This photograph pictures Lieutenant Ernest Berry Gaston II in 1943. Known to friends as Barney, he was the son of Mary Price and Arthur Fairhope “Spider” Gaston, and the grandson of Clara Mershon and E.B. Gaston, who led the founding party of Fairhopers to Baldwin County in November 1894. Barney was born on March 21, 1924, in Fairhope. He graduated from the Marietta Johnson Organic School in 1939. Shortly afterward, at the arrival of World War II, he enlisted in the US Air Force and became a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber pilot in the 53rd Fighter Squadron and 36th Fighter Group. On August 26, 1944, he was machine gunning a convoy in an attempt to liberate the small French village of Sivry-Courtry from Nazi forces. In the course of the fight, his plane was shot, struck a tree and crashed. He died in the subsequent crash. He was initially buried in Villeneuve-sur-Auvers in France, but with the help of Sivry-Courtry residents, his body was returned to Fairhope and buried in Colony Cemetery. Barney Gaston is still remembered every August 26 in Sivry-Courtry, France.
“Here, on August 26, 1944, Lt. Ernest B. Gaston fell gloriously for our liberation.”– the inscription on a World War II monument at Bois de la Haye, a commune in the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in northeastern France. The monument is situated on the southern outskirts of the commune. A stone pillar with a white helix over a plaque bears the commemoration to Barney Gaston.
By the Numbers
42-28398 6V
The serial number of Barney Gaston’s plane that he was flying when he died. The plane took off from the A-16 airfield in Brucheville, now a former commune in the Manche department, in Normandy.
9
The number of P-47 Thunderbolt Fighter-Bombers who left Normandy on August 26, 1944. Gaston was the only casualty.
2019
The year the City of Fairhope named August 26 “Barney Gaston Day.” A ceremony recognizing Gaston was held at the Fairhope Museum of History on the 75th anniversary of
his heroism in World War II.
1%
The percentage of soldiers who were chosen to serve as bomber squadron pilots in World War II. Most aircrew were aged between 19 and 25; Barney Gaston was 20 when he was killed in action.
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