John Sidney Revelle Jr. (April 6, 1918-October 16, 1944)

763rd Bombardment Squadron, 460th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force

By Autumn Brinkmeier and Sarah Bousfield

Early Life

John Sidney Revelle Jr. was born on April 6, 1918 in Lakeland, FL to parents John Sr. and Lillie Revelle.¹ By the time of John Jr.’s birth, the Revelle family had lived in northern Florida for at least half a century. His paternal great-grandfather, Sydney Eli Revelle, lived in Wakulla County in 1860.² Sydney Eli served in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War and died at the Battle of the Wilderness, fought in Spotsylvania County, VA, in May 1864.³ John Jr.’s paternal grandfather, Oscar, worked as a farmer, likely of cotton, which proved a popular crop in northern Florida since before the Civil War.⁴ On December 29, 1881, a few years before John Sr.’s birth, Oscar became a US Postmaster for the city of Sopchoppy, in Wakulla County, FL, a position he served in for about one year.⁵ Appointed by government officials in Washington, DC, postmasters managed incoming and outgoing mail in their city.⁶ Such an appointment suggests that the Revelle family had some political standing in their community throughout the decades following the Civil War.

John Sr. was born on December 27, 1884, and grew up in Leon County, also in northern Florida, with his parents and seven siblings.⁷ By the time John Sr. reached sixteen years old, in 1900, he and his older brother Chandler had left school to become farm laborers alongside their father, Oscar.⁸ Ten years later, in 1910, John Sr. worked as a salesman in a store, still in Leon County.⁹ Sometime before 1914, he met his wife Lillie. The two began to grow their family, and John Jr., their third child, was born April 6, 1918 behind two older sisters, Doryth (born c. 1914) and Wilhelmenia (born c. 1916).¹⁰

While living in Arcadia, FL, John Sr. registered for the draft on September 12, 1918, during the closing months of World War I, though he did not serve in the military.¹¹ John Jr. had reached just five months old at the time. In 1920, now living with his family in Osceola County, FL, John Sr. worked as a superintendent for the Dixie Highway.¹² One of the earliest proposed highways in the US, the Dixie Highway aimed to connect Miami, FL with Chicago, IL via thousands of miles of road.¹³ At a time when Americans could acquire affordable automobiles in increasing numbers, John Sr. contributed to the changing notions of transportation during this period. By the time John Jr. turned 12 years old in 1930, though, the family had moved to Gainesville City, FL, where his father worked as a gasoline salesman.¹⁴ This change in employment likely owed to the fact that most of the construction of the Dixie Highway system had been completed by 1927, when the organizational and promotional body known as the Dixie Highway Association disbanded.¹⁵ In 1930, another daughter, Elizabeth (nicknamed Betty), joined the Revelle family.¹⁶ By 1935, when John Jr. was seventeen, the family had moved even farther north to Madison County, FL, where John Sr. returned to working as a farmer.¹⁷ The proximity of Madison County to Leon County, where John Sr. grew up, suggests that this move may have been out of desire to live closer to family and find work in the midst of the Great Depression.

In 1936, John Jr. graduated from Madison High School and afterward worked as a firefighter.¹⁸ This choice of employment remains a strong indicator of John’s inclination to serve his community, and foreshadows his future decision to join the armed forces to protect his country. On September 16, 1940, as the war in Europe elapsed one year, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, instituting the first peacetime draft in the nation’s history.¹⁹ Although the US did not officially enter the Second World War until December 1941, they began to offer military aid and supplies to European Allies beginning in September 1940 as they prepared for the possibility of a larger conflict.²⁰ One month later, on October 16, 1940, John Jr. registered for the draft in Madison, FL. At the time of his registration, he stood just over five feet, ten inches tall, and had blue eyes with blonde hair.²¹ By 1941, John had met Ruth Petree of Madison, FL. Like himself, Ruth hailed from a farming family.²² On February 5, 1941, John and Ruth married in Hamilton County, FL.²³

