I Never Asked Him
By Donald G. Evans, III
A Story about his Father, Sgt. Donald G. Evans, Jr.
Tail Gunner with the James W. McAfee Crew, 398th BG, 600th SQ
When you’re young you may not be impressed by stories of your parents’ military exploits. You’ve seen the war movies; your mom isn’t Betty Grable, your dad isn’t Gregory Peck.
Unless you’re tremendously insightful when you’re fresh out of high school, even though you’re the same age as kids sent around the world fighting on your behalf (Viet Nam, in my case), you still may not be impressed by your parents’ military exploits. You can only see them as your mother and father, never any younger, never any older. And you have your own life to get underway.
But maybe later, when, like me, you have children of your own and they reach college age, you look back sixty-some years at what a bunch of other kids who were that age at that time did. You realize that Tom Brokaw had it right about “The Greatest Generation", and you just marvel at what kids then, the ages of your own kids now, went through to help put you AND your kids where they are now.
Donald G. Evans, Jr. was the son of Donald G. Evans, Sr. and Edna J. Evans of 715 Lake Avenue, Racine, Wisconsin. Born in 1923, he was “any kid USA”: he was an elementary and secondary school student; as a teen he had summer jobs and went to summer camp; and he went away to college in 1941. He even bought a brand new set of Wright & Ditson “Lighthorse Harry Cooper” autograph golf clubs in ’41, clubs I was using into the 1980’s. Then in 1943, like so many thousands and thousands of “any kids USA” of that time, he joined the military.
I’m his son, Donald G. Evans III. Dad didn’t talk a lot about his service to Uncle Sam, and, as a boy, I didn’t have the curiosity to press him. He passed away in April of 2004, just two years after his wife Doris (nee Erickson, also of Racine) died. They were married in June of 1945 while they were each still in the service, although by then Dad was stationed stateside once again. Mom was a WAVE, stationed at various times at Cedar Falls, Iowa, Great Lakes Naval Training Center, Northwestern University, and Hunter College in New York City. Dad’s father was Army, having served in World War I in the ambulance corps and as an aviation ground school instructor at the University of Illinois. Mom’s father was Navy, having served in World War I aboard the U.S.S. Connecticut. At one point in her WAVE career Mom asked NOT to be assigned as a parachute packer.
Dad joined the United States Army Air Force in January of 1943. I have been fortunate enough to have received half-a-dozen file drawer-sized boxes of Evans family papers, among which are letters from dad’s parents to various acquaintances where a sentence or a paragraph might relate what Dad was doing at the time; there are letters from him to his parents; letters from him to his fiancée Doris; newspaper clippings; and four photostatic copies of small notes, each with a censor’s stamp in the top left corner, which he wrote in a four day period while trucking through France after ditching in Belgium during the March 17, 1945 raid on Bohlen. When I quote from these letters you may see a comment from me in brackets […].
In January of ’44 Dad wrote his parents from the 436th Fighter Group, Glendale Army Airdrome, Glendale, California. His stationery has a P-38 in the top left corner. He wrote that he had been issued a steel helmet, a “shelter half” [?], a pistol belt, “K” rations, and a “haversack”, and had been told to expect an overnight bivouac in the very near future. On January 20th he filled out an application for Aviation Cadet (Air Crew) Training.
In March of ’44 he wrote and return-addressed a letter from the 420th Fighter Squadron, at Hammer Field in Fresno California. He may have spent a bit of time with the 427th Fighter Squadron, as he refers to that group in this note. But he was attached to the 420th “pending transfer to aviation cadet training” when first he return-addressed this envelope. While he intimated that it could take two weeks to two months before anything further happened to him, the outside of that particular envelope had the 420th return address crossed out, replaced with a new one, Squadron D, 450th. He complains that this latest assignment robbed him of some furlough time.
I do not know when he got assigned to B-17s and gunnery training, but in a 3-Nov-44 letter to a relative, my grandfather wrote:
“Donald writes once a week, but tells little. He’s had some cross-country flights, one to South Carolina and one to Evansville, Indiana. He dislikes high altitude work, having to wear an oxygen mask continually when flying high, and knowing that neither he nor anyone else in the plane would know that his oxygen supply had failed until it was too late.”
