Wilbur W. Mayhew

Foil: 6 Panel: Distinguished Flying Cross Society Column: 1 Line: 39

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

WILBUR W. MAYHEW was bom 17 March 1920 near Yoder, Colorado. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at Fort McDowell,California on 7 October 1940 . He was assigned to the 88th Reconnaissance Squadron, which was attached to the 7th Bombardment Group, at Salt Lake City, Utah .
The entire Group left the United States for duty in the Philippines in November 1941.World War II started when the troopship was nine days southwest of Pearl Harbor. The ship was diverted to Brisbane , Australia, where it arrived 22 December 1941. Another troopship carried the Group toward Java in February 1942 , but Java fell before the ship arrived . The troopship then was directed to India, where it arrived at Karachi ( now Pakistan ) on 12 March 1942. B-17E s began to arrive in late March and Mayhew was assigned to Major Max Fennell's crew as the ball turret gunner.
In late June 1942 , all 17 heavy bombers (12 B-17E s, 4 B-24D s and 1 LB-30 ) of the 7th Bombardment Group were sent to North Africa to try to help stop Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps. Missions were flown from Lydda, Palestine to Tobruk, Libya and after shipping in the Mediterranean.
In early October 1942, Major Fennell's crew was sent back to India (B-24 D) to lead a special mission to the Linsi coal mines in north China. As B-24's did not have ball turrets at that time, Mayhew was a waist gunner. After bombing missions in China and Burma, the crew returned to North Africa ( Abu Sueir, Egypt). Now the crew flew missions in B-24's to many North African targets as well as after shipping in the Mediterranean.
The crew was shot down on a mission to Messina, Sicily on 31 January 1943. The plane limped as far as the island of Malta before it crashed with four wounded gunners aboard.
Mayhew returned to the United States on 12 June 1943, proudly wearing a Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal, Purple Heart, and Presidential Unit Citation with two oak leaf clusters. This around the world trip included 29 countries on 5 continents. He spent the remainder of the war training gunners at B-24 combat crew training schools at Geiger Field in Spokane, Washington, Peterson Field in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and at Mountain Home, Idaho. He was discharged (Technical Sergeant) on 8 September 1945.
Thanks to the G.I. Bill, Mayhew attended the University of California, Berkeley, from which he received B.A. (1948), M.A. (1951), and Ph.D. (1953) degrees. He was an original faculty member at the new Riverside campus of the University of California in 1954. He retired as a Professor of Zoology from U.C.R. in 1990. In 1994 the Regents of the University of California named a building in his honor. The Mayhew Building is a dormitory for visiting scientists on the Philip L. Boyd Deep Canyon Desert Research Center near Palm Desert, California.