{"id":332,"date":"2010-10-28T19:30:08","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T17:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/?page_id=332"},"modified":"2020-07-02T23:02:17","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T21:02:17","slug":"biography","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/the-experience\/soldiers\/pfc-thomas-hartis\/biography\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography Tom B. Hartis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thomas B. Hartis. As a youngmen<\/p><\/div>\n

Thomas Bryum Hartis of Indian Trail, NC.<\/span><\/p>\n

Was a son of Samuel Edgar\u00a0 \u201cEd\u201d Hartis(1890 \u2013 1967)<\/p>\n

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Annie Francis Porter Hartis (1892 \u2013 1934).<\/p>\n

Thomas was born February 13, 1924.\u00a0 His brothers and sisters were James, Edward, Helen, Gwen and Ernest.\u00a0(Only Helen and Ernest are living as of 2009.)<\/p>\n

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Thomas as a young boy<\/p><\/div>\n

Thomas attended Indian Trail Presbyterian Church, and he attended Indian Trail School up to the 10th<\/sup> grade.\u00a0 He never married.
\nEd, Thomas’s father, wrote in 1959, \u201cTom was a good boy, quiet and thoughtful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thomas worked briefly at Lance Packing Company in Charlotte, NC, before entering the U.S. Army on March 9, 1943 during World War II.
\nDuring the summer of 1944, the Army transferred Thomas from
\nBattery B, 82nd<\/sup> Antiaircraft Artillery (Automatic Weapons)Battalion to
\nCompany C, 13th<\/sup> Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division.<\/p>\n

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13th Infantry Regiment patch<\/p><\/div>\n

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8th Infantry Division patch<\/p><\/div>\n

This division was already fighting German soldiers in northern France.<\/p>\n

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Pvt Thomas B. Hartis in Uniform<\/p><\/div>\n

Thomas was one of many soldiers transferred to the infantry to fill the depleting ranks as fighting escalated in the push eastward against the Germans.
\nHis division fought in the long and fierce Battle of H\u00fcrtgen Forest from September 19, 1944 to February 10, 1945 at the German-Belgium border.
\nThese soldiers also fought in the bloody Battle of the Bulge in Belgium from December 16, 1944 to January 25, 1945.<\/p>\n

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Grave site at the American war cemetery margraten<\/p><\/div>\n

Thomas was wounded around September 8, 1944 in France and January 24, 1945 in Germany.\u00a0Thomas was killed in action April 6, 1945.<\/p>\n

On that day, the 13th<\/sup> Infantry Regiment was fighting at Siegen, Germany, just east of Cologne and the Rhine River.\u00a0 Siegen was an important German communications center.
\nA May 9, 1945 Report Of Enemy Action from the Headquarters of the 13th<\/sup> Infantry stated:\u00a0 \u201c6 April 1945 \u2013 The 13th<\/sup> Infantry continued to clear enemy resistance
\nNorth East and North West of Siegen \u2026 During the day A and C Companies were hit by heavy German counter-attacks \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, Siegen is only about 50 miles from the small town of Breuna, Germany, where Thomas\u2019s great great great grandfather Ludwig Hirdes (Lewis Hartis) was born and raised.\u00a0 Ludwig sailed to America as a Hessian soldier in Regiment Rall in 1776 fighting for the British during the Revolutionary War.\u00a0 He deserted his unit at Charleston, SC, in 1782 and settled near Charlotte, NC.\u00a0 He was a blacksmith and farmer.<\/p>\n

On August 12, 1965 Elmer B. Elliott of Sidney, OH, drove up at the home of Tom\u2019s brother, James, in Indian Trail, NC, and asked if Tom Hartis lived there.\u00a0 Mr. Elliott said that he had served in the U.S. Army with Tom during World War II, and that Tom had saved his life.\u00a0 After James told him that Tom did not survive the war, an upset Mr. Elliott left town without elaborating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note card typed by Tom Hartis\u2019 brother, James, who served in the South Pacific in the U.S. Army in World War II.\u00a0 James Hartis also marched in the April 14, 1945 funeral of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, DC.
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According to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Elmer B. Elliott of Shelby County, OH, was born in 1918 and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942.
\nSidney is in Shelby County. According to Bud Elliott\u2019s 1988 obituary, he and his wife, Mary (1920 \u2013 1985), did not have children.<\/p>\n

