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Contact Info
Home Town Breaux Bridge
Last Address Annandale, VA
Date of Passing Nov 15, 2006
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Army Colonel Shirly Ray Trumps; Led Commando Units in WWII
By Joe Holley
Courtesy of the Washington Post
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
Shirly Ray Trumps, 84, a retired Army Colonel who led commando operations behind German lines in support of the Normandy invasion, died of lymphocytic leukemia November 15, 2006, at his home in Annandale, Virginia.
Born along the Bayou Teche in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, in the heart of Louisiana's French-speaking Cajun parishes, he joined the Army in 1940 as a member of the Louisiana National Guard and was commissioned a second lieutenant of infantry in 1942. On a weekend pass to Washington in 1943, he heard that the Army was searching for French-speaking volunteers to train for special missions. He applied for and became part of the Office of Strategic Services mission called Operation Jedburgh.
Organized into three-man teams, the Jedburgh men were from the British, U.S. and French armies and were trained to harass, disrupt and kill German troops, clearing the way for Allied forces advancing across occupied France.
Then-Lieutenant Trumps was the youngest and least experienced of about 86 officers in the program, a group of men that included future CIA Director William Colby, future Major General John Singlaub and Colonel Aaron Bank, founder of the Army's Special Forces.
"The only thing I had over them was I spoke French better than most," he told Jason P. Theriot, author of "To Honor Our Veterans: An Oral History of World War II Veterans from the Bayou Country" (2005).
The Jeds, as they were called -- Jedburgh was a castle in Scotland -- also were expected to meet up with French resistance forces, known as the Maquis, and organize the loose-knit units into cohesive fighting forces. The multinational teams included a U.S. or a British officer, an enlisted radio operator and at least one soldier fluent in the local language.
On the night of August 4, 1944, after nine months of training in demolition and other guerrilla tactics at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda and Milton Hall in England, Lieuenant Trumps and his team took off from a British airfield in a Liberator bomber. They carried with them two parting gifts from the Allied command: a flask of British rum to fortify their nerves for the nighttime jump and cyanide capsules in case they were captured.
Landing in an isolated meadow on the west coast of Brittany, the paratroopers quickly gathered up their equipment. As Colonel Trumps recalled for Theriot's oral history, he had with him two grenades, a dagger, a carbine rifle, a pistol, a canteen and rations, a compass and a silk map of the region. He also had money for food, clothing and bribes. Almost immediately, his team hooked up with Maquis fighters and led them in the defeat and capture of a 400-man garrison of the elite German 2nd Parachute Division in Quimper.
A few days later, the team was making its way south when it ran into an enemy patrol in a small French town.
"At this time, all hell broke loose," Colonel Trumps told Theriot. "We began throwing grenades and firing. . . . The Maquis troops were all in position in houses, and I don't think one German escaped."
The team also participated in the battle of Concarneau, where Lieutenant Trumps was wounded in action and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Palm for valor in combat operations.
He returned to England in September 1944 and then was reassigned to the Office of Strategic Services center in Kunming, China. In April 1945, he conducted his second combat parachute operation, leading a five-man team into French Indochina. Japanese forces ambushed the unit, although in the ensuing firefight, then-Captain Trumps and his men managed to escape.
He remained in the Army after World War II and served as a commander and staff officer during several counterintelligence assignments in the United States and overseas. His overseas assignments included service in Japan, Germany, France, Ivory Coast, West Africa and Belgium. In 1968-69, he served as director of counterintelligence at Military Assistance Command, Vietnam headquarters in Saigon. He retired in 1975.
Colonel Trumps's military awards included the Legion of Merit with Oak Leaf Cluster, the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. He received an undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Maryland in 1956 and a master's degree in international affairs from American University in 1964.
In retirement, he enjoyed golfing, fishing and spending time at the family beach house in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. He was an original parishioner of St. Michael's Catholic Church in Annandale.
Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Katherine "Kitty" Trumps of Annandale; five children, Gail T. Wells of Houston, Steve P. Trumps of Lafayette, Louisiana, Thomas H. Trumps of Bristow, Eric J. Trumps of Raleigh, North Carolina, and Keith A. Trumps of Annandale; 13 grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter. (Age 84) Colonel, U.S., Army (Ret.)
TRUMPS S. RAY TRUMPS
On Wednesday, November 15, 2006 at his residence. Cherished husband of Katherine "Kitty" Trumps of 54 years. Devoted children, Gail T. Wells (Louis) of Houston, Texas, Steve P. Trumps (Laurie) of Lafayette, Lousiana, Thomas H. Trumps, Colonel, U.S.A (Ret.) (Nancy) of Bristow, Virginia, Eric J. Trumps (Lisa) of Raleigh, North Carolina and Keith A. Trumps (Pam) of Annandale, Virginia. Also survived by 13 loving grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
Colonel Trumps was preceded in death by an infant son, Paul E. Trumps. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at 12:45 p.m. at Fort Myer Old Post Chapel followed by interment at Arlington National Cemeter with Full Military Honors. Following the interment a reception will be held at the Officers Club. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Capital Hospice, P.O. Box 1576, Merrifield, VA 22116.
Description (India-Burma Campaign 2 April 1942 to 28 January 1945) China Burma India Theater (CBI) was an umbrella term, used by the United States military during World War II for the China and Southeast Asian or India-Burma (IBT) theaters. Operational command of Allied forces (including US forces) in the CBI was officially the responsibility of the Supreme Commanders for South East Asia or China. However: US forces in practice were usually overseen by General Joseph Stilwell, the Deputy Allied Commander in China; the term "CBI" was significant in logistical, material and personnel matters; it was and is commonly used within the US for these theaters.
Well-known US (or joint Allied) units in the CBI included the Chinese Expeditionary Force, the Flying Tigers, transport and bomber units flying the Hump, the 1st Air Commando Group, the engineers who built Ledo Road, and the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), popularly known as "Merrill's Marauders".
"We got a hell of a beating," Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell told the crowd of reporters in the Indian capital of New Delhi. It was May 1942, and the American general, who had only recently arrived in the Far East to assume the position of chief of staff to Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek, was chafing at failure in his first command in the field. Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor the previous December, the Japanese had won victory after victory, extending their empire from Wake Island in the Pacific to Malaya and Singapore in Southeast Asia. When Stilwell had arrived in the embattled Chinese capital of Chungking in March, the Japanese were already driving into Burma, capturing the capital of Rangoon on 6 March. The American general took command of two Chinese divisions and, in cooperation with the British and Indians, tried to stem the Japanese onslaught. Defeated, he and his staff endured a rugged, 140-mile hike over jungle-covered mountains to India. By occupying Burma, the Japanese had not only gained access to vast resources of teak and rubber, but they had dosed the Burma Road, 700 miles of dirt highway that represented China's last overland link with the outside world. The reopening of an overland route to China would be the major American goal, indeed obsession, in the theater throughout the campaign.
Strategic Setting
The objective of restoring a land route to China originated in part in hard strategic considerations, specifically the need to keep China in the war to tie down Japanese troops and serve as a base for future operations against the Japanese home islands. But it also reflected an idealistic American view of China as a great power, capable of a major contribution, and the romantic image held by many Americans of China's heroic struggle against superior Japanese equipment and arms. For nearly three years the United States would thus push for a major effort to break the Japanese blockade, forward large quantities of lend-lease materials, and train the fledgling Chinese Army and Air Force.