 |
NAME Benjamin Cunningham Yancey Fuller |
NICKNAME Yancey |
SERVICE NUMBER O-6429 |
|
| UNIT VMD-154 Pilot |
HOME OF RECORD 704 A Avenue, Coronado, CA originally Tallahassee, FL |
NEXT OF KIN Wife, Mrs. Marie M. Fuller |
||
| DATE OF BIRTH ~1913 |
ENTERED SERVICE 1938 – 1940 (US Army) February 15, 1940 |
DATE OF LOSS February 7, 1943 |
||
| REGION Vanuatu (New Hebrides) |
CAMPAIGN / AREA Espiritu Santo |
CASUALTY TYPE Killed In Action |
||
| CIRCUMSTANCES OF LOSS Captain Benjamin Fuller was a pilot assigned to VMD-154, a Marine reconnaissance squadron based in the New Hebrides Islands. At just after 0400 hours on 7 February 1943, Fuller’s plane – PB4Y-1 BuNo 31958 – took off from Espiritu Santo for the first leg of a planned photographic mission to Truk. The aircraft barely cleared the coastline before it plunged into the sea 600 yards offshore of the airstrip, sinking into 94 fathoms of water. The entire crew was killed in the incident. None of their remains could be recovered. |
||||
| INDIVIDUAL DECORATIONS Purple Heart |
LAST KNOWN RANK Captain |
STATUS OF REMAINS Not recovered |
MEMORIALS National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific |
|
Biography:
Coming soon. Contact the webmaster for more information about this Marine.
NOTE: First Lieutenant Harold Welch Ervin, USAAF, was a passenger on Fuller’s aircraft.
He was also killed, and has not been accounted for.
Articles & Records:
Captain Yancey Fuller was a 1st cousin of my father, Fred Yancey Jr., also of Umatilla, FL. His dress Marine photo was proudly displayed in my grandfather’s home in Umatilla, FL. My grandfather’s younger sister, Lucy, was his mother. When I visited the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, I was amazed to see that the manikin in the WWII uniform, had “Fuller” as the name badge on his uniform. The WWII exhibit commemorated WWII Pacific warfare and the manikin in the pilot’s seat was in an an aircraft of WWII.