PFC William Lloyd Vermillion

courtesy of Lonnie Hoover

PFC William Lloyd Vermillion was born 4 Aug 1917 in James Creek, Arkansas. He was the 2nd of 7 children of George L. and Minnie Ann (Thomas) Vermillion. His family farmed near James Creek. His older brother died at the age of 14 in 1928. That and conditions surrounding the Great Depression may be what drove the family to leave their rented farm and move to Sand Springs, Oklahoma where his father found work in a brick plant. William was able to complete high school and he then found work as a weaver in the Commander Mills cotton mill. William was 19 when he married 16-year old Maxine Jane Selmer in April 1937. The couple rented at 120 East First Street in Sand Springs for $6 a month living on William's reported 1939 income of $780. They had their first son in February 1939 and another in November 1940. 

William was drafted in December 1942. After completing his military training in the U.S. he was sent to England and assigned to G Company 116th Infantry. He went to hospital for treatment of an inflamed tendon in one of his wrists in March 1944. Returned to duty, he trained with the unit for the amphibious landing on Omaha Beach in which he took part on 6 Jun 1944. Serving as a rifleman, PFC Vermillion fought with the unit off the beach and through the hedgerows to the outskirts of Saint-Lo, France. There he was struck in the chest by machine gun fire and killed in action on 16 Jul 1944.  

PFC Vermillion was repatriated in 1948 and re-interred in the Fort Gibson National Cemetery in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. 

William's surviving brothers also served in the U.S. military. Brice Marion Vermillion served as a Coxswain aboard the destroyer USS Charles Ausburne (DD-570) fighting through the campaign in the South Pacific from Guadacanal to Okinawa. Don Lewis Vermillion served as a PFC in the US Army Air Force. Both brothers are also buried in the Fort Gibson National Cemetery. Son, William George Vermillion served in the US Air Force 1963-1967.