Richard Wynn Jr.

PRIVATE FIRST CLASS RICHARD WYNN JR. was born in Tyrell County, North Carolina on November 4, 1909 to Richard Wynn and his wife the former Annie Banton, the second of ten children. His father had a small farm. The 1910 Census shows the family which included older sister Mary Ann, living in Gum Neck Township, Tyrell County North Carolina. A brother, John, was born in 1911. Richjard Jr. and three other Wynn, Mildred, Edward, and Roscoe, were still living in Gum Neck Township when the Census was taken in 1940.

Richard Wynn was living in Columbia, North Carolina when he was inducted into the United States Army. Assigned to the 823rd Engineer Aviation Battalion, he was sent to India with his unit.

The 823rd Aviation Engineering Aviation Battalion was comprised of Black servicemen and mostly white officers. Black aviation engineer units were the first units to arrive in the China-Burma-India theater. However, they did almost no airfield work.

The units fell under the command of the Corps of Engineers to participate in building the Ledo Road that stretched from India to Burma to carry supplies on to China. From 1942 to 1945 they hauled rocks, dug ditches, laid culverts, rolled roadbeds, erected bridges, dozed out bamboo jungles and fought erosion on mountain slopes where the road should be. The challenges presented by monsoon rains and alternating heat and cold, as they worked in jungles and on mountains, only served to relieve the otherwise monotonous road-building work.

The work of the 823rd Aviation Engineer Battalion was hampered by the fact that its six bulldozers, the only available machines with sufficient power and traction to clear the jungle, had arrived without blades. The engineers borrowed a blade from a nearby British unit until theirs were delivered five months later.

Finally, the road was complete in January 1945. But this just meant that the units could now make the thousand-mile trip over the road to China to begin constructing airfields. Making repairs in the road as they progressed, the black engineers occasionally had to scramble to rescue men and machines that had slipped off the road on sharp curves. Upon their arrival in China, the engineers were welcomed by cheering crowds and trigger-happy Chinese soldiers looking for a ride. After only a few months of work, the war was over and their long trip home began.

Private First Class Richard Wynn Jr. died of causes not related to combat on March 4, 1945. Although he was born and lived most of his life in the South, Army records had his home address as Heightstown, New Jersey. He is listed in the United States Army's 1946 Honor Roll of World War II Dead as being from Camden County NJ.

Richard Wynn Jr. was brought home after the war and was buried in his home town of Columbia, North Carolina.

World War II Draft Card

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