‘It was his duty to share his story’: Franklin honors local WWII veteran who helped liberate prisoners of war
FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WKRN) — On this day 80 years ago, thousands of German concentration camp survivors were liberated.
A Franklin veteran was one of the soldiers in the Army unit to save them. Now, his neighbors, family, and fellow veterans are honoring him.
“He loved everybody,” Allen Gentry, Jimmy Gentry’s son, said as he described his father. He never knew a stranger.”
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“You couldn’t help but know him,” William Buredtt Akin, a Vietnam War Veteran and Jimmy’s friend, added. “So we followed him and learned from him, whether it was on purpose or accidental.”
James, also known as Jimmy, was born in 1925.
He spent his early life hunting, trapping, and fishing in Franklin, Tennessee, before he was drafted as a foot soldier for the U.S. Army in World War II. During his service, his unit liberated the survivors at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.
According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as of April 26, 1945, there were over 67,000 registered prisoners in Dachau and its subcamps. When soldiers like Gentry arrived on April 29, they liberated around 42,000 survivors and found 30 railroad cars filled with bodies.
It took years before Gentry was able to share the stories from the war, but he eventually did so to honor the lives lost.
“He felt it was his duty to share his story,” Allen explained. “This was not just his story, but the story of the cost of freedom.”
On Monday, April 29, family, veterans, and community members gathered to honor Gentry’s 96 years and the lives of every other veteran who gave their life serving the country. A memorial featuring Jimmy sitting on a bench was placed in the heart of Franklin.
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“Many of those young men did not return, and Jimmy adamantly always said those were the real heroes,” Alderman Brandy Blanton and a friend of Jimmy’s said.
“The empty seats on the bench honor all the heroes who have fought for our nation, many of whom will never return,” Ondrea Johnson, a member of Franklin Leadership, added.
The Gentry family told News 2 that Jimmy’s memorial is specifically placed along the stone wall next to the Historic Franklin Presbyterian Church because the wall is associated with every Williamson County soldier’s story.
“It was in the mid-1940s when young men would sit here waiting for a particular bus to arrive, and when it did, if your name was called, you were headed off to war to serve your country,” Blanton explained.
“It’s a duty, that’s why you live here. It’s a duty you have to do,” Akin said when asked why he served.
“That was really the start to every story that he talked about going off to war was this wall,” Stacey Downs, a member of Franklin Leadership, said.
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Overall, 3,500 Williamson County men caught the bus at the stone wall along Fifth Avenue South; 600 of them were killed in action.
Those 600 sacrifices are now forever honored.
“Daddy always talked about those that didn’t return, and this is more about the memorial and those who served so we can have the freedom to be here today,” Allen said.
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