THE TESTER BROTHERS - REAL TENNESSEE VOLUNTEERS

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 The Tester family lived in a small farming community named New Victory which is near Telford in East Tennessee. There were seven boys in this family and a lot of tragedy. Dent Tester was the first of the sons to enlist in the army after Pearl Harbor. He enlisted in February 1942 and was killed on November 26, 1943 when the transport he was on, HMT Rohna, was sunk by a German aircraft. Dent Tester died that day along with 1,100 other men who went down with the ship. Earle Tester was the second son to enlist in the army and the second to die. He landed on Utah Beach June 6, 1944 safely but was killed several months later fighting to break through the Siegfried Line in Germany. Earle was awarded the Bronze Star for valor twice. The third brother to die was Glenn Tester who enlisted in 1943. Glenn was married and enlisted three months before the birth of his son Frank. Glenn would briefly meet his infant son before being deployed to Italy in February 1944. He would be killed fighting in the Vosges mountains of eastern France on January 9, 1945. All three brothers are buried side by side in the Henri Chapelle American war cemetery in France. In addition to the deaths of her sons in combat Mrs. Tester lost her husband to cancer and another son to heart trouble in 1942. Two more sons were also serving in the army. One was serving stateside and the other was serving in Panama. The youngest and remaining son Carroll was drafted late in the war but the army sent him home when they realized that he was the last living son that was not already in the army. 

 Glenn's son Frank said that his mother never spoke about his father to him. It was only after the death of his mother that he found a box belonging to his father that his mother had held on to for so many years. One of the items in the box was a bloodstained Bible that was found on his father body. At the age of 76 Frank Tester and his wife of 56 years was finally able to visit his fathers grave in France. He said that he cried at his fathers grave but it was like crying for a stranger that he had read about in a history book since he really didn't know him. Frank said that all that he knew about him was from the artifacts that he found and the three books that have been written about the Tester brothers. The most recent is Brothers In Arms by Kevin Callahan. The youngest brother Carroll was able to visit his brothers graves with his sons in the 1990's. He was presented with a flag that had flown over the cemetery during a graveside ceremony. Although this family, along with families like the Sullivan family, and Nyland family, suffered more than the average family in WW2, there were numerous sets of brothers, and father and sons that died in WW2. For example there were 23 sets of brothers along with fathers and sons who died on the U.S.S. Arizona at Pearl Harbor. There are thirty sets of brothers buried in the same cemetery as the Tester brothers. This is the kind of history that our young people should be learning today and this is one of the reasons why I refuse to watch sports teams whose spoiled millionaire players refuse to show respect for our flag and our country. 




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