Maurice Palmer’s family didn’t have a lot of money, and they moved fairly frequently. When Maurice was born in 1926, his father Reuben worked as a miller in Bristol. Four years later the family was living in Leicester, where Reuben worked in the General Store. By 1940 they were in Sudbury. At that point Reuben worked as a carpenter. Reuben was from Bristol and Maurice’s mother Mary was from Orwell.
Maurice appears to have been a bright boy. He enjoyed public speaking and won a few awards for it while he attended the Webster School in Sudbury, and in 1941 the town of Sudbury granted him four years of tuition at Brandon High School due to his high marks. (BHS charged tuition to out-of-town students at the time, including students from Sudbury. It appears that Sudbury didn’t grant it to every kid.)
At BHS his main activity appears to have been the Future Farmers of America group. He was elected Secretary of the organization in December 1942.
But the spring semester of 1943 seems to have been the end of his education. For reasons we don’t know, he dropped out. His enlistment record states that he had attended two years of high school at the time of his induction into the army in September 1944. He spent his last furlough with his parents in January 1945. He didn’t last long in Europe. Less than two months after he said goodbye to his parents he was dead. The sad truth is that there is more information about his death than his life.
He was a member of B Company of the 274th Regiment of the 70th Infantry Division, known as the “Trailblazers.” On March 15 they attacked the heavily fortified Siegfried Line, on the Saar River on the German side of the border with France. B Company was just across the river from the town of Saarbrucken. That is where Maurice Palmer died. An article in WWII Quarterly magazine describes it this way (the following text is abridged):
Pfc. Gordon Pean, from his position, could see the dragon’s teeth, dug-outs, and trenches of the Siegfried Line. He wondered why it was so quiet and why they were being allowed to walk over the top of the hill and into the open.
Most of 1st and 2nd Squads had reached the brow of the hill and passed over to where the ground leveled out when all hell broke loose.
While tanks were coming up, Private L.T. Ingraham, who had taken over the 1st Squad after [his squad leader] was wounded, was himself hit in the shoulder and collarbone by machine-gun fire.
When the tanks appeared, several men made an effort to get behind and use them for cover. Private Maurice Palmer, Pfc. Howard Frazier, and another man were running towards a tank when a shell burst nearby, hitting all three. Frazier was dazed for a minute, then discovered that he had been hit in the hand and right shoulder, but was able to make his way back to an aid station where he found he also had a machine-gun bullet in his leg.
Pfc. Pean saw Palmer lying in the open and told him to get behind the tank. Palmer said he couldn’t, that he was hit and needed to be assisted.
After 15 minutes, the two tanks providing support decided to withdraw. The crews claimed that the ground was so soft that they could not cross the obstacles before them. As the tanks started back, the remaining infantrymen were ordered to withdraw; artillery provided a covering barrage.
Several of the riflemen and a medic went out onto the hilltop to help bring in the wounded. Although in the open, they drew no fire. They found Palmer dead, [Private Norbert] Jannink unconscious.
His parents received a telegram stating he was missing in action on April 6. After two and a half months of agony they finally learned on June 20 that he was dead. He was only 18. His classmates graduated three months after he died.
The Palmers were modest people. They held no memorial service. They suffered in silence. We only know they suffered because of what happened next. In August 1948, three and a half years after his death, they chose to bring Maurice home. Then, at last, they held a funeral for him in Brandon. They buried him in Bristol, in Greenwood Cemetery. They now lie with him.
Mr. and Mrs. Palmer both lived long lives. Mary Palmer went 51 years without ever seeing her only child again.
Maurice Palmer is memorialized on the Sudbury Honor Role at the Sudbury Meeting House.
Kevin Thornton is a historian living in Brandon.
