Remember...
Burrell Gilbert Pannell
1909-1944
"The world must know what happened, and never forget."
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
|
Remember...Burrell Gilbert Pannell
|
Burrell Gilbert Pannell was born April 11, 1909, at Hinton, Summers County, West Virginia, to Gilbert Pannell and Gertrude Lawrence Pannell (later Mosby). He was raised in the home of his maternal grandmother, Addie Lawrence; the 1920 Federal Census shows him and his mother in the Lawrence household with Julia, Theodore, and Lucille Lawrence, Gertrude's siblings. Gilbert and Gertrude were both born in Virginia, but Mrs. Mosby's obituary states that her family came to Hinton in 1908. Gilbert Pannell was deceased in 1932. Gertrude's second husband was Will Mosby, whom she had married in 1922.
Burrell had a grammar school education, and his listing in the U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946, states that as a civilian he was engaged in "unskilled occupations in extraction of minerals," meaning that most likely he was a coal miner. In 1931, he married Clara Cecil Haynes. Apparently, Burrell and Clara had no children, and it seems that Clara frequently battled illness. A brief mention in the Hinton Daily News (26 September 1938) mentions that Mrs. Walter Haynes visited her daughter, Mrs. Burrell Pannell, who was a patient in the C. and O. Hospital in Clifton Forge, Virginia. Her obituary (3 March 1941) notes that Clara "had been in ill health for several years and had been a patient at the Denmar Sanitarium [TB hospital] almost a year. . . ." The article further states that Mrs. Pannell was "“reared in this community and is well and favorably known here."
When Burrell Gilbert Pannell registered for the draft on October 16, 1940, Clara was still living, as he listed her as the person who would always know his whereabouts. He does, however, list her address as Denmar. Less than a year later, he would be a widower. Without stating his occupation, he listed Mr. George Lawton of Elverton, Fayette County, as his employer. The next record we have of Burrell Pannell is an Army enlistment record showing a date of April 23, 1943, but a burial notice in The Leader (Hinton, WV, 21 July 1949) indicates he might have been inducted a year earlier. Although no documents were found to confirm this fact, the enlistment record states that he was separated, with dependents. With this act of enlisting, in Huntington, the 35-year-old became part of the U.S. Army. Assigned to the 463rd Amphibian Truck Company, T/5 Pannell was now a member of the Transportation Corps, whose duty was to land needed supplies on the beach in Normandy, France, a continuing operation since D-Day. The 463rd was part of the 280th Quartermaster Battalion, 6th Engineer Special Brigade.
T/5 Burrell Pannell died on October 21, 1944, when he drowned during one of the landings. Although his death is considered "non-battle," the role of his unit was every bit as important as that of front-line infantry. First buried in an Army Cemetery in Normandy, in 1949, his remains were repatriated to the U.S., where in July he was interred in Hilltop Cemetery, Hinton.
Article prepared by Patricia Richards McClure with research by Randy Marcum
October 2023
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history.