Lucky Bag Yearbook

From the 1948 Lucky Bag:

DEWEY ALLEN ELLIS, JR.

Squeeze . . . squeeze . . . little black spots on a white target … a tattered bull’s-eye . . . Navy wins . . . the captain leads the scorers … a flash of gold in a summer sky . . . use Navy gold inlay … his mouth shines with neon brightness . . . short . . . sharp . . . quick . . . short in step and stature . . . sharp in tongue and wit . . . quick in stride and action … a man to be reckoned with academically . . . watch his nose . . . will give him away every time . . . twitches every time he makes a point . . . wide innocent eyes . . . with a twinkle . . . watch that twinkle . . . trouble . . . trouble boil and bubble . . . women are a snare and a delusion . . . my gad . . . I’m losing hair . . . worrying . . . Navy . . . Navy . . . mister don’t you know you’re not in college . . . forty-eight . . . forty-nine . . . fifty . . . shove off . . . square that corner . . . what day did Ens. J. P. Zilk die? . . . where? . . . come around . . . salt on his foods … in his ears . . . Frisco . . . CINCPAC . . . Bainbridge . . . Fifty-second Street . . . Light Street . . . hiyah, mate . . . have a beer . . . women . . . women . . . tall . . . short . . . but women . . . Hit Parade . . . variety . . . songs of the month . . . The Things We Did Last Summer . . . ouch a voice that’s gone astray . . . corsairs . . . wings of gold . . . oh no . . . not Link trainers … a smiling pilot . . . one stripe . . . two stripes . . . three . . . four . . . forty years … the salt of the water . . . the wind . . . the ships . . . the ports . . . restless soul . . . Dewey Ellis.

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Dewey was twice captain of the rifle team; in 1948 they won the National Intercollegiate Rifle Championship. He graduated from the 7th Company with the class of 1948-B in June 1948. (The top half of the class academically, designated 1948-A, graduated in June 1947 as the last wartime-accelerated class.)

Loss

Dewey was lost in the crash of his PB4Y-2 Privateer aircraft at NAS Argentia, Newfoundland, on October 6, 1952. He was a member of Patrol Squadron (VP) 24¹.

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Dewey graduated in 1941 from Paseo High School. Dewey states simply that he likes anything to do with the Army and backs up his statement thus; he is captain of the rifle team and a captain in the R.O.T.C., and it is his favorite subject. He is president of Sabers and Stripes, and collects guns as a hobby. He was also in the Engineers.

From the Kansas City Star, on October 8, 1952 (via researcher Kathy Franz):

Lieut. Dewey Allen Ellis, jr., 27 years old, a navy patrol bomber pilot and a native of Kansas City, was killed Monday night in Newfoundland when a plane of which he was the pilot overshot a runway and crashed, according to word received today by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Dewey A. Ellis, 5311 Olive street.

Four officers and two enlisted men also were killed in the crash.

Fog Is the Cause.
The lieutenant’s mother said he had been flying weather reconnaissance and patrolling in that area since September 15. She said the plane overshot its runway because of an unexpected heavy fog over the field. The plane did not burn.

When Mr. and Mrs. Ellis last visited their son at his home in Lexington Park, Md., in August, Mrs. Ellis said it was the first time he expressed any misgivings about a mission. He had been in the navy since 1942.

He enlisted in the navy following his graduation from the Paseo high school and one year at the University of Kansas City. He served nine months on a destroyer in the Pacific before his appointment to the naval preparatory academy in Bainbridge, Md.

A year later he was appointed to the Naval academy at Annapolis. He was graduated from there in June, 1948.

Since that time and before his assignment in Newfoundland, he served six months in Malta and six months in French Morocco. He received his flight training at Pensacola, Fla., and Corpus Christi, Tex.

Father of Two.
While stationed in the United States, he had lived with his wife, Mrs. Lenora Irene Ellis, and his two children, Claudia Rochelle Ellis and Dewey Allen Ellis, III, in Lexington Park.

While attending Annapolis he was the first midshipman to act as captain of the varsity rifle team there for two years.

During his senior year at the Paseo high school, Ellis was named the best R. O. T. C. captain in the Kansas City high schools.

He was an Eagle scout and a member of the Mic-O-Say tribe of the Boy Scouts. He was a member of De Molay and the Maywood Baptist church.

He also leaves two sisters, Mrs. Betty Burt, St. Louis, and Miss Marion Ellis, 5311 Olive street; his paternal grandfather, G. W. Ellis of Kansas City, and his maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. E. S. Reynolds, East Lynne, Mo.

His father has been a patrolman for the Kansas City police department the last thirty-two years.

Burial will be in the Naval cemetery at Annapolis.

He was survived by his wife, Lenora Irene “Molly” Hopkins Ellis, who met Dewey when she was stationed at USNA while a member of the WAVES. They had two children: a daughter, Claudia, and a son, Dewey. Both were alive as of Molly’s obituary in 2013; there were also four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren as of that writing.

Photographs

1948-B 7th Company in the Lucky Bag

From the 1948-B Lucky Bag

From The Kansas City Star on October 8, 1952

References