Person:William Phelps (65)

My father was a sergeant in the Army Air Corps during WWII, serving in an air reconnaissance unit in North Africa. Army serial number 19097737. His unit flew the recon version of the P-38 Lightning. According to my cousin Ruth Davis, Ernie Pyle wrote about him in one of his newspaper columns. However, I have looked through Pyle’s columns form his time in North Africa, and I can’t find anything about my father in them. Maybe this is another of Ruthie’s flakey memories.

After the war, he returned home and divorced his first wife. He started seeing my mother about this time; they had evidently known each other in high school, because Dad knew of Mom’s move out to Twentynine Palms when she graduated. Mom’s parents did not much care for my Dad, because he was “Mexican.” Evidently, his being 38% Hispanic was a little much for them. They obviously were not successful in preventing Mom from marrying him.

About 1949, Dad and Mom moved out of Twentynine Palms, first to Colton, then Compton, and finally to Long Beach by 1950. Dad was an architect for a housing builder, Alden Homes, and we moved into a tract house that they built.

WILLIAM S PHELPS 02 May 1916 24 Apr 2000 (V) 83814 (Coeur D Alene, Kootenai, ID) (none specified) 566-01-7806 Californi

1. ↑ Source (102).
2.   Source (38).