On November 23rd of 1944 his crew-in-training, Crew 310, was named CREW OF THE WEEK by the CO at his base at Gulfport Mississippi. Dad’s crew -- he was the tail gunner and a Pfc. at the time -- consisted of: 2nd Lt. James W. McAfee, pilot, Palmyra, Ind.; 2nd Lt. Philip R. Krieg, co-pilot, San Francisco; Cpl. Arthur J. Roit, engineer, Philadelphia, Pa.; Cpl. Paul Krup, radio gunner, Cleveland, Ohio; 2nd Lt. Burton H. Roth, navigator, New York City; 2nd Lt. James E. Luna, bombardier, Houston, Texas; Cpl. Felix H. Tichenor, armorer gunner, Evansville, Ind.; Pfc. Haskel Boyes, gunner, Rittman, Ohio; and my father.
Click this link to see the McAfee Crew Photo
On 27-Nov-44 Grandfather wrote:
“We had a brief visit from Donald last Wednesday. He had phoned from Gulfport Mississippi that his bomber crew had won ‘crew of the week’ honors which entitled them to choose the terminus of a 1000 mile practice flight, that they had chosen Chicago, and he hoped to have his crew here for Thanksgiving dinner. He arrived OK but the army allowed them so little time in Chicago that the crew could not come up here with him. He came up alone and we had our dinner at ten that night. [Grandma had prepared a 27 pound turkey. There were enough leftovers to make sandwiches for the crew to enjoy on their flight back to Gulfport]. Donald was under orders to report back to the Chicago field by three Thursday and did so, but his crew chief was three hours late and they didn’t take off that evening, the pilot deciding that he should not leave a strange airport after dark. They were then scheduled to leave Friday morning at six. He expects to finish his gunnery training by the middle of December, and rather expects to be shipped to the European theater. He has a lovely suicide spot, it seems to me – the tail position.”
From Grandfather’s letter of 10-Dec-44 to my father’s sister, Mary, and her husband, Bill Brophy (flying B-26s, towing aerial gunnery targets in Harlingen Texas):
“Donald wrote that he and Doris have decided to announce their engagement and that Edna is shopping for the diamond. We wrote him promptly to congratulate him. He says that tomorrow should see the end of their flying training and that they will be processing in preparation for shipment over two days, the twelfth and thirteenth. The prospect is hard for Edna [my Grandmother] to contemplate, and while working on memorizing Martha’s part [possibly portraying Martha Washington in a play] for Eastern Star [she] broke down and said she could not recite the part because of the reference to the absence of loved ones.”
In an 11-Dec letter to my aunt Grandfather tells of his asking my dad for the names and home addresses of the families of my dad’s crewmates so he could mail them photostatic reproductions of that Crew Of The Week picture. He sent those letters and pictures on 12-Dec. It, like all his letters, was typewritten and carbon-copied on onionskin paper. These copies are the source of my current knowledge. At the bottom of that 11-Dec letter he handwrote an added sentence, four months later:
“Another letter written to Mrs. Lycan [sister of gunner Haskel Boyes] dated Mar 16/45 in reply to her letter of Mar 14 in which she stated she had not heard from her brother.”
I have a letter in my archives from Mrs. Lycan, dated 19-Mar-45 saying she’d just heard from Haskel Boyes, and saying that
“[bombardier James] Luna did not fly with them anymore but the other boys were all with him.”
I’ll depart from the chronological order of letters for a moment, but it is in context. On 10-Mar-45 Grandfather received a Western Union telegram from J.C. Luna, Houston, father [I think] of James Luna. The telegram reads:
“SECRETARY OF WAR NOTIFIED US TODAY THAT JAMES HAS BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION OVER GERMANY SINCE FEBRUARY 22.”
I have a 20-Mar-45 letter from Mr. and Mrs. Luna, Houston:
“…we were sorry [son] James wasn’t with his crew at first, but we want you and the crew to know we are so thankful they are safe.”
The Lunas wrote about communications with the War Department, a chaplain, the Commanding General of the 8th Air Force and the CO of the 398th. They also wrote of meetings they attended put on by their local Red Cross just for families of POWs, MIAs, and KIAs.
A look at the Killed In Action section of the 398th Bomb Group Memorial Association web pages shows James Luna and four crewmates were killed in the Stendal raid of 22-Feb-1945. Only Luna of those five had started out with Crew 310.
Returning to the chronological order of correspondence in the collection, I have Grandfather’s letter to a niece, whose husband was also military, dated 16-Dec-44. Grandfather writes:
“Their training work [in Gulfport] is finished and they are probably in Savannah, GA, ready to take off for parts unknown. We cannot feel any too hopeful when we think of Donald leaving for the front as tail gunner in a bomber, but can only hope that his predecessors have cleaned out the enemy before he gets into action.”
