Roy Devers really admired his older cousin — one of millions of young Americans who served in World War II.
And like all the service personnel we are saluting on Memorial Day, 2nd Lt. Royce Griffin didn’t come back alive.
Devers said he saw his cousin only once after Griffin went into the Army. The Vancouver High School grad came home on leave for his father’s funeral.
“He left for overseas, and we never saw him again,” Devers said.
The fighter pilot was killed in the Philippines in 1945. We wrote about it in October, when a long-lost telegram announcing Griffin’s death turned up.
The telegram, dated May 9, 1945, was returned to John Griffin and his brother Jerry, nephews of the pilot.
During the presentation in a classroom at Heritage High School, where he is dean of students, John Griffin wondered whether Laura Griffin, the flier’s mother, ever got the wayward telegram.
She certainly did, Devers said. He was there.
Devers now lives in California and came back for a Ridgefield High reunion.
Back then, he was 14 and attended Shumway Junior High. When the telegram arrived at the Griffin house, “I just happened to be there.”
He recalled its impact on his aunt: “She’s crying. … We all broke down.”
It wasn’t the only WWII communication seared into his memory. Royce Griffin was seriously injured during a landing accident. He suffered significant burns and scarring.
“He wrote his mother and asked if she cared if he came home burned and so scarred,” Devers said.
There is an image that shows Griffin in a happier moment. It’s been part of family lore for years, and Devers recently acquired it. It’s a photo in Life magazine showing seven military personnel in front of a P-38 Lightning fighter.
Two men are wearing leather jackets, and the one in the center of the group is Major Richard Bong. He was America’s top ace, shooting down 40 enemy aircraft. He’s the only person in the photo who was identified, but the family says the leather-jacketed guy to Bong’s right, resting a foot on one of the plane’s tires, is Royce Griffin.
“We had heard about that throughout the family, but we’d never been able find it,” John Griffin said.
Devers said he found a copy of the magazine on the Internet and bought it for $10. It was well worth it, Devers said.
“I loved Royce.”
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
