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We of Baby
Boomer generation grew up in close proximity to the action, events, people
and pathos of the Second World War. Our fathers and uncles fought in Siapan,
Belgium, Italy; less than a decade had passed when we started school and
began to learn of world events. We knew veterans who still suffered from
wounds, but it all seemed far, far away and long, long ago. However, a
story of one Bon Jellico young man always held a special place and relevance
in the memories of the families with Bon roots.
Charles Gibb Stout grew up in Bon Jellico. He was the seventh son of a seventh
son. Therefore, some ‘old timers’ at Bon believed that he possessed
special gifts such as healing thrush by blowing in the throat of the sick person
and “….there were always people coming by the house to touch Gibb
which embarrassed him very much..”. Despite his mystical qualities and
the attention, Gibb was a child of the 20th Century and a member of the Greatest
Generation. He was a good student (attending Bon Jellico School and graduating
from Williamsburg High School) and was an excellent athlete. Tall and slender,
like all the Stout men, he was a superb basketball player. “…Basketball
was on his mind day and night…I knew because my bedroom was next to his
and I could hear him call plays and encouragement to team mates all night in
his dreams…. Gibb had offers of athletic scholarships to several Kentucky
colleges….but we were at war and nothing would do but for him to go fight ‘Ole
Hitler’…. ” John Stout, Gibb’s older brother, was an
instructor in the paratroopers; he knew the danger and tried to convince Gibb
not to enlist until after college. But Gibb graduated from high school, visited
friends and family in Whitley, Bell, and Harlan Counties to say goodbye, volunteered,
and became a paratrooper.
A cross stands in the American Cemetery above Omaha Beach in Normandy
with the name Charles G. Stout and the date June 6, 1944. Gibb was lost in France
in the
D-Day invasion.
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