldiers through relocating his grave marker and the sign explaining its significance.