Military Service

In December of 1943, John joined the US Army Air Force (AAF).²⁴ Throughout training, the AAF subjected airmen to a battery of tests to determine their best placement within the service. In John’s case, he performed well in mechanical batteries and showed an aptitude for Morse Code. Because of his performance and physical stature, the AAF designated him to train as an aircraft radio operator.²⁵ In the final years of the war, training remained intense even as it took place over a shorter period of time. Radio operators adapted to new technology and procedural adjustments, based on lessons learned in combat overseas. In addition to learning how to operate a radio, maintain it, and communicate effectively through it, since John trained to serve in a bomber aircraft, he learned how to operate machine guns to defend his aircraft. Trainees practiced on each type of gun in order to be prepared for any bomber assignment and gun location within the aircraft. During these training simulations, John learned how to account for air resistance and drifting bullets during flight. He also participated in drills to identify friendly and enemy aircraft by silhouette and style, how to shoot with low visibility and freezing temperatures, and learned about oxygen safety for high altitudes.²⁶

After he completed his training, John received his assignment as a radio operator for the B-24 Liberator within the 763rd Bombardment Squadron, 460th Bombardment Group, 15th Air Force.²⁷ The B-24 was a four-engined, heavy bomber. It had a longer range, higher speed, and heavier bomb payload than the B-17 Flying Fortress.²⁸ A crew of ten operated the B-24. In addition to flying their aircraft, communication, and delivering bombs on targets, when under attack, the aircrew stepped away from their primary roles and defended their plane from six gun positions: the nose, tail, top, and bottom turrets, as well as two points at the waist of the aircraft.²⁹

The AAF activated the 460th Bombardment Group in July 1943. The group trained in New Mexico, Utah, Georgia, and Orlando, FL through the remainder of 1943. The 460th received orders to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations and deployed to Spinazzola, Italy in January 1944.³⁰ Due to the cold and snow during the winter months, and the mud during the warmer parts of the year, the men constructed temporary buildings in place of tents for housing at their airbase near Spinazzola, which eventually grew into what they affectionately called Bomber City. The base also included an Officer’s Club nicknamed The Panther’s Lair (after the 460th’s insignia, a Black Panther), and a barn converted into a chapel and movie theater. The men enjoyed occasional entertainment on base, including traveling artists from the US and dice games in The Panther’s Lair. On nights with no missions the following day (referred to as a Stand Down), crews often spent the night celebrating, and the following morning sleeping in.³¹ The servicemen often visited the town of Spinazzola, which sat about eight miles away from the airbase.³² Though John could not have joined his squadron when they initially deployed in January 1944, as he had entered service just one month earlier, he likely joined his comrades as a replacement sometime after the unit arrived at the airbase in Spinazzola.

Throughout 1944, the 460th Bombardment Group flew missions deep into enemy territory in France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Greece, and Italy.³³ After each mission, ground crews had a tradition of adding a bomb symbol to each bomber and swastikas for each enemy plane destroyed; this boosted crew morale and served as a visual to track each crew’s accomplishments. The men also joined together post-mission to enjoy coffee and doughnuts as they debriefed the mission.³⁴ Notably, on July 25, 1944, the 460th Bomb Group flew a successful mission into Austria, despite bad weather and enemy attacks. Following the mission, the US War Department awarded the group the Distinguished Unit Citation for “outstanding performance in bombing the Zwolfaxing Airdrome in Vienna.”³⁵ During his time with the 460th, John flew a total of twenty-seven combat missions and nineteen sorties.³⁶ He also received the Air Medal for meritorious achievement in aerial flight for his actions during missions and, by October 1944, earned the rank of staff sergeant (SSgt).³⁷

John S. Revelle, Jr. and Crew of Ashcan Charlie

On October 16, 1944, John, as the assistant radio operator and nose turret gunner, along with a crew of nine other airmen set out on a bombing mission aboard a plane named Ashcan Charlie.³⁸ John’s crew during this mission included 2nd Lt. Roger B. Berry, pilot, of Birmingham, AL; 2nd Lt. Gaines R. Stuart, co-pilot, of Decatur, AL; 2nd Lt. Ralph G. King, navigator, of Attleboro, MA; 2nd Lt. William J. Higbee, bombardier, of Long Island, NY; SSgt. Hugh H. Brewer, engineer and top turret gunner, of Chattanooga, TN; SSgt. Nicholas M. Beallias, radio operator and waist gunner, of New York, NY; SSgt. Mark B. Phillips, assistant engineer and waist gunner, of Andrews, NC; SSgt. Norman S. Berman, armorer and ball turret gunner, of Long Island, NY; and SSgt. Roy F. Kragel, assistant armorer and tail turret gunner, of Latimer, IA, all seen on the Missing Air Crew Report here. Alongside forty-two other bomber aircraft, the Ashcan Charlie flew toward the Graz-Neudorf Aircraft Factory in St. Valentine, Austria. ³⁹