Then there is a paragraph from a letter Grandfather wrote to a relative in December of 1944:
“We are rather thoughtful tonight, for Donald called us from Savannah, Ga., to tell us that he was about to hop off for the battle front, and to give some final instructions about handling his funds and about buying a Christmas gift for Doris, for whom he recently commissioned Edna to buy an engagement ring. What awaits him across the pond no one can foretell, but we can hope for the best. So far he has been fortunate, for he has been in the army for almost two years, has spent many hours in the air, and is still with us. For awhile, particularly while Roosevelt was snaring sucker votes by bragging about the marvelous way in which he had prepared for an immediate victory, it seemed that the war might end before Donald had to get into the battle, but the present prospects are far from bright.“
On the day after Christmas in ’44 he wrote to a relative:
“Edna is tired and has gone to bed. She has been working night and day for weeks, getting out her needlecraft gifts, and has had some difficulty concealing her concern about Donald’s departure. However, the pain of that is wearing off a little, but it will still come again with the suspense of waiting for delayed word from him after he has taken off.”
Then there is a War Department postcard from Savannah, giving dad’s parents his new APO address. And there’s a form dated 3-Jan-45 where my dad, at Dow Field in Bangor Maine, specified just what insurance policies he held, who the beneficiaries were, and what other properties he had and distributions he wanted to list. He was on his way.
21-Jan-45, Grandfather’s letter to a relative:
“I cannot say [when he] took off … for he may have failed to write, or his bombardier may not have gotten around to censoring his letter. However, from the cryptic statements in his last letter, I imagine that he is overseas by this time. Everything pointed to his going east rather than west. The only consolation I can get out of that is that it is probably better to be shot down in Europe than over some tropical island held by the Japanese.”
This on 16-Feb-45:
“The recent news about the German’s 600 miles-per-hour plane is not very reassuring, for they shot down 29 of our bombers recently out of one raid. I have a strange sense of premonition about Donald’s participation in this territorial war, and can only hope for the best.”
On 7-Mar-45:
“Yesterday’s Racine Journal-Times carries the army release that ‘at an 8th Air Force station in England Donald G. Evans, son of Mr. and Mrs. D.G. Evans, 715 Lake Avenue, has been promoted to sergeant.’ ”; “…we have had no letter postmarked later than Feb. 16, but Doris has one dated Feb.23, so he was still alive on that date.”
Recalling the March 10 telegram from J.C. Luna to my grandfather that I quoted earlier, somewhat out of order, on 11-Mar-45, Grandfather wrote back to Mr. Luna. James Luna had been the crew’s censor, a relationship I’m not familiar with. But my grandfather wrote:
“However, none of the letters had been censored by your son since Donald left America. This fact led me to wonder if the crew had been broken up for replacement purposes.”
Then he quoted to Mr. Luna a passage from one of dad’s last letters home:
“‘Another week gone and I’m just that much closer to getting home. At the rate we’re going now I’ll be finished here 2 or 3 months before my previous prediction – but, though I most certainly want to get home as soon as possible, I’m not too eager to keep going at this pace.’”
Grandpa told Mr. Luna in the last paragraph:
“Many men have had to bail out over Europe, and a fair number of them have been able to get back to the American lines. Many others are held prisoner. Officer prisoners have been getting pretty fair treatment, I understand, and these facts, coupled with the fact that the bombardier has an excellent opportunity to bail out in an emergency, should give you plenty of reason to be hopeful for the outcome.”
In a blue leather-bound yearbook -- or what Mom and Dad’s generation called an “annual”-- titled THE HISTORY OF THE 398th BOMBARDMENT GROUP (H), Dad circled in red the dates and missions he flew. On March 17, his eleventh mission, he circled a raid on Bohlen.
