Marine Lt. Dallas L. Hyatt was born on April 16, 1923 in Holbrook Idaho. His family moved to Deweyville Utah where he attended Bear River high school. He would often visit friends family farms in Deweyville and would borrow a bicycle and ride it at high speed buzzing his friends shouting “I’m a Fighter Pilot and I’m going to shoot you down”. After high school, Dallas joined the Marine Corps and trained at Corpus Christi, Texas where he trained to fly F4U-1D Corsairs. After flight training, he was assigned to fly with Marine fighter squadron VMF-214 “The Black Sheep”. After becoming carrier qualified off of Hawaii, he boarded the Essex-class carrier USS Franklin CV-13. While flying a navigation training mission, his Corsair lost its oil pressure and he was forced to crash land his F4U on the beach of the main island of Hawaii. After surviving the crash landing, and returning to the carrier, he learned that both of his brothers had been killed. The first one had died fighting in Europe and now his other brother had given his life on Okinawa. The squadron commander of VMF-214 then told him that he would be sent home, but Dallas said “I want to stay here and fly and fight with the Black Sheep” and after being taken off the flight schedule, he was assigned to be part of Task Force 58 flying missions in support of the Okinawa invasion. While flying operations off of Japan, he and his fellow aviators with VMF-214 made the closest approach to the Japanese home Islands of any U.S. carrier in the entire war: just 50 miles, a mere 10-15 minutes’ flying time, off southern Kyushu Japan.

At dawn on March 19, 1944, Lt. Hyatt was prepping for a mission on the carrier deck when, at about 0705 hours, a Japanese aircraft dropped out of the low cloud cover, crossed the ship bow to stern at mast height and pickled off its ordnance dead center. During the attack, Lt. Dallas L. Hyatt along with more than 800 other men aboard the USS Franklin gave their lives for our Freedom. Although his remains were never recovered, Lt. Hyatt shares a grave site in both the National Cemetery of the Pacific and also in the Deweyville cemetery in Northern Utah. Thank you Lt. Dallas L. Hyatt for all your service and sacrifice for our nation and may we always remember to honor all those who Fly and Fight for our Freedom!