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Casualty Info
Home Town Mobile, AL
Last Address 2606 Saint Stephens Rd Mobile, AL
Casualty Date Feb 22, 1944
Cause KIA-Killed in Action
Reason Air Loss, Crash - Land
Location Saipan
Conflict World War II/Asiatic-Pacific Theater/Mariana and Palau Islands Campaign (1944)/Battle of Saipan
Location of Interment Pine Crest Cemetery - Mobile, Alabama
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
LT McVay was a pilot in Fighting Aquadron One (VF-1). On 15 July 1943, VF-1 it was redesignated VF-5 and assigned to the USS Yorktown (CV-10). The squadron was equipped with the new Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat. During October he was promoted to the rank of Lt. USNR and became a division leader. During the cruise, Lt. McVay was credited with three aerial victories. The first was against a Zero near Wake Island on 5 October, 1943; the second was against a Kate near the Marshall Islands on 29 January, 1944; the third was against a Hamp near Yap, Caroline Islands on 17 February, 1944. He was listed MIA when he did not return to the carrier after strafing over Siapan on 22 February, 1944 then later presumed dead.
In February 2009, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency exhumed the remains of an Unknown Soldier buried in Plot F Row 12 Grave 2 at Manila American Cemetery with the belief that identifications could be made. DNA analysis and historical evidence were used to positively identify the remains as belonging to Lt. Woodie L. McVay, Jr. His name remains permanently inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.
Comments/Citation:
Service number: 099808
Service dates:
Army National Guard 1936-1940
US Navy 11/1940-2/1944
The information contained in this profile was compiled from various internet sources.
Description The Naval Battle of Casablanca was a series of naval engagements fought between American ships covering the invasion of North Africa and Vichy French ships defending the neutrality of French Morocco in accordance with the Second Armistice at Compiègne during World War II. The last stages of the battle consisted of operations by German U-boats which had reached the area the same day the French troops surrendered. Allied military planners anticipated an all-American force assigned to seize the Atlantic port city of Casablanca might be greeted as liberators. An invasion task force of 102 American ships carrying 35,000 American soldiers approached the Moroccan coast undetected under cover of darkness. French defenders interpreted the first contacts as a diversionary raid for a major landing in Algeria; and Germany regarded the surrender of six Moroccan divisions to a small commando raiding force as a clear violation of French obligations to defend Moroccan neutrality under the Second Armistice at Compiègne. An escalating series of surprised responses in an atmosphere of mistrust and secrecy caused the loss of four U.S. troopships and the deaths of 462 men aboard 24 French ships opposing the invasion.