Veteran Spotlight
Horace Mann Bushman
The First to Fall
Horace “Bush” Bushman was born on August 6, 1916, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to parents Rufus Howard and Hattie R. Bushman, and had one brother, George Levi Bushman, whom his parents had given birth to three years earlier.
Bushman graduated from Gettysburg High School in 1935, where he had also starred as a varsity member of football, baseball, and basketball teams,” according to an article published in The Gettysburg Times on July 28, 1944.
Before entering the military service, Bushman was also a member of the Gettysburg Presbyterian Church and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
On March 14, 1942, Bushman married Merion Adelle Durboraw in Hagerstown, Maryland.
According to an article published in the July 24, 1959, edition of The Gettysburg Times, Bushman had worked at The Gettysburg Times as a pressman for four years before entering the Army in 1942.
Bushman registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, his draft card noting that he was 6-feet tall, weighing 160 pounds, and had a light complexion, brown eyes and hair, and gave his address as 44 North Stratton Street, Gettysburg.
His draft card also noted that he had a “weak right eye” and an appendix scar.
Bushman entered the Army on October 19, 1942. He participated in basic training at Camp Blanding, Florida, and subsequently participated in Army maneuvers in Tennessee and Alabama, according to an article published in the July 28, 1944, edition of The Gettysburg Times, which further reported that he had also engaged in desert maneuvers in Arizona, and was then sent to Camp Phillips, Kansas, and from there, he was sent to “a port of embarkation and England.”
Bushman served with the 310th Field Artillery Battalion, 79th Infantry Division, ascending to the rank of corporal.
Corporal Bushman met his death on June 25, 1944, during the battle of Cherbourg, fought between the Americans and the Germans, 19 days after D-Day.
Bushman’s commanding officer, Captain John Hinkle, subsequently wrote to the deceased corporal’s wife, that Bushman was “one of his best friends,” further writing, “We were close together when he was killed, and I can assure you there was no suffering or pain,” according to a story published in the July 28, 1944, edition of The Gettysburg Times, further noting, “Later in the evening, an artillery shell struck trees above us and he was hit.”
The last that Bushman’s widow had heard from her husband was via a letter that he had written to her on June 11, fourteen days before he was killed.
Bushman was initially interred in the Saint Mere Eglise Cemetery #2, Sainte-Mère-Église, Département de la Manche, Basse-Normandie, and was then subsequently re-interred in the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy.
Bushman was awarded the Purple Heart posthumously by Secretary of War Henry Stimson, according to a November 4, 1944, article in The Gettysburg Compiler.
In a letter sent by Stimson’s window, Merion, informing that her deceased husband had been awarded the Purple Heart, the secretary had stated, “Little that we can do or say will console you for the death of your loved one… I want you to know that with it goes my sincerest sympathy, and the hope that time and the victory of our cause will finally lighten the burden of your grief.” Bushman was also awarded the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign medal and the WWII Victory Medal.
A plaque honoring Bushman and a second Gettysburg Fire Department fireman killed during the war was dedicated at the firehouse on September 18, 1947, conducted by officers and members of the fire department, and attended by some 150 individuals, according to an article in the September 20, 1947, edition of The Gettysburg Compiler.
Bushman’s widow, Merion, remarried in 1947 to Allan Eden Jennings. She passed away on May 4, 1996, in Chambersburg at the age of 75, and she was buried in Chambersburg, according to familysearch.org.
Corporal Horace Bushman Source: findagrave.com
