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Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Section Harmony Lot 2827 Space 2
Filename Rittmayer.jpg
Image © 2017 by Christopher Mills

People Names and Dates


Full Name	Jack Ball Rittmayer
AKA Full Name
People ID	490173
Title
First Name	Jack
AKA First Name
Nickname
Middle Name	Ball
AKA Middle
Patronymic/Matronymic
Priorsurnames
Surname	Rittmayer
AKA Surname
Father's Surname	Rittmayer
Mother's Surname	Ball
Suffix
Gender	Male
Full Birth Date If Known	1919-03-30
Birth Year	1919
Birth Month	3
Birth Day	30
Full Death Date If Known	1945-01-07
Death Year	1945
Death Month	1
Death Day	7

Events, Dates and Places

Event	Date	Geo Top Level	Geo 2nd Level	Geo 3rd Level	Geo 4th Level
Birth	1919/03/30	USA	Colorado
Residence	1920	USA	Colorado	Rio Blanco	Meeker
Residence	1930	USA	California	Los Angeles	Long Beach
Arrival	1936/09/30	USA	Hawaii	Honolulu	Honolulu
Residence	1940/04/01	USA	Maryland	Anne Arundel	Annapolis
Residence	1941	USA	Maryland	Anne Arundel	Annapolis
Enlisted or Inducted into Military	1941/04/19	USA	Texas	Bexar	San Antonio
Death	1945/01/07	Philippines	Negros Occidental
Interment/Inurnment/Scattering	1949/07/13	USA	California	Los Angeles	Glendale

Relationships

Relationship	Related To	Relative's People ID	Relative's Birth Year	Relative's Death Year
Son of	Ethel Ball Rittmayer	490172	1897	1981
Son of	Walter G Rittmayer	676088	1898	1963
Friend of	Thomas Buchanan McGuire	667321	1920	1945

Military Service

Rank If Known Or Highest Or Final Rank	Branch of Service	Beginning Date if Known	End Date if Known
Major	US Army Air Force/Air Forces

Military Actions Served During


World War II

Interment, Inurnment or Memorialization Information


Cemetery	Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Address	1712 S. Glendale Avenue
City/Town	Glendale
County/District	Los Angeles
State/Province	California
Postal/Zip Code	91205
Country/Principality	USA
Section	Harmony

Lot	2827
Space	2

Organization
Property Type	Lawn Crypt
Has Marker	Yes
No Marker
Is Cenotaph
GPS/LatLong Coordinates
End of Interment Record	If there are additional interments or cenotaphs for this person they will appear below

Inscription Information

No inscriptions added for this person yet

Other Information

Biographical or other information about the person

https://mills-sfv.com/Genealogy/GLS/People/Text/490173.txt

Major Rittmayer (USAAF) had shot down four Japanese planes before he participated in the same sortie over the Philippines that Major Thomas McGuire was killed during. Rittmayer's P-38 Lightning was shot down immediately after McGuire's plane crashed, by Japanese pilot Technical Sergeant Mizunori Fukuda who was flying a Ki-84 Hayate "Frank".

According to Forest Lawn Major Rittmayer's remains are actually buried here, their records show his body was repatriated from the Philippines and buried on 13 July 1949.

General George C. Kenney gives an account of what happened in his book on Richard Bong, Dick Bong - America's Ace of Aces:

"Tommy (McGuire) assured me that he would be careful. He said that the next morning he and Major Rittmayer, a visiting P-38 pilot from the Thirteenth Air Force, who had four to his credit, were planning to take along a couple of youngsters who had just arrived in the squadron for a sweep over the Jap airdromes on the islands of Cebu and Negros to see if they could stir up something. We said goodnight."

"...Over Negros Island, they finally sighted a lone Jap fighter that had just lifted off the runway and was flying at about two hundred feet. McGuire led his fight to the attack (but neglected to jettison his wing fuel tanks, severely impacting the maneuverability of his P-38). The Nip turned sharply to the left and quickly maneuvered into position on Rittmayer's tail."

More recent (and detailed accounts) suggest that McGuire was trying to engage an aircraft flown by Warrant Officer Akira Sugimoto, while Rittmayer was shot down by Sergeant Fukuda.

McGuire pushed the envelope too hard in his attempt to engage the enemy fighter and stalled his P-38 at low altitude and crashed. After McGuire crashed, Lieutenant Douglas Thropp engaged W/O Sugimoto and damaged his plane enough to cause him to make a forced landing. The second fighter piloted by Fukuda subsequently attacked Rittmayer in a head-on attack and shot down his plane. Fukuda's plane was later severely damaged by Captain Edwin Weaver and crash landed but Fukuda survived the crash.

Rittmayer appeared in the 1940 census as a 3rd year midshipman at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis but he resigned as a cadet on 4 February 1941 and Army service records indicate he enlisted as an aviation cadet at Fort Sam Houston in Texas on 19 April 1941. A photograph and a brief bio of him appear on page 206 of the 1942 Naval Academy "Lucky Bag Yearbook".

Rittmayer's marker reads "Beloved Son and Husband" but I have been unable to determine his wife's name or where she was from.

No keywords added for this person


Small notes (field in database 50 characters max)
Family Search ID	KL1G-5K3
Find A Grave 1	100551501
Famous per Find A Grave
Famous per Consensus
Find A Grave 2
Find A Grave 3
BillionGraves Record ID
Other websites
Record Entry Date	2012-01-18 01:00:00
Record Last Edit Date	2021-01-15 23:55:56

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