USAAC Corporal Louis Dawson "Lefty" Bedgood was born in Montgomery, Alabama on July 16, 1924, the son of Louis Kendrick Bedgood (1899-1963) and Sara Elizabeth Cox (1900-1975), both from Montgomery. His father spent his life as an automobile mechanic and brought the family to Pensacola around 1938. That year, his father was working for the Son Motor Company while Louis was enrolling in Pensacola High School. Louis would enlist in the Army in March 1942 but was allowed to return to Pensacola High to graduate in June before reporting into the Army. He had taken a job with the civil service at NAS in June 1942 and stayed there until he was called up for active duty in March 1943. At the time he left home his mother was working as a seamstress for the White & White Clothing Store downtown while living at 10 South Devilliers Street.
Upon his induction and high aptitude test scores, he was selected for the Army Air Corps B-24 aviation mechanic school at Keesler Air Base in Mississippi in June 1943. Upon completion, he left for the flexible gunnery school in Laredo, Texas and graduated in July 1944. He was then assigned to the 394th Bomber Squadron of the 5th Bomber Group and reported for duty in early 1945. He was assigned to the crew commanded by 2Lt. Kenneth R. Smith, pilot along with 2Lt. Conover Boardman Sarvis, Jr., co-pilot; 2Lt. Arthur Rubenstein, navigator; 2Lt. Pete Konduras, bombardier, Cpl. Tom E. Gallagher, asst. engineer; Cpl. James W. Stack, radio operator; Cpl. Robert E. Lumm, asst. radio operator; Cpl. William E. Johnson, gunner; and Cpl. Carroll V. Bittner, gunner.
On March 9, 1945, Louis and his crew took off from Samar Island on a bombing mission over Zamboanga Town, Mindanao. They released their bombs and were returning to their base when they were suddenly struck by a bomb dropped by a bomber flying at a higher altitude. The bomb struck Louis' plane in the bomb bay and exploded blowing the plane and its crew to pieces and into the ocean below. The only survivor of Louis's bomber was Lt. Pete Konduras who was trapped in the now separated nose section and hurtling down. By the time he put on his chute and jumped he was only 200 feet from the water but yet he survived. An American seaplane saw him and was able to land and snatch him from the water before he drifted onto the island to be captured. As to the other crewmen, their bodies were never recovered. Louis' brother Mryon Warren graduated from Pensacola High School in 1944 and followed his brother into the Air Corps. While in training, they were showed a film of Louis' plane being hit and exploding. A relative of another of the crew wrote a story called "A Mission Over Mindanao" by Glenn Bittner that contained the circumstances of that fateful day. In the meantime, Louis was officially declared dead on July 9, 1945 as his family was left to pick up the pieces of their life without their oldest son.
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