Just 11 months before World War II ended, a U.S. Army twin-engine B-26 bomber crashed in the village of Blackmore in Essex, England. Four American airmen aboard the Baby Doll III were killed. On Tuesday, Sept. 24, that flight crew was honored—80 years later to the day—at a memorial service in St. Louis.
The service at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery paid respect to the Jewish navigator of the plane, 1st Lt. Frank I. Yawitz, at his gravesite. An earlier service was held on Sept. 22 in Essex at a war memorial.
Both services were hosted and planned by chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Cynthia Woller, a DAR member, planned the local event with Jewish War Veterans Post 644. She said it was important to remember and honor the service of veterans like Yawitz.
“This young man gave his life for our country, and we need to remember and honor him as we do all veterans,” she said.
Yawitz was 28 years old when the Baby Doll III crashed. He had previously earned the Air Medal for heroism and the Purple Heart following a combat injury. He was born in St. Louis to a Jewish family that emigrated there during the Russian pogroms.
The other members of his fight crew are buried in Hartford, Conn.; and Cambridge, England.
Woller received a stone from the crash site and war memorial in England, which she brought to the service and gave to Greg Yawitz, former Jewish Federation of St. Louis board chair and current vice chair of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum. At the conclusion of the service, Yawitz placed the stone on the grave of his distant cousin. The great-grandfather of the fallen Yawitz was Greg Yawitz’s great-great-great-grandfather.
“It’s great that people still remember and honor the sacrifice that was made for this country 80 years ago,” he said. “The fact that I was invited as a distant relative and given the honor to place the stone, it was very meaningful that my family has this connection, and that it’s kept alive through the work of the DAR that we don’t forget.”
Rabbi Menachem Tendler, head rabbi at U. City Shul, officiated the ceremony. He said it was our duty to honor veterans like the lieutenant.
“It’s Frank and people like him who assured that we can stand here today and smile, and be comfortable and be secure that we have live in such a wonderful country,” Tendler said. “This is the Jewish way to remember, and be grateful and show gratitude, knowing that people made sacrifices on our behalf.”
