Jimmie H. Butler and Lawrence G Evert
In early 1964, Class 65-A had become the second pilot
training class at Enid, Oklahoma (the first in our squadron) to move into
advanced training in the new supersonic T-38 Talon. After a few hours of T-38 training, three or four of us were
ready for our initial solo. I
think there had been a coin toss to see who should be first in the squadron.
We lost, but Lieutenant Evert was determined that one of his students,
namely me, was going to be first. So
as the photographer for the base paper was snapping pictures, Lieutenant Evert
was much more eager for me to get into the air than I was.
He won, and I survived.
So for about 6 months of 1964 I was one of Jerry’s four
students and I saw him almost every day.
When we flew, we talked of things besides flying.
He was Mormon, and at his relatively young age, he was the Stake
President in Oklahoma, which wasn’t a highly Mormon state.
In June of 1963, I had been best man at the wedding of my USAFA
roommate in a Mormon ceremony in Denver, so I was somewhat aware.
He talked of needing to go out and plow some of the Mormon land, so he
could help raise some of the food the Mormons were required to store up for
emergencies. After I learned he
was shot down, I thought that his family would have more support than that of
the average flier lost in the war.
One Friday afternoon we were returning to Vance from the
training area, and he asked: What would you do if you knew the world was going
to end on Sunday? I hadn’t
really thought that one through, so I said something about probably gathering
with family to await the inevitable. His
view was that you should be living your life so that if you learned the world
was about to come to an end, you wouldn’t need to change a thing.
One of his regrets was that he was a victim to a degree
of religious discrimination, although we didn’t talk of it in those terms in
the 1960s. He wasn’t able to
take his turn in hosting squadron parties because he didn’t serve alcoholic
beverages, and the consensus of the rest of the instructors was that they
couldn’t really have a party under those circumstances.
One weekend, he and I flew my T-38 cross-country mission
to Willow Grove Naval Air Station in eastern Pennsylvania.
My mother-in-law and father-in-law picked us up on Friday afternoon,
and we spent the weekend at their home in southern New Jersey.
For years afterward, they often asked what I knew of Lieutenant Evert.
**********
The following information comes from postings on The
Virtual Wall: http://www.thevirtualwall.org
ON 8 NOVEMBER 1967 AS HIS F-105 WAS JUST
NORTHWEST OF THE CITY OF LANG TAO (ABOUT 50 MILES NORTH OF HANOI ), Jerry
Evert was shot down.
Lawrence Evert’s remains were found in October, 2001, and were
returned to his family for burial. Fortunately, this occurred before his
mothers passing away this month, January 2002
**********
Posted
by Lt. Col. Martin D. Scott (Retired),
Capt. Evert and I were classmates at Nellis
AFB, NV, from Jan. 1967 - Aug. 1967. We were in a class of pilots that had
flown other aircraft and were now training to fly the F-105 Thunderchief. Our
next assignment was in Thailand at either Korat RTAFB or Takhli RTAFB. We
trained together in the F-105D (single seat) and F-105F (two seat) aircraft.
We flew almost everyday to get ready to fly combat missions in North Vietnam.
Jerry, as I called him, and I were not close friends at Nellis, but became
very close friends on our trip to Thailand. We departed the USA in Aug. '67,
on our way to Clark AB in the Philippine Islands. There we spent a few days
getting jungle survival training. Soon we were on our way to Thailand.
Jerry and I both were assigned to the 354
Tactical Fighter Squadron at Takhli RTAFB. We both bunked in a hooch (a long
narrow barracks) that had a bed for each person and a short distance away, a
rest room facility with showers. Of course, neither building was air
conditioned or heated. Jerry and I soon started flying our first 10 missions
that were considered safer while we learned the procedures and countryside.
During the first month, Jerry and I often ate together in the Officer's Club
and did our flight planning together in the Wing Operations Center.