During the mission, the 460th Bombardment Group joined up with the 485th Bombardment Group and successfully bombed three buildings that stood as part of the Graz-Neudorf Aircraft Factory. While over the target, the Allied aircraft encountered flak and enemy planes. Unfortunately, Ashcan Charlie took a direct hit from this anti-aircraft flak which caused the aircraft to burst into flames.⁴⁰ SSgt. Lawrence F. Logan, flying in another plane beside Ashcan Charlie, later reported that John and his crew had just moved into a vulnerable position at the rear of the group’s flying formation when the plane exploded and disintegrated in the air.⁴¹ John and seven of his crewmates died as a result of the explosion. When asked if John bailed out of his plane following the attack, a fellow airman shared, “I don’t think he had a chance.”⁴² Of the ten men aboard the plane, however, SSgt. Phillips and SSgt. Kragel survived the crash, bailing out over enemy territory in Austria. German troops captured them and they spent the rest of the war in POW camps.⁴³ German military personnel initially buried John’s remains in Klagenfurt War Cemetery, near Oberadkersberg, Austria, a cemetery reserved for killed Allied airmen and victims from nearby concentration camps.⁴⁴ After the war, Allied military personnel moved John’s remains to a cemetery in Saint-Avold, France, which later became the American Battle Monuments Commission’s Lorraine American Cemetery.⁴⁵

Legacy

The 460th Bomb Group flew nearly one hundred more missions following John’s death on October 16, 1944. The group flew its last mission on April 26, 1945.⁴⁶ In the years after World War II, the 460th Bomb Group Association, with the goal to remember those who served with the group, erected a number of memorials commemorating Veterans like John. One stands at the US Air Force Academy in El Paso County, CO, and another in the Memorial Park of the National Museum of the US Air Force in Riverside, Ohio.⁴⁷ Prior to its inactivation from service in the Second World War in September 1945, the 460th assisted with the transportation of troops from Europe back home to the US. The 460th Bomb Group transformed as it reactivated in 1966 to fly reconnaissance missions during the Vietnam War. In 2004, the military redesignated the group as the 460th Space Wing, and since December 2019, it has operated as part of the US Space Force.⁴⁸

1946 Greensboro, NC City Directory for Ruth Revelle

John was survived by his wife, parents, and siblings. In 1946, his widow Ruth lived in Greensboro, NC, where she worked as a clerk in a store, seen on the city directory here.⁴⁹ John’s parents, Lillie and John Sr., relocated to Jacksonville, FL with his sisters Betty and Wilhelmenia sometime before 1947.⁵⁰ Both of his sisters Betty and Doryth had a child by 1950. The two of them, their husbands, and their children all lived with Lillie and John Sr. under the same roof in Jacksonville. Betty and her husband named their son John, likely both as a continuation of the family name and to commemorate the family’s lost son and brother.⁵¹ In this way, John S. Revelle Jr.’s legacy continues to live on through his family.

John’s mother Lillie passed away in 1954, at the age of sixty-two, while his father lived to the age of eighty-eight, dying in 1973.⁵² Though John died at only 26 years old, his impact and bravery in the air during the Second World War persists through his memory. In November 1949, John’s remains returned from Europe aboard the USAT Private Francis X. McGraw as part of the World War II Return of the Dead Program.⁵³ This government-funded program allowed families the option to repatriate their loved ones’ remains from overseas to be buried closer to home.⁵⁴ On December 2, 1949, John S. Revelle Jr.’s family laid him to rest in St. Augustine National Cemetery, in St. Augustine, FL. He now remains there among his fellow Veterans in section C, plot 81.⁵⁵

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