Sherman Windham White Jr. was born on October 17, 1919 in Macon, Noxubee County, Mississippi to Sherman White and Nettie (Deal) White. Sherman Sr. and Nettie were both natives of Mississippi and married there about 1918. Sherman was a school teacher, while Nettie initially worked as a dressmaker in her home. The couple moved to Montgomery, Alabama before their third child was born in 1924, and by 1930 they were both teaching school. Sometime before 1935, they moved to neighboring Elmore County, where Sherman farmed for a while but eventually returned to teaching. In addition to Sherman Jr., he and Nettie had three other children – Willa, James and Samson.

Sherman White Jr. registered for the draft in Chicago, Illinois on July 1, 1941. At the time he was a student at the University of Chicago. He gave his mother, at their old address on Margaret Street in Montgomery, Alabama, as his next of kin. His draft registration card described him as being 5’11” tall and weighing 150 pounds. Sherman left after his third year of college to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps on September 29, 1941. He was assigned for flight training to the Tuskegee Army Flying School, near his home in Montgomery, Alabama. In May 1942, he graduated from flight school and was awarded his air wings and his commission as a Second Lieutenant. He was then assigned to the 99th Fighter Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group.

The 99th Pursuit Squadron, later renamed the 99th Fighter Squadron, was the first Black flying squadron in the U.S. Army Air Corps and the first to be deployed overseas -- to North Africa in April 1943, and later to Sicily and other parts of Italy. On July 2, 1943, Lieutenant Sherman W. White took off from Ferdjouna Air Field in Tunisia in a P-40L Warhawk #42-10941 as an escort for B-24s on a mission to Sciacca Airfield in Sicily. Lieutenant White’s aircraft was last seen over the southwest coast of Sicily, and failed to return from the mission. He was one of the first two Tuskegee Airman lost in action, the other having failed to return on the same day. A year and a day later, according to standard protocol, he was declared dead. To this day, he remains are unaccounted for. He is memorialized on the Walls of the Missing at the North African Cemetery in Tunis, Tunisia, and was awarded an Air Medal and a Purple Heart.

Lieutenant White was survived by his parents, his sister Willa who joined the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) Reserves in 1943, his brother James Bruce White who served in the U.S. Army during WWII, and his brother Samson Samuel White who served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. The Montgomery Historical Commission has placed a historical marker at the site of the family’s home in Montgomery, Alabama.

Thank you, Lieutenant White, for your service and your sacrifice. You will not be forgotten.

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen here on Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smart phone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story. SBTSProject/Alabama/Montgomery.

If you noticed anything erroneous in this profile or have additional information to contribute to it, please contact me at dbsmail1315@charter.net.

Sources:

· 1920 United States Federal Census

· 1930 United States Federal Census

· U.S. World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

· U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946

· U.S. Headstone and Interment Records for U.S. Military Cemeteries on Foreign Soil, 1942-1949

· U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Unaccounted-for Remains, Unrecoverable, 1941-1975

· Alabama, Wills and Probate Records, 1753-1999

· Alabama, WWII Military Dead and Wounded, 1944-1946

· Newspapers.com, Southeast Air Corps Training Center News, 30 May 1942

· Newspapers.com, Wetumpka Herald, 19 Aug 1943

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56251517/sherman-windham-white

Sherman W White