A Salute To Our Service, Fire & Police Personnel – June 2014

JAMES LELAND "Lee" THARPE

U. S. Army – TEC 5

James was born June 13, 1926 in Charlotte County to John L. and Helen Gray Lipscomb Tharpe and died May 19, 2009 in Britthaven Nursing Home at Keysville, Charlotte Co., VA. He is buried at New Hope United Methodist Church Cemetery, Randolph, Charlotte Co., VA. 

         

He was raised on the family farm and developed and intense love of raising flowers and vegetables, which he readily shared with others.

James enlisted in the Army on October 20, 1944 in Richmond, VA. as a Private, serial number 33860994.

Lee was stationed at Camp Crowder, south of Neosho, Newton County in southwestern  Missoouri, home of the Signal Corps Replacement Training Center specializing in the training of personnel in military communications. For a time the camp was home of a most unusual branch of the signal corps, the pigeon corps, utilized in battlefield communications as messengers.  Lee was active  with the training of these carrier pigeons.  Camp Crowder was named after Major General Enoch H. Crowder, provost marshal of the U.S. during WWI and author of the 1917 Selective Service Act.  Located within Camp Crowder was a POW camp for mostly German prisoners.