LONNIE CORRY

Born on May 26, 1922, Lonnie Corry grew up in a sharecropping family, attended a two-room school (Shoal Creek) through the 7th grade, and went two years to Cleveland School while Camp High School was being built, after which he attended that school to the 11th grade, when he was drafted into the Army in 1941. He finished high school when he returned from the Army.

He was sent to MacDill Field in Tampa, FL, went through 28 days of basic training, then was sent to Camp Lee, VA, for truck driver training, and finally to Ft. Belvoir, VA, for mechanics training. He became part of the 1888th Engineer Aviation Battalion and was sent to the CBI Theater, where his unit was stationed in India and Burma. Corry did mechanical work and helped to build air bases. Corry talks about this as a time when soldiers were segregated, with blacks in one unit and whites in another.

He returned to the U.S. in 1946 as a staff sergeant and went back to farming. He had several other jobs during his working career: driving a truck for Ellis Lumber for 12 years, working at Thomas