USMC Private Jacque "Jack" Warren Eubanks was born in California on August 11, 1924, the son of Carl Buford Eubanks Sr. (1893-1984) and Grace Era May (1898-1993). His parents would marry on March 10, 1922, in Los Angeles, California. Grace was from Decatur, Morgan County, Alabama where her father was Jeptha V. May, the Morgan County sheriff. Carl Sr. was born in Jappa, Alabama and by 1917 was living and working in Akron, Ohio where he lists himself as a private in the National Guard. He entered the US Army on May 27, 1918, but was discharged on October 17, 1918. By 1930, the Eubanks family was living in Birmingham, Alabama where their father was the manager of an auto exchange company. By 1934, the family was in Santa Monica, California where Carl Sr. got into a bit of trouble with the law. Six years later, his father was working as a salesman in Pensacola while his mother a clerk at Sears & Roebuck department store. The family home at the time was at 107 East Gregory Street, now known as "Gregory Square."
In the meantime, Jack attended Pensacola High School in the Class of 1943 and would graduate along with his older brother Carl Jr. Carl had been struck down with polio and was forced to spend a lengthy period recuperating in bed thus postponing his normal 1941 graduation. He spent that time studying radio communications until he could finally graduate in 1943. After graduation, he opened his first radio repair shop at 111 East Cervantes Street and called it the Gulf Radio Service. However, Jack had other plans and after high school he enlisted in the US Marines on September 6, 1943, and was sent to Parris Island, SC, 10th Recruit Battalion. This was followed by advanced training at Camp Lejeune with an engineer company. From there he went to the 43rd replacement battalion FMF in April 1944. Finally, he was assigned to Company "K", 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.
His final destination was the island of Peleliu, which was a natural fortress with towering limestone ridges that proved disastrous for the Marines. Enemy artillery batteries, machine gun nests, and blockhouses had been dug into the soft rock by the crafty Japanese engineers. Many of them had interconnecting tunnels and most were too deep to be affected by the naval and aerial bombardment that rained down upon them during the initial bombardment. The island was defended by 5,000 Japanese troops with another 5,000 construction personnel there to support them.
When the order was given to attack on September 15, 1944, Jack and his fellow Marines climbed down the cargo nets into the waiting boats pitching alongside in the rolling seas. His landing craft slowly made its way past the burning wrecks and mangled corpses of the first wave. They were victims of the enfilading artillery and mortar fire reminiscent of the horror of Tarawa. Jack was also unlucky enough to be part of the group that assaulted the most heavily fortified strip of beach near the airfield. Sadly, it was there that he died when an enemy mortar round exploded at his feet in the shallow crater that sheltered him. He was eventually carried to the rear where he was quickly buried in a temporary cemetery on the island. In 1949, Private Jack Eubanks was disinterred from this cemetery and brought back home to Pensacola by the US government. After his arrival, he was re-interred in the Bayview Cemetery on Scenic Highway where he still rests today.
As for his brother Carl, after the war his radio business flourished to the point that he decided to build a shop of his own in 1946. He built it right next door to his boyhood home on a parcel of land his family owned. He used the $10,000.00 insurance money from Jack’s death to build a 480-square foot store at #105 East Gregory Street while he and his mother continued to live next door at #107. By 1947, Carl had expanded his business to include the Gulf Radio Recording Studio and would later build another shop on East Cervantes Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. It was this store that he operated until his retirement years later.
POSTSCRIPT: Sadly, because of further accelerations in the Pacific operations, Peleliu and the Palau's never played the significant role originally planned for them. Thus, thousands of Marines and Navy personnel died in vain, lives wasted for the benefit of no one.
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