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 Major
(USAF Res. Retired)
John Maclain Reeves, (1917-2002) was born
on the 20 July 1917 in
Minneapolis, Minnesota to Joseph and Laura Handahl. After giving birth, the
young mother left him there at
the maternity hospital since he was born two years before they married. The
nurses called him "Buster", according to the social worker. At the age of
six weeks, "Buster" was put in the care of Alma (Wachholz) and John Maclain
Reeves who then legally adopted him 18 months later. The Reeves' were
divorced when John was 4 or 5 years old, and Alma took John to Milwaukee,
Wisconsin where they lived with her sister for a while. She then later
married Harold Kilpatrick and he and Alma were the only parents John really
knew. They gave him a good home, and John said he had many pleasant
memories of them.
John attended a Lutheran parochial school during
his elementary grades and Boys Technical School for his high school years. After graduating from
Boy's Tech in May 1935 he
performed a few odd jobs in
Milwaukee. One was working as a clerk for John Pritzlaff
Wholesale Hardware Company performing general office work and making and
filing reports. Another was working as a machinist apprentice for
Cutler-Hammer Manufacturing Corporation operating hand tools in the
construction of electrical appliances. Beginning in 1937, he attended night
school at the University of Wisconsin (1937-1939) and One (1) year at the
University of Michigan (1940) majoring in Forestry.
"War was imminent" John said, so he chose to
enlisted in the year-long Aviation Cadet program instead of being drafted.
After a short bit of pilot training in St. Louis, he
attended the Pan American Aerial Observer (Navigation) school at the
University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida. At his graduation on the 13 September 1941, [orders]
he not only got his "wings" but Hazel
Mae Dallman got her engagement ring! He was appointed as a Second Lieutenant the same date.
Instead
of going to Pearl Harbor, where one-third of the cadets went and where
several of his buddies were killed, John taught navigation for 3-1/2 years
at Mather Field in Sacramento, California. One month before Pearl Harbor,
John and Hazel were married (7 November 1941) at Fair Oaks, California. As a
Navigation Instructor he held such titles as Adjunct, Echelon Commander,
Research Officer, and Instrument Training Officer in San Marcos, Texas. He
was promoted to First Lieutenant on the 17 November 1942. [orders]
 John
said they finally caught up with him and he was shipped overseas to the
South Pacific theater after a six-week course in air-sea rescue training in
Pensacola, Florida. He spent
eleven (11) months as a Squadron Navigator in the PBY (OA-10A)
Catalina, flying seventy-five (75) combat missions totaling six hundred
seventeen (617) hours. [certificate] He was promoted to First Lieutenant in the permanent
Reserve in September 1944. [orders] On the
23 December 1944,
while on the island of Morotai, a Japanese plane dropped a 110 pound bomb in
the Squadron area. The blast killed two (2) 2nd Emergency Officers outright and
wounded nine (9) others. John had a piece of shrapnel hit him in his cheek
and come out his chin. His teeth had to be wired back together!
He was awarded the Purple Heart.
[orders] On the
04 March 1945, John was the Navigator
on a mission that rescued three (3) B-25 crews consisting of seventeen (17)
men. He was awarded the Silver
Star [Extract][Full
orders]
for this mission. John stayed in the Air Force Reserve and was promoted to Captain in 1954,
and then Major in 1960. His other awards and decorations include the
Air
Medal, (5 OLC) the Philippine Liberation
Medal, and WWII Victory Medal.
Upon returning to the States and being
dischaged from active duty
in January 1946, he used the G.I. Bill and re-enrolled at the University of Michigan and graduated
in the summer of 1946 with a Bachelor's Degree in Forestry. John began working for the Milwaukee County
Forestry & Landscape Department on
1 July 1946 as an arborist III which was their top working supervisor
category. He was head forester over five (5) crews and fifty-five (55) men. He retired
early in 1972 after more than twenty-seven (27) years of service due to
multiple bypass heart surgery.
In 1962, John and Hazel bought an
Airstream trailer and traveled to many states, plus Canada and Mexico. They
belonged to the Wally Byam Caravan Club of Airstream trailer owners and
attended many of their excursions and rallies. They spent seventeen (17)
winters in Florida after retirement. Parts of the summers were spent at
their lot at Fountain Lake Land Yacht Park near Waupaca, Wisconsin, along
with 131 other lot owners. They sold their trailer and van in the fall of
1993 and planned to travel by bus or plane. They enjoyed bus tours,
musicals, and made more than one trip to Las Vegas for their wedding
anniversaries. John said he had not been a "couch potato" after retirement,
having jobs such as delvering cars for a Lincoln-Mercury dealership, working
at Koss Electronic Earphone Manufacturers, and driving a forklift at a
plastics factory. He even had a job as a home sitter and pet watcher for
those on vacation or just away from their homes for a time. He said he had
to talk to 150 plants once while their owner was away in Europe! He even had
to sleep with a 120 pound Alaskan Husky who woke him up at 0530 by putting
his huge paw on his arm and holding john's underpants in his mouth! Luckily
John was a lover of dogs, having raised Boston Terriers and having taught
obedience training.
John and Hazel had two (2) children, Carol
(Dwyer) born in 1943, and David born in 1946. John loved to fish (even ice
fish!) and played lots of board games. He passed away on the 16 May 2002 in
Milwaukee at the age of eighty-four (84) from heart disease. [See John's
Personnel Records]
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