Robert B. Ware papers

Robert Barnes Ware was born 30 December, 1914 in Amherst, Virginia. One of ten children, Ware attended school in Amherst, and graduated in 1936 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute's pre-med program in only three years. He earned his MD from the Medical College of Virginia in 1940. He interned at Lynchburg General Hospital, and then volunteered for military service with the Virginia National Guard in 1940 due to the onset of World War II. After officer's school and training at the Army's Carlyle Barracks, Ware was promoted to Captain and assigned as Battalion Surgeon for the 116th Infantry, 1st Battalion, Companies A-D. These units shipped out aboard the Queen Mary in September 1942. He served for two years in England with this unit made up of recruits from Amherst, Lynchburg and Bedford, Virginia. Debarking with his men in the initial wave of the D-Day invasion, Ware was killed along with the rest of the men in his landing craft. He died the morning of 6 June, 1944 at the age of 29. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for valor, and buried in the Normandy American Cemetery at St. Laurent, France. Ware married Martha Frances Wood in 1935, and has a son Robert Barnes Ware, Jr. His father, Rueben B. Ware, and his brother Howard Ware also graduated from MCV. Mrs. Ware donated the flag that covered her husband's coffin to MCV in 1945. Ware's name is recorded on the National D-Day Monument and at the Virginia War Memorial.