George Franklin Priest

George F. Priest was born in Denver, Colorado on 27 May 1923. He was the second child of Fred and Alice Priest – two years behind his big brother Elbert Raymond “Ray” Priest. A third brother, Irving, arrived in 1931.

The Priest boys spent much of their childhood in Denver, then moved to Oakland, California in the late 1930s. Ray and George both attended Fremont High School (classes of 1939 and 1941) and lived quite ordinary lives with jobs, dates, and trips to the movies with their kid brother.

Irving recalled one particular trip to the movies with George in December 1941. They were settling in for a Great War picture (Irving recalled the title as “Wings of Glory; he may have meant the 1938 picture “Men With Wings”) when the lights came on. The theater manager stepped onto the stage and announced the attack on Pearl Harbor.

George and Ray decided to enlist immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor. On 5 January 1942, the brothers reported to a San Francisco recruiting station to join the Marine Corps. They received sequential service numbers – 345512 and 345513 – and were soon on their way to San Diego for boot camp.

From the very first, the brothers were seemingly joined at the hip. Both were selected for aviation training, and both attended radio school in Jacksonville, Florida. According to their younger brother Irving, the Priests both hoped to become pilots and were undergoing training at Camp Kearney, but had their plans cut short by deployment to the Pacific.

Even overseas, George and Ray stuck close together. Both were assigned to VMSB-141, a scout-bomber squadron of the First Marine Air Wing, as radioman/gunners in Dauntless dive bombers. They shipped out from San Diego on 1 September 1942 and arrived at Noumea after a long sea voyage. There, they were temporarily separated – Elbert deployed to Guadalcanal on 29 September; George followed on 8 October.

So closely were the brothers linked that they even received promotions to corporal on the same day – 5 October 1942. The squadron’s clerks had difficulty telling the Corporals Priest apart and occasionally confused the two in muster rolls and official records.

Early on the morning of 10 Octoher 1942, the Cactus Air Force assembled a large strike force – 45 fighters and bombers – to search out and strike Japanese ships reported in the vicinity of New Georgia. VMSB-141 contributed seven planes to the attack, including an SBD-3 (BuNo 06511) flown by 2Lt. Lucius Skinner Smith III. Corporal George Priest manned the rear guns and radio.

En route to the target, Smith noticed his engine running rough and descended to a lower altitude in case of an emergency landing. Before he could touch down, the engine exploded and knocked him unconscious. Smith woke up in the water and managed to escape from the wrecked plane before it sank. He searched for George Priest, but saw no sign of the radioman.

Lieutenant Smith managed to swim to a nearby island, and was eventually rescued and returned to flight duty. The squadron sent numerous planes in search of George Priest, but to no avail. One of these missions may have claimed the life of Ray Priest; he vanished along with his pilot, 2Lt. Robert C. LeBlanc, on 15 October 1942.

In December, an Oakland radio station broadcast the news that a Priest boy was missing in action. A friend of the family telephoned Fred and Alice Priest in Redwood City. The Priests drove sixty miles back to Oakland and, not knowing which telegram office was holding their message, split up to search. When they reconvened, they found they had lost both of their sons.

George Priest was declared dead on 11 October 1943. Ray followed on 19 February 1945.

CENOTAPHS
Golden Gate National Cemetery
Manila American Cemetery and Memorial