Friday's Faces From the Past: Jeeter Bowden, "One of Annapolis' Best Men" - 1952

Here's another picture from the Korean War military scrapbook of my father, Frederick Henry Pape:

The gentleman on the far left is Jackson Huffman "Jeeter" Bowman, a fellow navigator-bombardier with Dad in the 37th Bomb Squadron in Korea.  Bowden was born January 24, 1930, in Wilmington, North Carolina, the only child of Herman Andrew and Beulah Bowden.  On the 1940 Census, he and his mother are lodgers in Charlotte, North Carolina.

From his obituary:

He attended Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia prior to his Congressional appointment to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He graduated with the class of 1951 as a member of the 36th Co[mpany]. Upon graduation he attended navigation and bombardier schools and flew 50 bombing missions in Korea during the Korean War. After 3 years as a navigator instructor at Harlingen AFB, Texas, he began his military engineer career. From 1955 to his retirement in 1974 as a Colonel in the USAF he supervised every phase of several levels of engineering organizations, culminating in his final military career assignment as Assistant Chief of Staff, Civil Engineering, Air Force Logistics Command. While in the Air Force he received his MBA in Engineering Administration in 1959, graduated from the Air War College in 1971 and amassed over 5000 flying hours leading to the title of Master Navigator. The high point of his military career was as the on-site Design Engineer for the only air base (Tuy Hoa Air Base, South Vietnam) ever constructed under the auspices of the U. S. Air Force. After service in Vietnam he served tours of duty at the Pentagon and at a missile base in Germany. He served as the Base Engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio prior to his retirement from the Air Force. In 1974 Jackson began his 17 year civilian career at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, first as Manager, Plant Engineering, then as Administrator for General Services, and last as Director of Engineering. When he retired from St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center he became involved in volunteer work throughout the valley. His wife Joyce Elizabeth, 6 children, 4 stepchildren, 4 grandchildren and 4 step-grandchildren survive Jackson. He was a devout Christian and a member of Hillside Baptist Church, Phoenix, AZ.

Jeeter died September 23, 2006, and is buried at the National Military Cemetery of Arizona in Phoenix.  His first wife was Norma Joyce Hudson, whom he married June 9, 1952, in Stewartville, North Carolina, and they were living in Richmond, Virginia, and Laurinburg, North Carolina (where she was from) during the time Jeeter was in Korea.

Note also that the Air Force Academy was not established until April 1, 1954.



© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.