Rank and Name, Seaman First Class Hyrum Lewis Allwyn.
Unit/Placed in, USS Sangamon (CVE-26) Carrier (former Oiler), United States Naval Reserve.
Hyrum is born approx. on May 20, 1925 in Lehi, Utah.
Father, Bruce L. Allen.
Mother, Mary E. (Clark) Allen .
Brother(s), Bruce C. and Richard Allyn.
Hyman enlisted the service in California with service number # 5652044.
A returning fighter failed to hook a wire on landing, broke through the barriers, and crashed into parked planes on the forward flight deck. Its belly tank, torn loose, skidded forward, spewing flaming fuel. Fire soon spread among the planes.
When the fires were under control. Seven of the crew died in those eight minutes.
Hyman was KIA on Jan.25, 1944, he is honored with a Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, Good Conduct Medal, Expeditionary Medal, American Campaign Medal, Distinguished Unit Citation, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, WW II Victory Medal.
Hyman is buried/mentioned at Honolulu Memorial, Honolulu County, Hawaii U.S.A.
Courts of the missing.
Thanks to, http://www.navsource.org/archives/03/026.htm
Jean Louis Vijgen, WW2-Pacific Website.
Air Force Info, Rolland Swank.
ABMC Website, https://abmc.gov
Navy Info, http://navylog.navymemorial.org
POW Info, http://www.mansell.com Dwight Rider and Wes injerd.
Family Info, https://www.familysearch.org
Marines Info, https://missingmarines.com/ Geoffrey Roecker
Medals Info, https://www.honorstates.org
Philppine Info, http://www.philippine-scouts.org/
Find a Grave, https://www.findagrave.com
Three incidents distinguished this operation from the preceding ones. The first was a fire. On January 25th, still far from Kwajalein, the ship along with the others of her division broke away from Task Force 53 to operate independently throughout the day. Everything proceeded in the usual fashion until late afternoon. At 1651 a fighter plane came into the landing circle, received a cut, floated up the flight deck, caught no arresting wires, broke through the barriers and crashed into planes parked forward. Its belly tank, filled with 150 gallons, ripped loose and scattered flaming fuel among the parked planes. Fire raged generally. The flames ran aft for 90 feet along the flight deck’s starboard side and whipped up over the bridge making ship control extremely difficult. The carrier was swung out of the wind so the fire could be fought and it was brought under control. Bernard Levene QM 3/c was at the helm and remained there to control the ships direction. Eight men died in the Page 12 crash and seven were injured seriously. Fifteen men jumped over the side to escape the flames and all but two were subsequently picked up.
Temporary repairs were made at sea. It was not uncommon to have some type of accident when landing aircraft. There were men standing by in fire suits for every landing. There was a special vehicle for picking up planes that went onto the catwalk. It was called a “cherry picker”. They also had jeeps for moving the planes about the flight and hanger decks. On launching operations, there were times when planes would not have enough speed and they would go into the sea. Destroyers would pick up the crew if they survived. In one case a pilot died shortly after landing his badly damaged plane. The Captain had them strip the plane of all-important parts and then pushed the plane over the side with the pilot in it for burial.
