American Legion Post 818

The ship that Lytle died on sank in a single evening. On January 4, 1945, in the Sulu Sea, a kamikaze hit the escort carrier USS Ommaney Bay at about 5:12 p.m., and a bomb exploded among fueled aircraft in the hangar. Abandon-ship orders came at 5:45, the captain left last at 6:12, and the destroyer Burns torpedoed the burning hull at 7:58. Ninety-five Navy men were lost. Charles Lytle, whom the plaque names as the first Black serviceman from Beeville killed in the war, died in the sinking.

What the plaque says

American Legion Post 818 CHARLES H. LYTLE, U.S. NAVY, WAS THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN SERVICEMAN FROM BEEVILLE KILLED IN WWII. HE DIED ON JANUARY 4, 1945, WHEN THE USS OMMANEY BAY SANK NEAR THE PHILIPPINES AFTER BEING BOMBED. LYTLE (LISTED AS "MAJOR CHARLES LYTLE" IN THE OFFICIAL CASUALTY LIST) RECEIVED A POSTHUMOUS PURPLE HEART MEDAL. IN 1946, THE AMERICAN LEGION GRANTED A TEMPORARY CHARTER TO CHARLES MAJOR LYTLE POST 274-A, UNDER SPONSORSHIP OF THE LOCAL AMERICAN LEGION POST 274, WHICH WAS RUN BY ANGLO VETERANS. SIXTEEN CHARTER MEMBERS OF POST 274A MET IN THE MASONIC HALL AND THE NEGRO USO CLUB UNTIL COMPLETION OF THEIR OWN BUILDING IN 1953 ON LOTS DONATED BY PHILANTHROPIST JUDGE JAMES R. DOUGHERTY. HIS SON, DUDLEY T. DOUGHERTY, MADE FURTHER CONTRIBUTIONS AND OFFERED SUPPORT AT MEETINGS. THE FACILITY HOSTED THE NEGRO AMERICAN LEGION CONVENTION IN 1953, WITH POST COMMANDER LYMAS LANGLEY, JR. PRESIDING. IN 1955, THE POST OFFICIALLY INCORPORATED AS CHARLES MAJOR LYTLE AMERICAN LEGION POST 818. IN THE ERA OF SEGREGATION, THE POST SERVED AS A COMMUNITY MEETING PLACE. FOR INSTANCE, FROM 1956 TO 1963, AFRICAN AMERICAN GRADUATES OF A.C. JONES HIGH SCHOOL, BARRED FROM ATTENDING THE SCHOOL'S PROM, HELD THEIR OWN PROM AT THE POST. GRADUATES OF THE SEGREGATED LOTT-CANADA SCHOOL USED THE POST FOR PROMS UNTIL 1963. IN ADDITION TO LANGLEY, OTHER POST LEADERS WERE JOHN MAYBERRY, BEN LOTT, GEORGE MCCARTY, AND EUGENE LANGLEY. IN 1997, DUE TO DECLINING MEMBERSHIP, THE POST DONATED ITS BUILDING TO THE JONES CHAPEL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH AND BETHLEHEM MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH, JOINTLY. JONES CHAPEL TURNED ITS SHARE OVER TO BETHLEHEM. AFTER SERIOUS CONSIDERATION BETHLEHEM GAVE SOLE OWNERSHIP TO THE LOTT-CANADA ALUMNI ASSOCIATION FOR ITS REUNIONS AND OTHER CELEBRATIONS. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Corpus Christi State Park — 24 mi
  A lake park in the South Texas brush country above Mathis, on a reservoir of the Nueces, with a Civilian Conservation Corps refectory and more than 200 bird species.
• Zaragoza Birthplace State Historic Site — 29 mi
  A rebuilt stone house beside La Bahía marking where Ignacio Seguín Zaragoza, the general of the Battle of Puebla and Cinco de Mayo, was born in 1829.
• Presidio La Bahía — 29 mi
  A Spanish fort on its third site since 1749, held in turn by filibusters, insurgents and Fannin's Fort Defiance, rebuilt in stone in the 1960s around a chapel that never fell.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 29 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Lott Canada School — steps away
• Jones Chapel United Methodist Church — steps away
• The Railroad in Bee County — 0.6 mi
• Commercial National Bank — 0.6 mi