Wyatte J. Gay – Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air Force

NOTE: following are two separate items from a newspaper following the death of my father, Wyatte J. Gay.)

  THE MILTON PRESS GAZETTE, Milton, Florida, September 9, 1976 OBITUARY column:

Lt. Col Wyatte Justice Gay, 57, of Route 4, Milton died Friday morning, September 3, 1976, at the Pensacola Naval Air Station Hospital after surgery following a lengthy illness.

Colonel Gay was a native of Milton, West Virginia. He was a retired US Air Force pilot and a veteran of WW II. It was thought he was the last plane shot down in WW II, and he was held as a prisoner of war for approximately one month.

He was a member of the Methodist Church, the Retired Officers Association, The Navy League, the American Legion and was a Disabled American Veteran.

Colonel Gay was preceeded in death by his wife, Wanda M. Gay, of Knoxville, Tennessee. Survivors include his widow, Mrs. Ruby Cannon Gay of Milton; four daughters, Darien S. Bacon of Alamosa, Colo; Peggy G. Marion of Northport, Al: Mary
Sandra Gay of Newport, Va. and Cynthia L. West of Pensacola; one step-son, Louis R. Jernigan of Milton; one brother, James H Gay of Hampton, Va, and five grandchildren.

Funeral services were held Sunday in the Whiting Field, Naval Air Station Chapel.

Burial was in the Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, September 6, 1976, with full military honors.

Michael Robert Patterson

Michael Robert Patterson was born in Arlington and is the son of a former officer of the US Army. So it was no wonder that sooner or later his interests drew him to American history and especially to American military history. Many of his articles can be found on renowned portals like the New York Times, Washingtonpost or Wikipedia.

Reviewed by: Michael Howard