There follow four short censor-stamped notes, I believe they were called VMAIL, to his bride-to-be. The first one, dated Saturday, March 17, addressed to Doris, WAVE Yeoman 3rd Class, V-12 Unit, Northwestern University:
“Darling,
Had a little trouble today, so we’re spending the night in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Except for Mac’s [Jim McAfee] skill as a pilot we might not have gotten this far – but, outside of a good scare, nobody had any trouble. I’ll write you again tomorrow from wherever I am. Love, Dutch” [his nickname]
Had a little trouble today, so we’re spending the night in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Except for Mac’s [Jim McAfee] skill as a pilot we might not have gotten this far – but, outside of a good scare, nobody had any trouble. I’ll write you again tomorrow from wherever I am. Love, Dutch” [his nickname]
On Sunday, March 18th:
“Doris darling,
Still in Luxembourg with no hint as to how long I’ll be here – but it probably won’t be too long. This is quite a nice place – unlike any I’ve seen before. Of course, I don’t understand much of the talk because it’s a mixture of German and French, but most of them can speak a little English so we can make ourselves understood. Met Gary Sheahan, staff artist of the Chicago Trib [TRIBUNE] and he made a sketch of me that’ll appear in a month or two. Will you get a couple of extra copies of it for me please? Love, Dutch”
Still in Luxembourg with no hint as to how long I’ll be here – but it probably won’t be too long. This is quite a nice place – unlike any I’ve seen before. Of course, I don’t understand much of the talk because it’s a mixture of German and French, but most of them can speak a little English so we can make ourselves understood. Met Gary Sheahan, staff artist of the Chicago Trib [TRIBUNE] and he made a sketch of me that’ll appear in a month or two. Will you get a couple of extra copies of it for me please? Love, Dutch”
On Monday, March 19th:
“Darling,
We’re somewhere in France now, on our way back to the U.K. We’re getting to see a lot of the local scenery because we’re traveling by truck, but it’s a mighty dusty, rough trip. This is a quaint little village (what we’ve seen of it), but it has plenty of G.I.’s. We had supper with the G.I.’s who operate the local railway and had some wine with the fellows who constitute the military government – proof that you can never get away from the army. Well, have to catch a snooze to be ready for the ride tomorrow. Goodnight, darling. Love, Dutch”
We’re somewhere in France now, on our way back to the U.K. We’re getting to see a lot of the local scenery because we’re traveling by truck, but it’s a mighty dusty, rough trip. This is a quaint little village (what we’ve seen of it), but it has plenty of G.I.’s. We had supper with the G.I.’s who operate the local railway and had some wine with the fellows who constitute the military government – proof that you can never get away from the army. Well, have to catch a snooze to be ready for the ride tomorrow. Goodnight, darling. Love, Dutch”
On Tuesday, March 20:
“Darling,
We pushed on in our truck today and passed one of France’s most famous cathedrals. Famous, if I remember correctly, for its stained glass windows. Looks like we’ll be back in our truck tomorrow, again, and go the rest of the way. Don’t know just how or when we’ll get back to our base, but I hope that we get there soon because our 48 hr. pass starts tomorrow night and I’d like to visit Bob [Marshall, boyhood friend]. I’d like to have been able to meet Bill [another boyhood friend] Belden here, but I don’t know when I could have found him. Goodnight darling, and Love, Dutch”
We pushed on in our truck today and passed one of France’s most famous cathedrals. Famous, if I remember correctly, for its stained glass windows. Looks like we’ll be back in our truck tomorrow, again, and go the rest of the way. Don’t know just how or when we’ll get back to our base, but I hope that we get there soon because our 48 hr. pass starts tomorrow night and I’d like to visit Bob [Marshall, boyhood friend]. I’d like to have been able to meet Bill [another boyhood friend] Belden here, but I don’t know when I could have found him. Goodnight darling, and Love, Dutch”
In chronological order, then, comes the letter from gunner Haskel Boyes’ sister, quoted earlier; the letter from the Lunas, also quoted earlier, then a 28-Mar-45 press release from “SHAEF”, Field Press Censor, where the Racine Journal-Times had been sent notification that Donald G. Evans was awarded the addition of an Oak Leaf Cluster to his Air Medal for “exceptionally meritorious achievement”. Then, another letter from my grandfather, dated 28-Apr-45 and retelling to the reader Dad’s truck trip through France after being forced down during the Bohlen raid:
“He has apparently not flown since his return to England, for, following some bad weather, the pilot caught a bad cold and could not fly. Then Donald was picked to take up radio operator’s work, and has been in school at least until the 18th.”
Now, this may or may not be correct. Circled in dad’s HISTORY OF THE 398th BOMBARDMENT GROUP yearbook are two more missions: 9-Apr-45 over Oberpfaffenhofen, and 10-Apr-45 over Oranienburg. This is where I need some details filled in. There are accounts written on the 398th website by Paul Krup, dad’s training crewmate and future Best Man. My father must have been on another aircraft at Oranienburg that day, as Krup’s account lists Max Paxton as tail gunner. But McAfee was the pilot on Krup’s flight, Tichenor and Boyes were at the waist guns, and Art Roit was the engineer. I’m trying to find out where Phil Krieg, Burt Roth, and Don Evans were on that day. Krup’s account says McAfee, Tichenor, and Roit were not seen leaving the B-17 that was cut in two by the cannon of an ME-262.
