Davis (NMN) McAlister (spelled McAllister in his military records) was born on December 5, 1923 in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama to Thomas Oliver McAlister and Rosa Lee (Davis) McAlister. Tom and Rose were natives of South Carolina who moved to Tuscaloosa sometime after 1915. Tom was a photographer with his own studio and Rose had been a dressmaker in Greenville, South Carolina. In the 1930 census, they are shown living in Birmingham, Alabama where Tom worked as a real estate salesman. The family moved back to Tuscaloosa before Tom’s death in 1933; Rose passed away not long after, in 1939.

After his mother’s death, Davis went to live for a time with his oldest brother Carey who was an optometrist in Atlanta, Georgia but eventually returned to Tuscaloosa. On June 30, 1942 he registered for the draft in Tuscaloosa, Alabama giving Gulf States Paper Corporation as his employer and his older brother Oliver, with whom he was living, as his next of kin.

Davis McAlister enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserve in July 1942. The only U.S. Navy Muster Roll on which he appears is dated September 11, 1942 showing him being transported from the Receiving Station in San Francisco to the Receiving Station at Pearl Harbor. Presumably he received his aviation radio training in Hawaii.

In 1944 he was assigned to Patrol Bombing Squadron 118 (VPB-118) as a radioman. VPB-118 was established at Naval Auxiliary Air Station Camp Kearney, California on July 1, 1944 as a heavy bombing squadron. They trained in California and Hawaii before departing for the combat zone, arriving at Tinian, in the Mariana Islands on January 10, 1945. There they began routine operational patrols as part of Fleet Air Wing One, with targets in Okinawa and Iwo Jima. In April, they were transferred to Yontan Airfield in Okinawa due to the lack of sufficient targets in the patrol sectors around Tinian.

“On May 6, 1945 Lieutenants Montgomery and Lasater and their crews were patrolling an area off the southern coast of Korea when they encountered a number of enemy vessels. In a coordinated attack, they strafed and seriously damaged a fifty-foot fishing vessel, bombed and sank a 3000-ton tanker in the Yellow Sea, and blew up and sank a 10,000-ton freighter. The tanker exploded just as Montgomery's plane was approaching it on a strafing run. The plane was damaged to the extent that the pilot was forced to return to base immediately, but Lt. Lasater elected to continue the patrol alone. He and his crew never returned and were listed as missing in action.” Aviation Radioman (Petty Officer) Second Class Davis McAlister was among the twelve crew members who never returned.

ARM2 Davis McAlister was officially declared dead by the War Department one year and one day after he went missing. He is memorialized in the Tablets of the Missing, United States Navy, Lost at Sea at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in the Philippines. He is also memorialized at Peace Memorial Park in Okinawa. He was survived by his brothers: Dr. Carey S. McAlister of Biloxi, Mississippi; Oliver McAlister of Tuscaloosa; and James Elmer McAlister of Philadelphia, and his sisters: Mary E. Morton of Tuscaloosa; Edna Brown of Atlanta; Abbie McAlister of Tuscaloosa; and Christine Mott of Gulfport, Mississippi.

Thank you, Petty Officer McAlister, 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/Tuscaloosa.

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

Sources:

· 1930 United States Federal Census

· 1940 United States Federal Census

· U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

· U.S. Navy Muster Rolls, 1942

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

· U.S. Military Personnel Missing in Action or Lost at Sea, 1941-1946

· U.S. World War II and Korean Conflict Veterans Interred Overseas

· U.S. World War II Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Casualties, 1941-1945

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

· U.S. Rosters of World War II Dead, 1939-1945

· Alabama, World War II Dead and Wounded, 1944-1946

· Tuscaloosa News, 16 May 1945, 21 May 1946

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/56776672/davis-mcalister

Davis McAllister