The Telegram
"If you have to go, you ain't coming back," Sally Davis told her son repeatedly as World War II raged overseas.

Charles Davis Mr. Charlie apologizes every time we talk for taking up my time. He will never know how much I cherish every minute I get to spend with him. There is no better way I can thank him and his fellow soldiers for what they did for us than to learn and feel as much of it as possible. Billy Fleming, Publisher

As they had done thousands of times during World War II, the War Department sent a painful telegram to the Davis family in Rowena, Ga., informing them their son had been killed in combat. At least one of them should never have been sent.

Because of his mother's distress, 21-year-old Charlie Davis and his father, Bernard Davis, agreed it would be best if he waited to be drafted rather than enlisting. He was drafted Nov. 1942 and was wounded August 8, 1944 in St. Malo, France. A few days after he was struck by a German bullet while clearing Germans from houses in St. Malo with I Co. of the 331st Infantry, the errant telegram was on its way.

The morning the telegram arrived, the postmaster in nearby Arlington, where the mail was dispatched, received a phone call from the War Dept. "I want you to stop that telegram," the caller said.

"I can't," the postmaster replied. "The mail carrier has already gone out on her route and we don't have any communications."

The War Dept. didn't give up, however, and learned that the nearest phone to the Davis farm was at the home of W. R. Taylor.

When they called, the daughter, Frances Taylor, answered the phone. When told of the telegram, she said, "I don't have any way to go over there. Mama and daddy have gone to town in the car and I'm here by myself."

She then remembered, "There are several negroes in the field behind the house. I could try to get one of them to take his mule out from the plow and ride him over there."

When the farm hand rode up to the Davis house on the mule, Miss Sarah Powell, the mail carrier, had already gotten there.

"And she was staying there on the porch with mama until someone else could get there," Davis said. "I'm not sure what she said when told the telegram was not true, but I can imagine what she was saying when she got the telegram."

"Well I told everybody he wasn't coming back! I told you he wasn't coming back!"

Sally Davis really didn't believe her only son would live through the battles and make it back home to the family farm in Rowena.

But, Sgt. Charlie Davis did come back home!

He made it through the bloody battles across France that helped defeat the Germans, leading to the capture of Berlin and was getting ready to train for an invasion of Japan when he learned of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan's surrender.

He returned to Rowena and continued farming with his father. The family farm is now run by Charlie's son, Tommy.

Asked if he thought he would make it back home once he was in the middle of the battles in Europe, the aging Charlie Davis replied, "It was doubtful at times."

Note: The talk about "the telegram" turned into a conversation lasting several hours which I have on tape.While listening to his wartime experiences I told Mr. Charlie he could have easily been in the Band of Brothers' Easy Company. Many of the stories he told were vividly recalling scenes in my mind from the HBO series. Mr. Charlie has never seen Band of Brothers. I plan to make sure he sees it soon.

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