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The Late Mrs. Winnie Davis Huling
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The home on Folkston's south First Street was unpretentious. It had once been the home of one of the
town's first physicians, Dr. J. C. Wright. Now it was the home of Walter and Winnie Huling, their three sons and a daughter. The time was the years of World War Two, 1942 through 1945.
First Street had its share of boys and girls
fighting the Nazis, Italians and Japanese on battlefields all around the world. On a four-block section of First Street were numbers of homes with boys and girls in service: W.
R. Allen, Jr., Jim and Gene Pearce, Zelton Conner, Jimmy Phillips, Fred Askew, Jr., Jack and Dick Mays, D. L. Stewart, Jr., Dimon Page and his sister, a nurse, Jewel,
and the Huling home with three boys in the military, W. L. Jr., Ben and Joe. No other First Street home had so many.
W. L. Huling, Jr. was a waist gunner aboard a
B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, the Rum Dum. A Master Sergeant with the 8th Air Force, the 385th Bomb Group and its 550th Squadron, the
oldest Huling son on almost a hundred occasions left a fog-covered airfield in England, flew over the White Cliffs of Dover and the English Channel into hostile enemy territory
in France and Germany. On most missions German fighter planes attacked the Rum Dum. Huling would train his machine gun out a window of the big bomber and fight off
the attackers, often seeing his bomber hit by enemy fire and anti-aircraft fire coming up from the ground.
The middle son, Ben, was one of the Navy's first Frogmen. It was his job to
swim with goggles and airtank beneath enemy shore installations, attaching explosives and destroying those installations. All under the threat of enemy ground fire and mines
planted near the installations. Now those frogmen are called Navy Seals. Ben's missions were among the most dangerous tasks asked from Navy volunteers.
Miraculously he survived scores of dangerous missions to return home safely.
Joe, the youngest Huling son, was a Signal aboard navy warships. He
stood watch on the communication deck, using wig wag and signal lights to communicate among other ships in the formation. When he completed his navy hitch,
he switched over to the U. S. Army. He too returned safely.
 All during those dark four years of World War Two, Mrs. Winnie Huling kept a
scrapbook made up of newspaper clipping about local boys who, like her sons, were fighting for their country all over the world. In that scrapbook were stories of those from
Charlton County who died in battle. They commanded a special place in the pale gray scrapbook. Mrs. Huling knew most of them personally, and suffered right along with their
families when they received those dreaded telegrams beginning "We regret to inform you…"
All through the war, Mrs. Huling took it upon herself to visit with her
neighbors along Folkston's First Street, speaking words of comfort and encouragement to other mothers, like herself, who lived in daily
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Above: Mrs. Huling's treasured scrapbook she kept during World War Two. Mrs. Huling had three sons, W. L. Jr., Ben, and Joe fighting in that war. W. L. Jr.,
was a waist gunner aboard the B-17 Rum Dum, flying bombing missions over Nazi Germany, Ben was an Underwater Demolistion Specialist (Seal) with the Navy, and Joe was also aboard a navy warship.
The three sons returned home safely, but all three are now deceased. The flag at right, was hung proudly in Mrs. Huling's living room window while her boys were fighting in that war.
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fear for their son's safety.
People passing in front of the Huling
home on First Street looked at the small red, white and blue banner that hung in the front window, proudly displaying three stars: one for W. L. Jr., one for Ben, and one for Joe. Some were amazed at the
courage of the mother who daily prayed for their safe return. Her faith kept her strong. Her faith never diminished as long as she lived.
Those dark days of World War ended in
late 1945. The three Huling sons returned home to re-start their lives. The close-knit family often, around the dinner table, talked of those dangerous years, and praised their mother for her courage and
the daily letters she wrote, that meant so much to them as they went about the business of keeping America free.
The legend of Winnie Davis Huling, who first came to Folkston aboard a
train with her family from Harris County, will endure for years to come. The relatives will forever treasure Mrs. Winnie's Scrapbook, its cover no doubt spotted with the tears of
an anxious mother who never knew whether her sons would safely return during the years of the Greatest Generation.
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