Cofield On Oxford — Our WWII Ole Miss Boys

Oxonian, General Dan Isom Sultan, and his staff salute the colors, the Army Band and returning Lafayette County veterans on the Square in 1946
Photo by J. R. Cofield (c) The Cofield Collection

It was getting late in World War II and Oxford and Ole Miss were intertwined in a grief that can only darken small college towns. For the men of the Square much was the same; customers, workers, the stock, the bills, slow times and strong days, the ebb and flow of normal business…but nothing was right and nothing was normal. Because as long as we, and the world, had unfinished business on opposite ends of the Earth, then the sight of a fellow shop owner coming at you faster than normal quickened your heart for two seconds before it steeled your spine for it was surely war news that made him hurry. God please don’t let it be another one of our boys. The numbers would come into every American home and so sadden a nation. This many gone down in Africa, that many lost in Italy, thousands in the Normandy to Germany march, US dead on every island in the Pacific that once flew the Rising Sun. Ongoing sea battles and watery American graves from Pearl Harbor all the way to Tokyo Bay. Grief in degrees went from general to local in too many of those hushed conversations on the Square as the death telegram’s local addressee was sadly related. Across Mississippi, the same scene was played and replayed. Down on the coast in Bay St. Louis, over on the river in Vicksburg, and up north in Grenada, those fellow businessman endured the anguish of their town’s losses. They mirrored Oxford but were thankful not to match the hurt that only a small college town can know.

American flag and Ole Miss pennant
Photo by J. R. Cofield (c) The Cofield Collection

It was truly a small town and university in 1940. The men of the Square knew the student leaders and some of their parents too. Leaving campus, the kids would cross the tracks at the Depot and walk up Van Buren to the Square. Frat boys sported clothes from Neilson’s charged to the same account their grandfathers had set up for their fathers a generation ago. They hung out at the diners and cafes. They gave as good a ribbings as they got. They were bright with bright futures and future families and living families who would never really get over it. En loco parentis the men of the Square received the sad news as the last months of the war began to wind down in our favor.

Gus Gerard, 1942 UM Student Body President
Photo by J. R. Cofield (c) The Cofield Collection

Grandfather Cofield knew these boys from their sitting on his studio posing stool. And from the shots on campus of them holding this or that student office or receiving a student honor. When asked by his grandson years later about these long lost heroes, he’d do little more than shake his head in sympathy. For mixed with the memories of our Lafayette County boys, were our Ole Miss dead. And so it should be remembered that Ole Miss’ and Oxford’s contributions were great as the hushed word made it around the Square when the 1942 UM Student Body President, Gus Gerard of Grenada, and Vice-President Bill Sam of Vicksburg, and the 1943 Student Body President Hermann Baxter from Bay St. Louis, were all killed in service to the nation in 1944.

Were it only these three then the tragedy would be as bad as it could get, but there were many more. And for the memories of these Rebels of Ole Miss and Oxford, knowing that each in his turn turned back for a last look at his Ole Miss, we honor their fighting American spirit and their red and blue ties to us. And with the turning to go, they began a longing to see her again. To see his mother, to see his girl, to see the green grass of his Ole Miss home. But it was not to be, and there were too many of those silent goodbyes to Ole Miss and voiced goodbyes to the men around the Square. And as the two shop owners turned and went back in their stores, they knew the grief that can only darken a small college town.

John Cofield is a HottyToddy.com writer and one of Oxford’s leading folk historians. He is the son of renowned university photographer Jack Cofield. His grandfather, J. R “Colonel” Cofield, was William Faulkner’s personal photographer and for decades was The Ole Miss yearbook photographer. Cofield attended Ole Miss as well. Contact John at johnbcofield@gmail.com.