A Joint Project of the Sam Rayburn House Historic Site and the Fannin County Historical Commission
Celebrating America 250 with Spotlights of Fannin County Citizens Who Participated In or Witnessed Historical Events
Fannin County, Texas -- Three men who lived in Bonham had unique connections from the Pacific Theatre of World War II.
Charles “Charlie” Ardon Holmes was from Spur, TX, near Lubbock. During 1934, Charlie joined the Marine Corps. Jesse E. Nowlin was born in Leonard, TX. He and Charlie Holmes were members of the Marine 1st Defense Battalion, a unit designed to defend Wake Island in the central Pacific Ocean where the Navy was creating a military outpost. About 523 U.S. military members from the Marines, Navy, and Army were on the island with about 1,150 civilian contractors. About five hours after the Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor around 8:00 a.m. on December 7, 1941, they attacked Wake Island around 12:00 p.m. on December 8th (because of the time difference).
More than 400 civilian contractors helped the American force defend Wake Island for 16 days before the Japanese took the island on December 23rd. Charlie, Jesse and others became prisoners of war (POWs) for the rest of WWII. The POWs arrived in Shanghai, China, where the Japanese had occupying forces, on January 24, 1942. They were held in Woosong POW camp until December 3, 1942, when they went to the Klangwan POW camp.
In May 1945, the POWs were placed in train boxcars and sent to Peking (now Beijing), China, and about a month later, moved to Pusan, Korea (now Busan, South Korea). Then, they went to Honshu, Japan’s main island. Charlie, Jesse, and the other POWs were finally settled in central Hokkiado, Japan’s northernmost island, to work in a coal mine.
James Sterling Denton, Jr., who was raised in Telephone, TX, and graduated from Bonham High School, was a torpedo bomber pilot in the Navy, and was serving on U.S.S. Kitkun Bay when his squadron dropped food rations to American POWs at Hokkiado on September 9, 1945. Allied rescue teams liberated the POWs on September 16, 1945, the day before Charlie’s birthday. Charlie and Jesse (the POWs) and James (one of the pilots of the squad that dropped food for Charlie and Jesse) all ended up living in Bonham, TX, by 1986, and Jesse married James’s sister.
Charlie reached the rank of Chief Warrant Officer and became an instructor at the Marine Corps schools in Quantico, VA, as well as representing the Marines at various Navy supply depots in the U.S. He later served in Korea and Vietnam. He retired in 1964, moved to Bonham, and worked at Wilshire Furniture. Charlie was a member of the 7th & Main Baptist Church in Bonham. In 1988, he travelled to Wake Island to help dedicate a memorial to 98 civilian workers who were forced into labor on the island for the Japanese until they were executed in 1943. Charlie Holmes died on September 5, 1990 and is buried at Willow Wild Cemetery.
Jesse Nowlin returned from WWII to graduate from North Texas State University and pursued a career in mechanical engineering. He was a member of the First United Methodist Church of Bonham and a member of the Masonic Lodge. He died on September 13, 1990 and is buried at Willow Wild Cemetery.
James Denton, Jr. returned from the war and graduated from Texas Tech University, later working with the Texas A&M Extension Service. He died on November 11, 2009 and is buried at Willow Wild Cemetery.
This information was obtained from the Fannin Co., Texas GenWeb (txfannin.org) and other online sources including the National WWII Museum. The Sam Rayburn House SHS presented this information at their 2025 Cemetery Walking Tour. For a copy of the 2025 Cemetery Walking Tour guide or for other information, contact the Sam Rayburn House at (903) 583-5558 or email Margo.McCutcheon@thc.texas.gov.
