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Captain Charles C. Gulley

Stills Photographer
Detachment G, 162nd Signal Photo Company, 1st/3rd Army;
3120/3908th Signal Service Battalion

     Charles Cecil Gulley was born in Lexington, KY in 1908 to a working class family. In his early years his father, Benjamin, worked as a local grocer while his mother Addie cared for Charles and his four siblings. His family took a dramatic turn in his youth, however, when his father left them to marry another woman, forcing Addie to find work as a nurse to try to provide for the kids. Despite the trouble at home, Charles did fairly well when attending school and picked up a job as a gas attendant. He was the youngest of his siblings and, as the house got crowded with his various nieces and nephews, he moved out after graduating in the late 1920s.

     Gulley found work in the composing room at one of Lexington’s local newspapers, The Lexington Leader. He worked there for a number of years and in that time married a woman named Martha, a secretary at the Leader's office. As the US drew closer to war, however, Charles soon found himself called to the service when he was drafted into the Army in April 1942. Starting as an enlisted man, Gulley attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Signal Corps in July 1942. Based on his previous experience in the news industry, Charles took on the role of a photographer, and was given special training in combat photography–being promoted to first lieutenant by 1943.


     With his new rank, Gulley was put in charge of Detachment G of the 162nd Signal Photo Company (SPC) and sent to England the same year. The detachment was stationed in Woolacombe and North Draven, taking still photos and motion picture footage of troops training for Operation Overlord. The region's coastline was chosen as an amphibious assault training area for its similarity to the terrain in Normandy, where the eventual invasion of Europe was planned to take place. When the landings took place on 6 June 1944, Gulley and his detachment followed and set foot in France a couple weeks later.

     Despite being thousands of miles away from his home in Lexington, Charles still found time to do his job at the Leader, occasionally writing to the paper to tell stories of conditions at the front. In July he recounted that despite the language barrier, French kids very quickly learned to say “got any gum?” in perfect English. Additionally, when he noticed another GI teaching them to say “got any gum, Yank?” he jokingly suggested that, using the little French he was learning, he should use his Southern drawl to teach them to say “rebel” instead of “Yank.”

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     As the days went on and the detachment spent more and more time on the front, Gulley’s reports reflected the exhaustion he and his men experienced. He recounted their day-to-day life in September:

 

We’ve been away from our headquarters now for about five days. At night we pitch our pup tents, open K-rations and heat them, write caption material for the day’s shooting, wrap our film for shipment, and then sit around and talk. I can notice that the men are not as talkative as usual, and know the reason why, for I am in the same mood. The last letter I had from home was dated almost a month ago.

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He also described that, once the mail did come, the troops acted like children on Christmas, gathering around and hoping for a letter. In the hours after the fact, Charles said, it was nearly impossible to get anyone’s attention as they read through whatever they were sent. In the same column Gulley explained that much of the detachment’s conversations drifted into what they would all do once they get home. The suggestions started light-hearted, such as eating a feast of ice cream, but soon converged into the common thought that they all wanted to get back to family, home, work, and normal life as soon as they could. 

     Detachment G followed various units of the 1st and 3rd Armies throughout 1944, until the 162nd SPC began to reorganize into other units. Starting in late 1944, other photo units needed more personnel to support the influx of pictures coming in from the front lines, and the 162nd began transferring its men to help. Gulley’s detachment wasn’t transferred until 1945, when they were sent to the 3908th Signal Service Battalion. With the unit, he continued to take photos for the remainder of the war while attached to the Advanced Section of the Communications Zone (ADSEC). He returned to the states in late 1945, and was promoted to captain just before leaving the service.


     Upon his return to Kentucky, Charles found himself featured in an article in the Lexington Leader. He realized that, after sending in absentee ballots while serving overseas, he lost his right to vote in person. His picture was used in an article reminding those returning that they needed to register again at the courthouse if they planned to vote. Despite leaving the paper soon after his return, The Lexington Leader that Charles worked for eventually merged with the Herald to become the Lexington Herald-Leader, the city’s prominent local paper that is still in print today.

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     In the 1950s, Charles and his wife Martha moved to Mount Sterling to help take care of her parents. Charles found work as an insurance agent with AAA and in his free time volunteered for the local 4-H club to teach youth in the surrounding areas. After some years Charles officially retired with Martha to live their days together. Although the two never welcomed any children, they lived happily in their quiet part of Kentucky, until Martha passed away in 1979 from a sudden illness on New Year’s Day. Charles joined her just a few years later in 1983, leaving behind a legacy of service, from leading a unit of photographers through Normandy and the Bulge to helping kids in his local community.

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