Dudley Guilford Peebles III

This page was created by John Dudley Corley, grandson of Dudley Guilford Peebles III and Oliver Nguyen Corley, great grandson of Dudley Guilford Peebles III.

Dudley was born on October 16th, 1908 in Sardis, Mississippi. He is the son of Dudley Guilford Peebles II and Mary Julia Davis. His siblings are Mary Margarete Peebles and Bobby Nell Peebles. Dudley married Lucille Ruffin on September 18th, 1934. Dudley was drafted into the United States Army, 8th Service Command, on November 12th, 1943. Dudley left the military to establish himself as a farmer and carpenter in South Florida. Dudley returned home from a hard day in the field, ate dinner with his wife Lucille, took a shower and died in his sleep on January 6th, 1979.

Peebles - An American Family

Adirondack Trailer Park, Dania, Florida 1942

Dudley Guilford Peebles possessed a skill that was taught to him by his father, all the men in the Peebles’s linage back to Captain David Peebles in 1649 possessed this skill. Dudley was a surveyor.

The United States Army drafted Dudley when he was 35 years of age and had five children, my mother included. After Army bootcamp, Dudley and the family were first sent to Dania, Florida where the family of “7” lived in a small trailer (See the photos). Dudley surveyed the land at Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, to build airstrips for long range bombers. This allowed the bombers to load ordinance here then proceed to Brazil.

After that assignment was complete, the Army sent Dudley to the cities of Belem and Natal in Brazil. Dudley would apply his surveying skills to build airstrips that would accept the long range bombers coming out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Dudley Guilford Peebles was in the United States Army assigned to the 8th Service Command, serial # 34796184. The photos in this section are under copyright to me, VAU 1-352-030 2019. I believe these photos were taken in Belem, Brazil.

American servicemen in Brazil during World War II

Besides building airstrips in Brazil, Dudley finished out his service as a guard at two prisoner of war camps here in the United States. Yes, we actually had close to 700 prisoner of war camps here in the United States. Mostly German prisoners occuppied these camps.

One prisoner of war camp that Dudley was assigned to was Camp Hale, Colorado. Camp Hale was the smallest of the prisoner camps, but it was the most notorious of the U.S. prisoner camps. Several incidents involving collaboration with Army personnel and one famous escape that led to a trial. Camp Hale confined the prisoners from German General Erwin Rommel's famous Panzer Afrika Korps.

Dudley Guilford Peebles at Camp Hale, Colorado

Dudley was a very successful farmer in South Florida; known as the Collard King, as he supplied the Winn Dixie and other grocery stores in the area with collards, turnips, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers and papaya.

***Note***

Dudley feel in love with the taste of papaya while in Brazil during the war. After the war, Dudley traveled to Cuba where he obtained papayas seeds and returned to South Florida to plant papaya trees. Dudley was successful and was the first person to introduce the papaya fruit to the farm fields in the United States. Word of this new fruit spread throughout the south and soon growers from as far as California flocked to his farm in Goulds, Florida.

Papaya growth was born in the United States.