World War II veteran Bill Pool is the only still-living son of a Civil War soldier.
Bill Pool, born in 1925, enlisted in the Army in 1941 and fought in WWII in Europe. His father, Charles Parker Pool, born in 1844, was 80 years old when Bill was born.
“Grandma was 27, and grandpa was 71 when they married,” Bill Pool’s daughter, Carolyn, told KY3.
The WWII veteran will reportedly turn 100 in January and currently resides in Bolivar, Missouri.
Pool’s daughter told KY3 that, when she was growing up, she would often tell her teachers, “My grandfather served in the Civil War.”
“And the teacher would go, ‘Now honey, there is no way that your grandfather served in the Civil War.’ And I tried to tell them, ‘Yes, he did,'” Carolyn said.
The Pool family is featured in the book “Civil War Fathers: Sons of the Civil War in WWII” by Tim Pletkovich, who told KY3 that he has “the utmost respect” for them.
The book reportedly reveals that Charles Pool fought for the Union with the Sixth West Virginia Volunteers in the American Civil War.
Interestingly, Bill Pool is considered a third-generation soldier because his paternal grandfather joined the Union at the same time.
The book also notes that Pool’s father was very generous with his Union pension in the years that followed the Civil War — he helped a young Arkansas mother after her husband left her during the Great Depression.
Charles Pool died in January 1933, at the age of 88.
Notably, Bill’s mother, Clara, was the last Civil War widow to draw Union benefits in Missouri. She was born in 1888 and died in 1990 at the age of 102.
Bill Pool told KY3 that Charles suffered an injury during the Civil War that resulted in one of his legs being amputated, adding that he recalled witnessing his father’s resilience as a young boy and saw that his war wound never held him back.
“If he wanted to hunt, he walked on crutches,” Pool told the outlet. “If he got a squirrel, he put it down in the crosses of his crutches.”
The World War II veteran added that he carried the memory of his father’s perseverance while fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.
At one point during WWII, Pool and two other soldiers reportedly thought they were returning to their company but ended up walking into a Nazi trap.
Pool told KY3 that the Germans put him and the two other soldiers in “a big bomb crater” and guarded the three men while they remained prisoners of war (POW).
But, three hours later, the Allies regained control of the area, and the Germans retreated.
For some reason, the Germans did not shoot Pool and the others while they were POWs.
“And that was unusual,” Pool said. “I figured that was a miracle.”
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