Jessie Higgins

Evansville (Ind.) Courier and Press

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — In Jesse Campbell’s last letter home, he didn’t have much to say.

It was May 18, 1944, somewhere in England. The Nashville, Ind., native was “just fine,” he wrote his father.

“Tell everyone hello for me and write when you can.”

There is no hint in the Army private’s short note of the tragedy that was fast approaching.

Less than three weeks later, Jesse and tens of thousands of Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy. D-Day, as it would be known. The day the Allied forces launched their invasion of Nazi-occupied France.

The day Jesse Thurl Campbell, 24, died.

Like the thousands of other young men who perished on D-Day, Jesse’s story is quickly slipping away.

“I met him one time,” said James Campbell, Jesse’s oldest nephew. “I was about 4. He came to visit my parents, his brother. He brought me and my sister both a gift. I think mine was a Tonka truck.”

James may be the only person alive who remembers Jesse. The rest of the family knows him only through old stories, a few newspaper clippings, and a trunk full of letters and photos the young man left behind.

Jesse was born in 1920 in Brown County, Ind., one of at least 10 brothers and sisters. He wasn’t the youngest, but most of his siblings were many years older.

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His mother died when he was 13. The family isn’t sure exactly what his father did for a living. Alexander Campbell may have been a doctor or a teacher. One nephew heard he was a traveling farmhand, a niece thinks he owned a grocery store before the Great Depression wiped it out.

According to old newspaper articles, Alexander at one time served as Brown County assessor and was a Brown County commissioner. The family was certainly well known. Jesse was 21 when war broke out. He and several of his brothers were inducted into the Army. Jesse was assigned to the 741st Tank Battalion and in the summer of 1943, he arrived in England.

“I like it here just fine,” he wrote his father after he landed. “The country is sure pretty here and the people are swell. I can get all I need here. Tell everyone there hello for me and I’ll write soon. Take care of yourself and write often.”

In England, the last few months of his life, Jesse sent a flurry of letters, desperate to keep up with family and friends scattered across the world.

His older brother, Curtis Wesley, was also in England, assigned to the 2nd Armored Division. The two exchanged letters for months, and were finally able to meet in early April 1944. Their hometown newspaper published a brief article about the overseas reunion.

It was the last time anyone from the family would see Jesse.

On June 6, 1944, Jesse was among the 741st Tank Battalion’s B Company. According to family research, his company was meant to attack Omaha Beach at 6:30 a.m. in tanks that were floated to shore with canvas sides and waterproofing.

“They were released about 1,500 yards from the beach — way, way too far out,” wrote Tom Carr, Jesse’s nephew by marriage. “Five made it to shore, and 10 sank with most of the crewmen not surviving.”

It’s likely Jesse was aboard one of the tanks that sank. He would have died before he ever made it to the beach.

Curtis Wesley was supposed to be there with Jesse that day, Curtis’ daughter Tammy Cravens said.

“But the ship he was on broke down somewhere,” Cravens said. “So he didn’t make it.”

The Army returned Jesse’s wallet and a few other possessions to his father. When Alexander died in 1952, Curtis Wesley took all Jesse’s things — the billfold and his letters home — and packed them into a toolbox.

Cravens still has the old box, filled with the carefully stored remnants of a man she never knew. His billfold remains exactly as Jesse left it, full of old IDs, some French money and a few pictures.

“It needs to be taken care of,” Cravens said. “It’s a piece of history now.”

Follow Jessie Higgins on Twitter: @ECP_Higgins