Staff Sergeant Leland E. Evers was born in 1920 in Alabama, the son of James Edward Evers (1883-1967) and Georgia Parilee Pugh (1888-1952). His father supported his family by farming in 1920 in Simpkinsville, AL and by 1935 they had a mailing address of Atmore, Alabama. But by 1940, the family had moved to Bluff Springs where he still farmed and where Leland (1940) and his brothers would graduate from Century High School. With America still in the Great Depression and with Europe in the throes of war, many young men chose to enlist prior to Pearl Harbor. Leland was one of those. He enlisted in the US Army Air Corps on May 22, 1941 in Jackson, MS. After his basic training, he was assigned to the 95th Bomb Squadron of the 17th Bomb Group. Former pilots of the squadron stated they were equipped with the Martin B-26 Marauder. However, some of the pilots & planes from the 17th bomb group were the ones that took part with their B-25's in the famous 1942 Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, Japan.
By July 1942, Leland was stationed at Patterson Field, Ohio, but in late 1942 the squadron was reassigned to Operation Torch which was the invasion of North Africa. The squadron flew to Africa along the "southern ferry route", which took it from Natal (Brazil) to Ascension Island and then to Bathurst (Now Banjul, Gambia). Once in Africa, it joined the 17th Bomb Group of the 12th Air Force. On November 9, 1942, the 12th Air Force moved to Algeria and established airfields for their bombers. The group made its combat debut on 30 December 1942, when six of its B-26s attacked the German airfield at Gabes. Its first loss came on the following day during a second raid on the same target. Another aircraft was lost during an attack on the Tunis marshalling yards on 1 January 1943.
However, prior to these combat losses Leland and his crew took off from their Algerian airfield on December 19, 1942 on a routine scouting mission. They were never heard from again. The best they can ascertain is that they went down by enemy fire or engine failure somewhere over French Morocco or the Mediterranean. His family would receive the same dreaded telegram like so many Escambia County families before and after them. And once again, since his remains were never recovered the best his government could do was enter his name on the "Tablets of the Missing" in the North Africa American Cemetery in Carthage, Tunisia.
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