More items in chronological order in the archive I’ve assembled:
- a program brochure for the celebration of the 398th’s FIRST COMBAT ANNIVERSARY, May 6, 1945. At this date Paul Krup was trying to make it as far as Camp Lucky Strike. You can read Paul’s story on the 398th Bomb Group website: "News From Camp Lucky Strike". It’s hard to picture the bunch at Nuthampstead partying on May 6 while guys were fighting, guys were dying, guys were bleeding, guys were escaping via the allies’ underground. As a postscript to Paul’s “News From Camp Lucky Strike” article, you already know that when he entered the story into his diary on May 21 he was uncertain when he would return to his base. I can vouch for his whereabouts just one month later, on June 23, however: he was at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, performing his Best Man duties at my parents’ wedding.
- A letter from Dad, married less-than-a-month, to his parents, dated 21-Jul-45, postmarked from Sioux Falls South Dakota, where he tells them he’s concerned about being sent back overseas, and he complains of a condition he may have self-diagnosed as rheumatism. I could understand that condition arising out of the freezing temperatures in a high-flying B-17.
- A letter from him dated 20-Aug-45 from Indian Springs, Nevada, telling his parents of his clerical duties as he waits for the army to process him out. He told of a visit to Boulder Dam, telling his father about the 115,000 horsepower generators. Grandfather Evans, VP of Wisconsin Gas and Electric, was known, because of his ability to accumulate many local electrical co-ops in Wisconsin and aggregate them into one utility, as “The Man Who Electrified Rural Wisconsin”.
- A letter from Buckley Field, Colorado, dated 3-Sep-45, saying he’d been assigned to what he called a “student pool”, and thought it odd that so many of his fellow combat returnees should be there, too, as their impression was that students were destined for combat. His training was to be in the Chemical Warfare Service as a Toxic Gas Handler.
- A letter dated 10-Sep, again from Buckley Field, originally, but then crossed out and changed to Lowery Field in Denver, where he talks about some treatments for that arthritic or rheumatoid condition and saying his doctor would have Dad’s life-long gratitude if the medicinal routine he was on helped. To my knowledge Dad never complained to us of any lingering aches or pains, so that military doctor must have known his stuff.
- Another Lowery field letter, this one dated 7-Oct, where he says that although he’s satisfied with his duties, there still wasn’t much chance at a furlough, and that “…my chances to get out of this army haven’t improved in the least. Otherwise, things are getting along splendidly.”
There is little more that I have found – yet – to add to this collection.
Except for one item.
I have a postcard, dated 24-May-1949. It comes from Mrs. Ruby McAfee Shryock, and it is addressed probably to my grandfather, possibly to my father. Mind you, this is FOUR YEARS after my dad’s last mission. The postcard says, simply:
“James’ [ McAfee, pilot, 600th Squadron, tail number 338853L ] body arrived this morning. We are having services for him Sun. May 29 & would like for you to attend.”
( Click this link to see McAfee grave marker application and gravestones )
Don Evans, Sr., my grandfather, retired in 1953 as VP at Wisconsin Gas and Electric and lived until 1970. Don Evans, Jr., my father, retired in 1988 after a career in industrial advertising. Mom, Doris Evans, retired after a career raising a daughter and a son and as an executive secretary.
Mac, Tich, Art, James, you gave up your lives; Haskel, you lost an arm; all you guys from the 398th: thank you for what you did for this country. We can only fractionally repay you by helping tell your stories.
Don Evans and his bride Doris Erickson - June 1945
bride, Yeoman-Petty Officer Second Class Doris Erickson, both of Racine WI,
at their wedding in Milwaukee. Doris was a WAVE for a few years.
Her father was U.S. Navy, an officer on the U.S.S. Connecticut around WWI.
Don's father taught military aeronautics at University of Illinois around 1917.
Don and Doris at their Wedding, June 23, 1945.
Don's Best Man was Paul Krup of Cleveland OH, the McAfee Crew's Radio Operator.
Paul was fresh out of Camp Lucky Strike. He had been shot as he parachuted out of
the stricken fortress, a victim of a ME-262. Easier to smile again once you're Stateside!
Personal History Information
- Veteran: Donald G. Evans, Jr.
- Tail Gunner, 600th Squadron
- Date of Personal History: February 2019
- Author: Don Evans, III - (Son of Donald G. Jr.)
- Submitted to 398th Web Pages by: Don Evans, III