Donald Paul Fauth

Funeral services will be held 2:00 p.m. Saturday, December 11, 2010 at Byrd Funeral Home Chapel with Rev. Kyle Gatlin officiating. Burial with military honors will be held in Memory Hill Cemetery with Byrd Funeral Home on West Main Street directing. The family will receive friends at the funeral home from 12:45 until 1:45 on Saturday prior to service time.

Mr. Fauth was born August 28, 1922, in Chloride, Arizona, the youngest of three brothers, to Grace May Russell and Charles Paul Fauth. He grew up in Kingman, AZ and Pacific Grove, CA and graduated from Kingman High School in 1940. He worked for one year as a bell boy at Forest Hill Hotel in Pacific Grove, CA.

Don joined the U.S. Navy on June 12, 1941. He went to boot camp in San Diego, CA and Aviation Machinist Mate school in Alameda, CA. After the attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941 Don served on the USS Lexington (later sunk at the Battle of the Coral Sea to prevent the invasion of Australia).

Don was then sent to the USS Saratoga; it was torpedoed and sent back to the States for repairs. Subsequently, Don was assigned to the USS Enterprise in early 1942 and volunteered to be a mechanic on F4F fighter planes. The Battle of Santa Cruz had claimed many planes and air crewmen were needed. Don volunteered to be a gunner for Torpedo Squadron VT-10. He flew with Lt.j.g. Joseph Doyle.

Don participated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, when Admiral Micher ordered the fleets’ lights turned on. Doyle and Fauth, returning from their mission, made it back but crashed onto the flight deck. Theirs was the only plane in VT- 10 to make it back to the ship.

After three years in combat, Don was selected for flight school. In 1944, he graduated as a First Class Petty Officer-Aviation Pilot. He flew as an enlisted pilot for six years and received his officer’s commission in Sept. 1955. After serving another fourteen years as a Naval Aviator, Don retired in 1969. Lieutenant Commander Donald P. Fauth was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal for his heroism during combat in World War II.

After retiring from the Navy, Don worked 1 ½ years as chief test pilot for Lear-Sigler in Mobile, AL.

Don then worked for Hayes International Corp. in Dothan, AL as test pilot and Director of Quality Assurance for fifteen years, after which Don retired in full in the Dothan area.

Don is preceded in death by three brothers, James Russell Fauth and William Worrell Fauth.

Don married Natalie Bauerlein on Oct. 5, 1946 and Natalie passed away on Aug. 9, 1987 after forty years of marriage. They have four children, Donna Lambert of Spotsylvania, VA, Suzanne Dresser of Picayune, MS, William R. Fauth of St. Augustine, FL and Cynthia Varnum of Aiken, SC; seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.