Every year on Memorial Day, the Edmonds Memorial Cemetery Board chooses one or more Edmonds veterans, or groups of veterans to be honored with ceremonies, speeches, music and presentations of memorabilia. The plan for 2020 was an observance of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II and some specific Edmonds resident veterans of that conflict. Due to the ongoing Covid 19 pandemic, the annual ceremonies at the cemetery have been cancelled for this year.
As part of the preparation for the event, Edmonds resident sketch artist, and Post 8870 member Michael Reagan prepared a sketch portrait of the late John W. (Wild Bill) Crump, which was to have been presented to Crump’s family on Memorial Day. Crump was an Army Air Corps pilot, flying P40, P47 and P51 fighters out of England against Germany, accompanied by his pet coyote “Jeep”. Those interested can find details of his Air Force career and his many contributions to the Edmonds community, not to mention the story of “Jeep” (to our knowledge, the only coyote ever to fly second seat in an Air Corps combat mission) at a web site prepared by his son Bob which you will find at: http://wildbillcrump.com/.
Since were were unable to follow the original plan, Reagan and a few members of our Post gathered (appropriately socially distanced of course) on Sunday, May 3 at the Edmonds Veterans Plaza to present Reagan’s portrait of their father to two of Crump’s sons. The portrait is of Crump in the cockpit of his fighter with “Jeep”.
In the photo are, (L to R) Mike Reagan, Erik Crump and Bob Crump.