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Those Who Died That Others Might Be Free

 

Alan Grant

Date and Place of Birth: February 19, 1918 Virginia
Date and Place of Death: December 29, 1943 Wales, Great Britain
Baseball Experience: Minor League
Position: Pitcher
Rank: First Lieutenant
Military Unit: 334th Bomb Squadron, 95th Bomb Group USAAF
Area Served: European Theater of Operations

His tour of duty with the Eighth Air Force in England had finished and he was on his way home to his wife, but it was a journey he would never complete.

Alan S Grant was born in Virginia on February 19, 1918, but grew up in Chicago and attended Lake View High School. He was an outstanding pitcher for the school team and enrolled at the University of Illinois in the fall of 1937 where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. The stocky young pitcher with the seemingly permanent smile on his face, hurled for the varsity team starting 1939 playing alongside future major leaguers Hoot Evers and Boyd Bartley. By 1941, he was team captain, pitching in six conference games, winning five, and looking likely to pursue a career in professional baseball.

Following his graduation, Grant, 23, signed with the Chicago Cubs organization and was assigned to their Class D South Atlantic League team at Macon. On June 18, 1941, the  Macon Peaches set out for Greenville, South Carolina, on their new team bus with recently signed players – Howard Belknap (a veteran pitcher from St Paul in the American Association) and rookie right-hander Alan S Grant. It was to be his only summer of professional baseball.

On January 24, 1942, Grant married his college sweetheart, Mary Lois Daum. Months later he was serving with the Army Air Force, beginning training as an aviation cadet at Kelly Field, Texas. Grant earned his bombardier wings and commission as a second lieutenant on November 5, 1942, and was assigned to San Angelo Field, Texas, as an instructor.

It wasn’t long before Second Lieutenant Grant put in a request for overseas duty. He was initially assigned to the 19th Bomb Group at Pyote Army Air Field in Texas, before leaving the United States for England, and assignment with the 334th Bomb Squadron, 95th Bomb Group.

 

Based at Horham Airfield in Suffolk, Grant was chief bombardier for the squadron and flew 25 successful, although often life-threatening, missions over enemy territory in a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress.

With his tour of duty complete after three months, recently promoted First Lieutenant Al Grant looked forward to getting home and seeing his wife, Mary Lois who was employed in the University of Illinois Alumni Association office.

 

On December 29, 1944, together with 17 other members of the squadron whose tour of duty was complete, Grant boarded a B-17 Flying Fortress bound for home. As the four-engined bomber made its way west high above England, the weather suddenly deteriora

ted. At the controls was experienced pilot Alden R Witt. But even flying combat missions was no

match for the weather ahead. As the plane approached Cwm mountain in Wales at 2.45pm, visibility was down to less than 100 yards. Disorientated and descending through the heavy cloud, Witt suddenly came face-to-face with the mountain and couldn’t possibly avoid it. The collision was violent. There were two very loud explosions and the destruction immediate. There were no survivors.

It was seven days before his wife, Mary Lois, at the family home in Champaign, Illinois, received the devastating news of her husband’s death. His loss sent shockwaves through the community and, in particular, among his friends and the faculty at the University of Illinois.

“You get to know these fellows pretty well in four years of baseball,” Walter Roettger, his coach at Illinois, told a reporter shortly after Grant’s death. “They don’t come any better than Al. I don’t know when anything has hit me so hard. News like that drives this whole war home to you.”

First Lieutenant Alan S Grant was buried at Cambridge Military Cemetery in England. On January 30, 1944, memorial services were held at Lake View Presbyterian Church in Chicago - the same church where Al and Mary Lois had got married two years before.

 

 

Thanks to Linda Stahnke, Archival Operations and Reference Specialist, University of Illinois for help with this biography.

 

Added July 15, 2006. Updated May 16, 2007.

 

Copyright © 2007 Gary Bedingfield (Baseball in Wartime). All Rights Reserved.