OSU
History Minute - July 14, 2000
Number
4 of a 12 part series: Honoring Oregon Staters who
died in WWII
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The last picture taken of Phillip Ball
and his mother, Mabel. He had just graduated
from gunnery school in Denver, CO.
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Philip
Maurice Ball was the eldest son of Dr.
Waldo Ball, longtime Corvallis physician
and team doctor for Beaver athletics for
29 years. His grandparents were William
Maurice “Billy” Ball and Dorothy
Isabella Ball of famed Ball Photography
Studios, which has been in business in downtown
Corvallis since 1912.
Phil
was born in a Portland apartment on April
2, 1922, during his father’s junior
year in medical school at the University
of Oregon. Spending the first 14 years of
his life in Clatskanie, Phil moved with
his family to Corvallis in 1936, graduating
from Corvallis High School in 1940.
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Entering Oregon State that fall to study pharmacy,
Phil became caught up in the conflict raging at
the time between England and Germany and attempted
with a friend to join the Royal Canadian Air Force
as a pilot. Rejected for not being a Canadian citizen,
Phil returned to OSC for a time, finally leaving
school in February 1943 to try his luck with the
Army Air Corps. An eye problem prevented him from
training to be a pilot but didn’t keep him
from flying. His lifelong love of hunting and firearms
landed him a job as a ball turret gunner in a B-17
bomber assigned to the 530th Squadron of the 381st
Bomb Group.
Above: B-17s on a bombing raid over central
Europe. Notice the ball turret located directly
behind the bomb-bay doors.
Below: The crew Phillip Ball served with. Ball
is in the back row, far right.
On January 11, 1944, in a bombing raid to take
out a German aircraft plant, an out-of-control enemy
fighter hit Phil’s B-17 near the roof of the
cockpit just in front of the top turret gunner and
both planes exploded instantly. Phil and nine of
his crewmates, along with the German pilot, were
killed instantly. Had they returned, they would
have completed their 14th missions over central
Europe, an unusually high number considering the
lethal nature of the flight zone.
For his service during the war, Phil was awarded
the Air Medal, the European Theater Medal with Battle
Stars and the Purple Heart. His bomb group also
received a Presidential Citation.
Phil is buried with the rest of his crewmates in
Belgium near Liege. Families of the downed flyers
decided early after the war to leave them together.
--
By George
Edmonston Jr.
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