Memorial Day ceremoniesat Hill museum

  • Published
  • By Charles Gilmore
  • Utah Hall of Fame administrator
HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah --  Hill Aerospace Museum will feature two very different Memorial Day opportunities to remember those who served the nation in both war and peace.

The Aerospace Heritage Foundation of Utah and Pioneer Flight, Order of Daedalians, will hold a memorial service at 9:30 a.m. at the Hill Aerospace Museum's Mazer Memorial Chapel. This year's program will speak to Utah's lost warriors and will be a tribute to Col. Nathan Mazer, U.S. Air Force, an honorary member of Pioneer Flight to whom the museum's Memorial Chapel was rededicated. This will be followed at 11 a.m. by a Memorial Day induction of the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame's newest member in the Hill Aerospace Museum's Lindquist-Stewart Fighter Gallery.

Lt. Wendell Van Twelves, deceased, a World War II U.S. Navy fighter pilot who served in the Central Pacific Theater of Operations from April through November 1944 and then two tours aboard carriers in the Korean War in 1950, will become the 25th member to have his name formally added to the museum's collection of aviators featured in the Utah Aviation Hall of Fame. Twelves was an ace with 13 enemy aircraft to his credit and was also credited with helping to sink a Japanese aircraft carrier.

The Spanish Fork native served with distinction aboard the aircraft carrier USS Essex, earning six Distinguished Flying Crosses, eight Air Medals and one Purple Heart as an F6F Hellcat fighter pilot against Japanese forces in the Central Pacific. He claimed his aerial victories during "The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" in June 1944 and during the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea between September and November 1944. He was awarded the U.S. Navy's second highest award for bravery, the Navy Cross, for pressing forward an attack on the Japanese aircraft carrier Zuikaku and placing a bomb directly on its flight deck. His unit, Fighting Squadron 15, received the Presidential Unit Citation because of the actions of Twelves and his fellow pilots.

Twelves served a year of sea duty flying the new F8F Bearcat fighter with Fighting Squadron 19, and flew Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star fighters as chase planes at the Naval Air Missile Test Center, in Point Mugu, Calif.

Rear Adm. (Ret.) Jeremy Taylor, U.S. Navy, will be the featured speaker for the induction ceremony of Twelves at the Hill Aerospace Museum. Twelves' son, Van Twelves, of Gastonbury, Conn., will also speak.

For more information about the ceremony at the Mazer Chapel, contact Col. (Ret.) Pete Miner at (801) 390-5379 or via e-mail at pioneerflight32@msn.com.

For more information about the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, contact Maj. (Ret.) Pat Gilmore at (801) 298-8597 or via e-mail at cpatg47@gmail.com.