“I will cherish this deeply.”

Those were the words of David Yawitz on Sunday, Jan. 26, after he was presented with a proclamation honoring another Yawitz—First Lieutenant Frank Yawitz, who died in combat during World War II. David Yawitz, 85, is a distant cousin of Frank Yawitz.

Late last year, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Olde Towne Fenter Chapter submitted Lt. Yawitz to be recognized as a Purple Heart Patriot of the Month. The DAR Missouri State Society recently approved the nomination and a certificate attesting to it was given to David Yawitz. The state patriot designation comes after the DAR and the Jewish War Veterans recognized Frank Yawitz last September during a service at his grave at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery.

Neither David Yawitz nor his son Greg Yawitz (board chair of the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum) knew much about Frank Yawitz until recently. The DAR attention motivated them to learn more. David Yawitz said every time he turned on his computer, he searched for additional information about Frank Yawitz. His first discovery: that he was 4 years old when Frank Yawitz perished in Essex, England.

“I enlisted in the Army 16 years after his death at Fort Sam Houston, Texas,” David Yawitz said. “Frank only at 28 years old when he died. And the more I read about him, it became kind of an emotional death. I’ve studied a lot about World War II. I have four uncles that went and they all came back. Some came back a little tattered, but they all came back.”

Frank Yawitz was a navigator and co-pilot on the ill-fated Baby Doll III, a twin-engine B-26 bomber. David Yawitz said he also learned details about the crash that four American crew members on Sept. 24, 1944. The weather conditions were poor and the Baby Doll III lost visibility through thick clouds.

“Six of the B-26’s were coming back that night,” he said. “They flew back over the (English) Channel, but because of lights out in England, the planes were shot up, and five of the six planes crashed.”