Three-war vet heads out on Honor Flight
Wayne Lytle’s career in the U.S Navy spanned three major conflicts.
The 88-year-old Jasper man joined in 1946 before World War II officially ended and by the time he retired in 1965, he had served through the Korean War and beginning of the Vietnam War. Fortunately, he didn’t ever find himself in the middle of any fighting but as part of flight crews ended up nearby. Vietnam was the only one that brought him close to
He was part of a crew that flew a dignitary into Saigon to meet with some people the night the Vietnam War started. “The guy came and said get in your airplane and get lost,” he said. “We left.”
He doesn’t share a lot of salty stories, but the man with the mischievous grin does admit to spending some time in the brig after taking photos of Russian submarines with a personal camera while flying reconnaissance in the Bering Sea. “They asked for our cameras and we said we didn’t have any, but they took our cameras,” he said. “They locked us up for two days. Never got my camera back.”
For much of his career, the aviation machinist mate worked on seaplanes for the Navy. As a flight engineer, he helped teach pilots how to fly the multi-engine bombers designed to land on water and flew along on different missions with them. He spent much of his career moving among island bases in the Pacific and Indian Oceans as well as serving in Japan and Hawaii. “We taught them to fly multi-engines which is a lot different than flying singles,” he said.
Once while training French pilots on the seaplanes, the language barrier caused some confusion and after a hard landing, Wayne found himself looking out the plane’s window, which was above his head, into water.
It was after the Saigon incident and the coming escalation of the Vietnam War that he decided it was time to retire. Since then, he’s mainly remained retired except some volunteer activities.
His wife Wanda and he moved to Jasper in 1989 and happily settled into the area. Until a year ago when she died, Wanda would stop in at Jagged Edge on the Jasper Square at least once a week. Since she has passed, Lytle has been coming into the shop a couple times each week.
Kim Gogel cuts his hair, but he usually just stops in for a cup of coffee and some cutting up with Amy Goebel and the rest of the crew that works there.
Friday morning, the ladies invited Wayne by for some cake celebrating his service as well as his upcoming trip. Saturday, the aviation machinist mate is one of five local veterans taking part in the Honor Flight out of Evansville. It won’t be easy as May 6 marks the one-year anniversary of his wife’s passing. With 65 years of marriage to draw upon, through tears, Wayne explained he still has moments of sadness from the loss.
Fortunately, the entourage of friends along with him for the celebration Friday quickly pulled him out of descent into sadness.
He’s excited to take part in the Honor Flight but knows he’ll have some sad memories as he visits the different memorials. “I have friends with their names on the Wall,” he said adding that he had friends in Korea also.
The special flight honors veterans with a free trip to Washington, D.C. to visit several of the war and national memorials. When they return home, the veterans are met with a parade in their honor welcoming them home. Priority is given to terminally ill veterans and veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
Each veteran is accompanied by a volunteer. Jim Patterson, who is accompanying Wayne, is a four-year veteran of the Vietnam War. He joined the Air Force ahead of being drafted and then loaded bombs onto the bombers fighting in the war.