Jerry always had his large trunk by his
bed, and he finally told me what was in it. He belonged to the Mormon Church
and he had brought numerous supplies and materials with him to support his
faith. His standing in the church soon took him to the top of the Mormon group
at Takhli.
We lived in the hooch for about a month
before we graduated to better quarters. Jerry moved to one of the new
buildings (the Ponderosa), which housed about 10 pilots with air conditioning
and heat. It was a nice place to live, but way on the other side of the base.
I chose to live in a two-man mobile home near the Officer's Club. I also had
air/heat, but space was limited.
Jerry and I flew on several missions
together, including the one to the Canal DeRapids Bridge on Oct. 24, 1967,
where I was hit by ground fire and had to bail out over the Gulf of Tonkin. I
was rescued by the US Navy and quickly returned to Takhli the same day. Jerry
was the first one to meet me when I got back home that evening.
We flew many tough and dangerous missions
from that day until the day he was shot down. On that day, he was a flying
spare aircraft and he had to replace my wingman in the flight. We were bombing
another target in Hanoi area that day and the ground fire and Sams were
plentiful. As we were leaving the target area, I saw Jerry in a join-up with
me with numerous guns firing at us from the ground. There was a short
transmission in my headset and when I looked back for Jerry, he was not there.
Someone called out that they had seen an F-105 heading down. We circled back
around several times looking and calling for him, but all we could see was
what looked like an impact on the ground. We never heard him call or see a
parachute. We were forced to leave because our fuel was running low and the
ground fire was so intense. I hated so bad that we could not find him or talk
to him. The flight back to Takhli was dreadful. We never saw him again.
If anyone would like contact me, please do
so. I am interested to find out about the dig that President Clinton went to
in N. Vietnam this past year. I wondered if they found Jerry and what happened
after that. I saw his sons on TV, and could see Jerry in both of them.
**********
END TO MYSTERY
For the Evert family, the investigation mounted by the CIL and Joint Task
Force Full Accounting led to the answers they had long searched for, several
trips by family members to the recovery site in Vietnam - which then-President
Clinton visited in November 2000 - and the ability to bury their father back
in Arizona.
A funeral for Lawrence Evert, who was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel while he
was Missing In Action, is scheduled for Friday, 5 June 2002, at Mesa Cemetery.
"It's unbelievable," David Evert said yesterday. "Thirty-three
years of not knowing anything - not knowing how he died, where he might have
died - to actually going to experience it, see where he crashed, to see where
the plane finally went in."
On that November day, 29-year-old Lawrence Evert, flying as wingman, gave the
thumbs-up to a fellow F-105 flier and swooped down to bomb the main rail line
running from North Vietnam through China and into Russia.
"My father was flying behind him," said Dan Evert, who lives in
Chandler, Arizona, "so none of them actually saw him get shot. As they
came up out of the bombing run, he didn't report in."
The 6-feet-5 bear of a man whom Dan Evert remembers as a "gentle
giant" was gone. The Air Force passed along what information it had, but
the family knew only that he had been shot down somewhere over North Vietnam.
**********
CRASH
SITE FOUND
In 1993, the Central Identification Laboratory at
Hickam and Joint Task Force at Camp H.M. Smith began investigating the loss.
Search personnel found the crash site in June 2000, and by October the Defense
Department was providing the details - and asking if it was all right for
Clinton to visit.
The crash site was in rice fields near the
base of the railroad track, and remains were found 16 to 18 feet underground.
Three recovery missions were conducted, and the last team brought Evert's
remains to Hawaii for positive identification in October of 2001.
On the last trip, Evert's wallet containing
his ID was found - including a still identifiable picture - along with his dog
tags and "LDS" (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) tags,
and his service pistol.
"Everything that would tell us it was
him was there," David Evert said.
by
William Cole
Honolulu Advertiser Military Writer
**********
Now you can put another face with one of the more
than 58,000 names on The Wall.
