On December 7, 1941, Horace Skinner (pictured at the right with his sister, Sara, and their parents, Mr. and Mrs. G.E. Skinner) was a fifteen-year-old farmboy interested in all things mechanical. That Sunday afternoon, as Japanese warplanes sneak-attacked Pearl Harbor a world away, Horace had headed to the woods after church with his friend, John, to hunt rabbits.
When he returned to home later that afternoon, he was surprised to see a number of friends and relatives at the house, all gathered around their radio, listening to the reports of the attack. Very few of the houses in Jordan Springs had electricity, and the Skinner house was no exception—the radio was powered by a car battery.
Little did Horace know at that moment that within a few years, he would trade his rifle in for a much larger gun as a Jolly Roger Tailgunner. As for Jordan Springs, the government had bigger plans for it as well. They bought out all the farms and turned the land into what is now Fort Campbell, home of the 101st Airborne Division.
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