Forty years after Thomas\u2019s death, his youngest brother, Ernest, became the first family member to visit Tom\u2019s grave in Margraten, Netherlands. Ernest worked as Maintenance Director at Camp Thunderbird at Lake Wylie, SC, during the 1970s and 1980s.\u00a0 The camp is owned by the YMCA in Charlotte, NC. Ernest had talked for years about taking a trip to Europe to visit the grave.\u00a0 Camp friend Todd Low agreed to go with Ernest.\u00a0 Members of the Board of Directors at the YMCA heard about the planned trip, and they paid for Ernest\u2019s round-trip airfare.<\/p>\n

Ernest and Todd visited Europe in 1985 between April 24 and May 8, flying to and from Frankfurt, Germany.\u00a0They traveled by train to Austria, Switzerland, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands.\u00a0 They traveled by boat down the Rhine River.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Todd\u2019s diary of the trip included the following passage from May 4 when they made the first of two visits to Thomas\u2019s grave:
\n\u201cWe found a flower shop (in Maastricht), and Ernest bought some flowers to put on his brother\u2019s grave.\u00a0 Once all our shopping was done, we got on bus 54 to Margraten, Holland, which is about a 10 minute ride.\u00a0 We got off the bus in front of the cemetery.\u00a0 When we started walking down the driveway to the cemetery, Ernest began to be quite.\u00a0 As we came to the main monument, Ernest started taking a lot of pictures.<\/p>\n

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Ernest and Todd @tom’s grave site<\/p><\/div>\n

We went in the visitor\u2019s center and signed our names in the guest book.\u00a0 We asked where the grave of Thomas B. Hartis was and the man told us where to go.\u00a0 He asked Ernest if he was related, and to fill out a card.\u00a0 He also gave Ernest a folder of information on the cemetery.\u00a0 We left the information center and walked to the field of headstones in the shape of crosses, and stars for the Jewish soldiers.\u00a0 It was breathtaking looking at all those headstones in perfect rows as far as you could see.\u00a0 This was a big moment for Ernest.\u00a0 It has been 40 years and 29 days since his brother was killed.\u00a0 The man in the visitor center told us to go to Plot A, Row 7, Grave 13.\u00a0 We made our way over to Plot A.\u00a0 Ernest was shaking a little as we walked to Row 7, and I could tell that he had tears in his eyes as he found his brother\u2019s headstone.\u00a0This was it, Ernest had been waiting on this trip for over 40 years, and now he has found his brother\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n

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Tim Hartis and his wife Edith @the grave site of Tom hartis<\/p><\/div>\n

In 2004 Ernest\u2019s son, Tim Hartis, and Tim\u2019s wife, Edith, visited Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and Belgium.\u00a0 They flew to and from Munich, and they traveled by car from April 1 to 12.\u00a0 They visited Breuna and other places in Germany.
\nThey visited Tim\u2019s Uncle Thomas B Hartis grave on April 7.<\/p>\n

Our\u00a0guestbook<\/a>\u00a0is open for your comments!<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Bryum Hartis of Indian Trail, NC. Was a son of Samuel Edgar\u00a0 \u201cEd\u201d Hartis(1890 \u2013 1967) Annie Francis Porter Hartis (1892 \u2013 1934). Thomas was born February 13, 1924.\u00a0 His brothers and sisters were James, Edward, Helen, Gwen and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":325,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-332","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":46,"href":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6234,"href":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/332\/revisions\/6234"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.storiesbeyondthegraves.com\/veterans-of-worldwar-2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}