Scott County the Beginning
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Pvt. Francis Allen,
KIA in Germany
Francis Allen was born in Scott County in March 4, 1921, he enlisted in the US Army on July 12, 1940 at Fort Jackson, Columbia, South Carolina. He was assigned to Co. G 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. At the time of his death the Division was fighting from Belgium across the German border. He was wounded on January 29, 1945 and died the next day, January 30, 1945.
Pvt. Francis Allen is burried at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium.
First Lt, Wm. -George Keen, U.S. A. F.
Born Oct. 2, 1912, Huntsville, Scott County, TN died July 13, 2007, Cookeville, Putnam County, TN. Buried in Ocala, Florida. Married to Elisabeth Wolfrum, 1951. Father of a daughter, Angela Norman, born in England, 1945. Keen was a U.S. Army Air Force veteran of World War II, serving for five years as a commissioned officer assigned to intelligence activities, 387th Bomb Group. For four years after the war he was assigned to the Office of Military Government for Germany. He then worked for the U.S. Department of State as a diplomat, serving as a U.S. Consul in Trinidad-Tobago, Portugal, Switzerland and Italy until his retirement in 1965. Afterward he worked for U.S. Customs in Miami, Florida.
Major,Charles Willard Keen, U.S. Army
Born July 16, 1916, Huntsville, Scott County, TN died April 29, 1984, at his home in Chattanooga, TN Married to Betty Dosser, he had two daughters. Keen was a veteran of both World War II (beginning active duty April 14, 1942) and the Korean War, serving in the Army for 14 years. He was company commander, 7th Armored Division Headquarters Co. He left the Army with the rank of Major. He received the Purple Heart for a gunshot wound to his left forearm sustained in northern France in 1944.
Vernon W. Duncan, KIA WWII in the South Pacific
Vernon Duncan was born in Scott County June 22, 1919 and was the son of Walter and Orlena (Byrge) Duncan. He was assigned to the US Air Force during WWII in the South Pacific Theatre. He was based out of Saipan in the Marianas Islands and was with the 878th Bombardment Squadron, 499th Bombardment Group, on a B-29 nicknamed Star Duster. On March 24, 1945 the group reveals that the last contact with the Stat Duster was When it departed Sai pan, Marianas Islands at 1818 hours, on a combat mission to Nagoya, Japan. Two of the crew members M-Sgt Manuel Fernandez, Jr and PFC. Lewis E. Johnson were reportedly killed in action on the basis of reports of burial stating that they were killed in a plane crash at Nagakute-Mura, Honshu, Japan. Japanese witnesses to the crash stated that the plane caught fire in the air and exploded on impact with the ground. One man was seen parachuting from the burning plane, but his parachute failed to open. Since only one unidentified member of the crew, who failed to survive was known to have bailed out, it is evident that the remaining eight members of the crew was still in the burning aircraft when it struck the ground and exploded. It is possible that following the explosion insufficient remains were collectible to establish the existence of nine bodies or that the remains of the crew which were interred by the Japanese were in such an incomplete state that it was not possible to establish the number of bodies upon subsequent disenternment.
Vernon W. Duncan was interred with the other six members of the crew at the Fort McPherson National Cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Claude Bernard Phillips
Hero of Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941
Claude Bernard Phillips who earned the Silver Star for shooting down a Japanese plane on Dec. 7, 1941. Phillips received numerous awards, including the Distinguished Flying Cross and Presidential Unit Citation. His “extraordinary heroism” also earned him a Distinguished Service Cross for his actions on July 31, 1942. As a bombardier on a reconnaissance and photographic mission, Phillips helped man guns and fend off an attack by enemy aircraft near Wake Island. Born in Oneida, Tenn., in 1916, Phillips came to Hawaii in 1937 as a private in the Army Air Corps. He rose to the rank of in 1937 as a private in the Army Air Corps. He rose to the rank of major before retiring from the Air Force 27 years later in 1964. Phillips flew 84 combat missions during the war in the South Pacific.
“I’m still in shock of being thought of as a hero,” Phillips told a reporter at his 1997 induction into the Gallery of Heroes at the U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii. “It makes me feel very honored.”
On Dec. 7, 1941, the day that started it all, Phillips is credited with shooting down an enemy plane over then-Hickam Air Field. “He grabbed a machine gun off a B-17 bomber that was damaged in the attack and used the machine gun to shoot down an enemy aircraft,” said Maj. Stephen Clutter, Hickam Air Force Base spokesman. “We certainly count him as one of our heroes here at Hickam.”
Sylvia, Phillips’ wife, said he was a humble man. He would “tell the same story every time, he never embellished it,” she said. “But he was proud of his (citations) and proud of serving his country.” He is ,also survived by son Robert Phillips of Louisiana; daughter Geraldine Yoder of Ohio; eight grandchildren; several great-grandchildren; and sisters Selma McGibney of Ohio, Lucille Wright of Georgia and Ottie Sexton, Delphia Baldwin and Edna Heth of Tennessee. Phillips died in 2001 at the age of 85 and was buried with full military honors at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.