James H. Yeingst (1922-1950)

James Yeingst was born in Mount Holly, Pennsylvania, and was a graduate of Carlisle High School. He entered Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania with the class of 1943. Excelling in science, he nevertheless left the College while still a sophomore to enlist in U.S. Army Signal Corps in October, 1941. As a student he became a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity.

Yeingst served the first thirteen months of the Second World War in the south Pacific, rising swiftly to the rank of Master Sergeant. He was selected for training as an Army Air Force flight crew cadet and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in April 1944. Trained as a navigator and as an expert in radar technology, he was sent to England to fly with the 8th Air Force, completing a total of sixty-five missions. Thirty-five of these he flew with the Royal Air Force, most likely as a radar expert on night missions.

Following the war, he contemplated a return to Dickinson but ultimately remained with the Air Force. Yeingst was serving as a radar officer with the rank of captain when he lost his life in the crash of an operational B-36 bomber on November 22, 1950, near Cleburne, Texas.

More information about other Dickinson war casualties can be found through the online project "In Remembrance" (see link for related entries below).